Education: Polling the Children

What does life look like to a child in elementary school? For once, someone has asked the children themselves—not just their parents. A nationwide survey of more than 2,200 seven-to eleven-year-olds, released last week by the private Foundation for Child Development, indicated that most children feel good about their lives, their families and just being themselves. But many are also afraid. More than two-thirds are scared that "someone bad" is skulking about their neighborhood, waiting to break into their homes. A quarter of the children are afraid that they will be attacked when they go outside—with some justification, since more than...