Spellings on Virginia Tech
Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings made an appearance on Meet the Press with Tim Russert over the weekend to talk about the shooting of 32 people at Virginia Tech and lessons that can be learned about school security issues and the diagnosis and treatment of students with mental illness. Ms. Spellings shied away from a suggestion by Mr. Russert that schools might want to look at national security standards for some type of warning system, saying that a “one size fits all approach” isn’t the way to go. She also said the Department of Education is preparing a report on how children are effected by violent television and the type of violent video games the Virginia Tech gunman apparently spent a lot of time playing. Ms. Spellings mentioned last year’s school safety summit, which was quickly called for by President Bush after a series of school shootings in the fall of 2006. Education Week sums up the recommendations that came out of the summit.
