[Tink]

Lissa, I'm glad your school experience wasn't like that!

Sadly, it IS that way here in Wisconsin, where my youngest just graduated.

I know kids who got arrested for fighting in school. One on One punches that resulted in both being arrested.
I know one who got expelled for a sarcastic remark that even the teacher he made it to admitted was just a bad joke...
The kids here used to be allowed to take rifles to school to attend gun safety classes which were required if you want to hunt prior to age 16 and there has never been an incidence of violence with one here in school. Now they can't use a "look alike" gun in a school play because kids elsewhere misbehaved with them.
My own son was a class clown and we fought the school to keep him off ritalin.... finally tests showed he has a very high IQ and was simply bored senseless, so instead of giving him help as they would have if he'd have been ADHD, they made life so hard for him that we ended up pulling him out to homeschool him.

I have very little faith in public schools and wish every child had viable alternatives to it. I stand by my former post as one who has seen what the original post claimed up close and personal. I graduated in 1973, so am able to compare the dates realistically.