The superintendent of the Atlanta schools has a plan to stop the violence.
In a response to the killings in Nice last week and to terrorist attacks, mass shootings and fatal shootings of police in Paris; Orlando; San Bernardino, Calif.; Dallas and elsewhere, Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Meria Carstarphen says she has a four-step national plan to prevent similar events.
At the core of her proposal is a concept called "social-emotional learning" under which students are taught how to form healthy relationships and make responsible decisions. Atlanta schools are already spending millions to teach students those skills this year.
Carstarphen’s plan includes federal funding for 60 big-city school districts to teach students social-emotional learning and for early childhood education and mental health services; new state laws, funding and programs that support those efforts; funding for more research into social-emotional learning and developing lesson plans and ways of testing its effectiveness; and more high-quality training for school-based police officers.
Carstarphen says the U.S. Department of Education should funnel the money into select communities under a model similar to those used for previous Promise Zone and Promise Neighborhood programs intended to attack poverty and related problems. And she says the president should issue an executive order for emergency funding for the work.
