Secretary of Education Arne Duncan holds first bullying summit

The feds are getting serious are bullying. Check out this story in the Christian Science Monitor about the nation’s first summit on bullying. Secretary Duncan had this to say:

“A school where children don’t feel safe is a school where children struggle to learn. It is a school where kids drop out, tune out, and get depressed.”

And these statistics were cited:

  • In 2007, nearly 1 out of 3 students in middle school and high school said they had been bullied at school during the school year.
  • 1 out of 9 high schoolers – 2.8 million students – said they had been pushed, shoved, tripped, or spit on during the last school year. Another 1.5 million said they were threatened with harm.
  • 900,000 high schoolers reported being cyber bullied in 2007.

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