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Standing in line during a recent visit to my campus' library cafe (an activity that regularly affords me the time to get most of my thinking done), I noticed something disconcerting.

Glancing at the TV, I saw a CNN news report on the recent scare at Ferrum College in Virginia, where a man with a gun was reportedly spotted by a housekeeper in one of the dorm buildings. The man, as yet unidentified, told her not to say anything, and disappeared.

No one was injured and no threats were reported, and this incident alone wouldn't have been enough to arouse alarm. But the incident's occurrence, not 50 miles from Virginia Tech and on the heels of an unprecedented rash of other school shootings had me feeling a little unsettled. Like any other relatively sentient human being with access to the news media, I've noticed an unusually high prevalence of school violence in recent months. Concerned, I went online to see just how grim a picture we're facing.

Initially, results seemed promising, and a stop at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site divulged some uplifting figures: According to a January report, between 1992 and 2006, "Total school-associated student homicide rates decreased significantly (from .07 to .03 per 100,000)." According to the same report, "From 1999 and 2006, 116 students were killed in 109 school-associated incidents, translating to an average of 16.5 student homicide victims each year."

Despite the CDC's finding that these figures were actually on the decline, they still seem unsettlingly high to me. The report was quick to allay my concerns, however. Imagine my relief to find that, "Despite these events, schools remain a very safe place for children to spend their days." And here I thought that places where children might be murdered were considered unsafe.

These figures, however, fail to take into account school-related violence since 2006, and only account for homicide rates of students in elementary through high school.

A look at more recent developments - four separate shootings in February alone, resulting in a total of 10 deaths over the span of just one week - reveals that this surge in violence is very much out of the ordinary. 2008 has already reached 60 percent of the CDC's yearly school homicide rate. And we're not even through February yet.

Obviously, the picture of the American education system painted by these statistics is pretty bleak. But what could be behind this seemingly inexplicable rash of violence?

The CDC Web site

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