In response to the latest mass shooting at a school in the U.S. in which a gunman killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Republican politicians have rejected calls for gun control with proposals how to arm teachers and increase police presence and security in schools.
But many American professors have harshly criticized these proposals as solutions that would not work and as distractions from real solutions that conflict with the interests of lobbyists and arms manufacturers, who significantly fund and support Republicans.
“If they cared, something would have been done. It would have been done after Columbine,” said Jim Gard, a high school math teacher in Broward County, Florida, who survived the Parkland School shooting. 2018. “Until they start caring more about people’s lives than about their donations, their own careers, and their own power, this will never end. They will have another one, next week, next month, whatever it is; this will continue, and it will never stop until they decide to end it. ”
Many teachers doubt that the Republican proposals will work.
“There have been armed teachers and armed security in schools since Columbine and not once has it made a difference,” said Elizabeth Boyd Graham, a high school teacher in Houston, Texas. “If more weapons made it safer, we would be the safest country in the world, and we are not. The states with the weakest gun laws have the most armed violence.”
The idea of arming teachers has been proposed after previous mass shootings. Several states already allow teachers or other school employees with hidden transportation permits to carry firearms on school grounds.
Rose Malani Ott, a teacher in Ohio for 30 years, said she was dismayed by Uvalde’s shooting. His school has had active shooter exercises, a safe entrance, visitors to be admitted to the school and a strong police presence, and argued that these proposals put more responsibility and pressure on teachers who are already they take care of so much.
“I’m so fed up with people who know nothing about schools blaming teachers for everything,” Malani Ott said. “Teachers were thrown under the bus by Covid and are endangering their lives every day to protect our children. We are tired of the lack of support from management, government officials and the public.”
I went to college to become a professor, not a law enforcement officer, Jourden Armstrong
A 2019 survey of more than 2,900 U.S. teachers conducted by a researcher at California State University, Northridge, found that 95.3% believed that teachers should not carry weapons in the classroom.
“I went to college to become a professor, not a law enforcement agent,” said Jourden Armstrong, a 15-year professor at Michigan. “Common sense weapons reform is an absolutely necessary component to curbing this unique American problem.”
He also argued that teachers would leave the profession en masse if such policy proposals were enacted. There was already a shortage of teachers in the US and the Covid-19 pandemic made the problem worse.
“I’m scared, my kids are scared and I’m willing to quit a job I like because I feel absolutely powerless,” Armstrong said. “Powerless to protect myself, powerless to protect my students, and powerless in the face of the blood money our lawmakers continue to accept because they put benefits above people.”
The National Education Association, the largest U.S. union with about 3 million members, criticized the proposal to arm teachers as a solution to mass shootings in schools.
“Bringing more guns to schools makes schools more dangerous and does nothing to protect our students and educators from armed violence. We need fewer guns in schools, not more. Teachers should teach, not act like to armed security guards, “said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association and a 31-year high school science teacher.
Paul Miglin, a Houston, Texas teacher who works with students in kindergarten through eighth grade, expressed horror at the news of the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, but argued that the lack of action and response after the shooting by Sandy Hook in 2012 showed that elected officials were not going to take action on this issue.
Assembling teachers “will not make us safer,” Miglin said. “And any teacher who shoots a student and wants to be armed at school, honestly, is not someone I think should work in a school.”
Several professors who spoke to The Guardian asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.
“Police armed with body armor waited a solid hour for the more heavily armed police with heavier armor. Why should they be better prepared to shoot an assailant than them?” said a professor in Clark County, Nevada.
Another Houston teacher stressed that public education, especially in Texas, is already underfunded and teachers are forced to work with a great lack of resources.
In a 2021 report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Texas ranked 40th out of 50 states and Washington DC in funding public education, spending $ 11,987 annually for each student, more than $ 3,000 less than the national average. of $ 15,114.
The Houston teacher said his school does not have a nurse or a librarian, that teachers cannot be reimbursed for buying school supplies from his pocket, and that his principal could not even get district funding for a party. of pizza.
“We are tragically underfunded in many ways. I don’t have textbooks for my subject and how magically there can be funding for guns now,” she said. “When the Santa Fe shooting happened, I said to trusted friends that if the school gave me a gun, I would sell it and buy a color printer for my classroom. “