Political and public solutions threaten school safety

In the aftermath of the Parkland, Florida school shooting, Furman education professor Paul L. Thomas writes an opinion piece for Greenville Journal. Thomas, who joined the Furman faculty in 2002 and previously taught in the public school system, says more school security, better public policy, arming teachers and active shooter training are not the answers to the problem. Thomas explains that mass shootings can be traced to “angry white males” and “easy access to guns.” He adds, “Each mass and school shooting in the U.S. is a damning lesson we seem to refuse to learn, and as long as we focus on school policies and practices while ignoring the cancer of our larger gun culture, as well as the research on what works and what doesn’t, we are doomed to mourning more needlessly lost lives.”