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A promising proposal was made by legislators in Pennsylvania last year. They introduced bills requiring that schools report all attacks on teachers to state authorities and that criminal penalties be stiffened for school offenses. Under one of the measures, carrying a gun or knife in school would be treated as a serious crime, and a student who assaulted a teacher would face up to seven years in jail.
Principals need to be more willing to manage their schools. When necessary, the resignation of bad teachers must be sought, even though union grievance procedures can be costly and time consuming. "Too many principals are afraid of grievances," says William Grimshaw, professor of political science at the Illinois Institute of Technology. More important, it should be easier to reward good teachers—if only with public recognition, which is rare at present. As Sylvia Schneirov, a third-grade teacher in Chicago, puts it: "The only praise you get is if your class is quiet and if your bulletin boards are ready when the superintendent comes—you better not have snowflakes on the board when you should have flowers."