by Stephen Goode

About the author: Stephen Goode is a staff writer for Insight, a weekly newsmagazine.

His message is clear—and harsh. “American classrooms these days too often are combat zones where teachers perform under combat conditions,” says C. Stephen Wallis. “Before we can improve our schools, we are going to have to make them safe.” Wallis, an assistant principal at Howard High School in Howard County, Md., speaks frequently to parents and teachers and at think tanks such as Washington’s Heritage Foundation about the disorder he finds pandemic in America’s public schools. “We now accept behavior we would not have tolerated only a few years ago,” says Wallis. Many students regularly carry guns, knives and other weapons. Drug and alcohol abuse are...