Though almost all of the rhetoric and activism following the February 14, 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida centered around the issue of gun control, a new book exposes the true underlying issues.
Politically correct disciplinary policies pushed by progressive administrators focused on “rehabilitation” rather than enforceable consequences led to a shooter slipping through the cracks. Worse, when parents sought answers after the tragedy, they were rebuffed. The real issue, insisted Broward County School District officials, was guns.
“Why Meadow Died: The People and Policies that Created the Parkland Shooter and Endanger America’s Students” cuts through the noise to expose the truth. Co-authored by Andrew Pollock, a father whose daughter lost her life in the shooting, and Max Eden, an education researcher at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, the book is both a moving tribute to those who lost their lives and a scathing indictment of those who allowed the shooting to happen.
“If one single adult in the Broward County school district had made one responsible decision about the Parkland shooter, then my sister would still be alive,” Hunter Pollack, brother of Meadow Pollack writes in the book’s foreword. “But every bad decision they made makes total sense once you understand the district’s politically correct policies, which started here in Broward and have spread to thousands of schools across America.”
The disciplinary winds shifted suddenly in Broward and elsewhere after bureaucrats decided that disproportionate suspension statistics among racial and ethnic groups stemmed from teacher bias, rather than the frequency of incidents.
The Broward County school district’s new slate of disciplinary policies -- often reductively called “the PROMISE program” -- sought to reduce the perception of bias. Superintendents like Broward’s Robert Runcie were lauded by politicians, union leaders, and activists for “reducing” the number of suspensions and PROMISE was soon touted as a transformational model. Broward’s policies even informed the White House’s nationwide guidance on school disciplinary policies, published in the controversial ‘Dear Colleague’ letter on the Nondiscriminatory Administration of School Discipline.
In reality, the district’s culture of tolerance permitted dangerous students to stay in the classroom.
Data-driven disciplinary approaches such as multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) require teachers to document patterns of behavior and attempted interventions. In Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz’s case, this meant that his teachers were not able to have him removed when he engaged in blatantly inappropriate behavior, such as bringing dead animals to school, making shooting motions with his hands, and threatening classmates.
An investigative review of Broward’s disciplinary policies conducted by Florida’s Sun Sentinel and featured in the book found that students could be considered first time offenders even if they exhibit the same behavior year after year. At the same time, lenient disciplinary policies made the numbers look good for administrators by lowering suspensions and expulsions while boosting graduation rates. The paper also found that the district’s claim that they were ‘reforming’ bad behavior through counseling was overblown.
At its core, “Why Meadow Died” is a story of how teachers' common sense was crushed by self-interested bureaucracy and misguided policies focused on statistics over safety.
Though Broward County school leaders and gun control activists dubbed the Parkland shooting “education’s 9/11,” it was really education’s Chernobyl. Like Chernobyl, the tragedy was the product of a series of irresponsible decisions from the inside, and not merely a disaster from the outside. And like Chernobyl, the truth of what happened has been obscured by a propaganda campaign orchestrated by image-concerned officials.
Eden and Pollack’s incisive investigative work should serve as a warning to every parent, teacher, and student whose administrators and politicized school boards place politically correct disciplinary efforts above the safety of children.
