DOE's Duncan: The Feds Tackle Bullying
RSSBy Lauren Barack
Educators have ignored the problem of bullying for too long. So says the nation's top educator, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who headed a two-day federal summit on bullying last week in the hopes that experts could band together and search for ways to prevent this growing trend. "As educators, as state and local officials-and yes, absolutely at the federal level-we simply have not taken the problem of bullying seriously enough," says Duncan in a speech during the Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention Summit. "Too often, bullying gets shrugged off." But Duncan wants educators to begin looking at how they could create a "culture of trust and accountability," he says so students feel safe enough to tell teachers and other adults when they've been bullied-and then feel they've been rewarded for helping to keep their schools safe, and bullies accountable. With nearly a quarter of U.S. students in grades 5 to 12 stating they had been mistreated at least twice a month, the behavior has hardly disappeared, according to a recent study from the Youth Voice Project, which interviewed more than 13,000 students in 25 schools across 12 states and found that less than half of victims ever report their crimes to adults. And of those who had been moderately to severely affected by the behavior, one-fifth say adults told them not to tattle, says Stan Davis, who co-runs the Youth Voice Project with Charisse Nixon. "That's a practice that's long due for change," says Davis. "Kids need to know it's always alright for them to come to us." Technology, too, has morphed attacks, giving bullies a powerful tool that can turn a single hateful note passed between students in class-to a transmitted, and very public attack broadcast in an instant-further victimizing a student by the speed of the attack, size of the audience, and permanence of the painful experience. Understanding how to handle any kind of bullying-from the traditional to cyber attacks-is critical for schools, say experts. "Most research shows bullying is where there's an imbalance of power," says Judy Nuss, director of social and emotional learning for the Harrisburg School District in Harrisburg, PA, who spoke at the Bullying Summit in Washington, D.C. Nuss has worked with teachers in her district for the past five years to help them foster a more emotionally supported environment for students so academic learning continues and teachers know how to facilitate an outcome should bullying arise. "What we try to do is create safe learning communities in classrooms and in school where the bully may not feel a need to exert power because his needs are being met," says Nuss. "And the previous victim feels included and support in that group. And everyone feels responsible for supporting others." Not every school may have a program like Harrisburg's in place. But it's clear that the U.S. Dept of Education is charging educators, both those at the local and national level, to prioritize the need to end bullying for students. "We understand that stopping the plague of bullying will take time," says Duncan. "It takes sustained commitment. It takes resources. And, I promise you, we are in this fight for the long haul."
