What caused the Parkland school shooting and what are the implications of it for classroom safety across America? National media obsessed for months following the tragedy about the smallest detail of the rifle used and the loopholes that allowed the shooter to obtain it. Yet, as MI senior fellow Max Eden will argue October 2nd, this coverage diverted attention from crucial contributing factors unrelated to the gun or shooter.

Eden is the coauthor—along with Andrew Pollack, father of Meadow Pollack, one of the 17 children killed—of a new book, “Why Meadow Died: The People and the Policies that Created the Parkland Shooter and Endanger America’s Students.” In it, the authors implicate Parkland’s lenient, look-the-other-way approach to classroom discipline, which, prior to the shooting, had been held up to districts nationwide as a model—so much so, that it likely is the standard in force now in your own community’s classrooms.

Max Eden is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute whose work has been instrumental in helping strengthen classroom safety. His research interests include early education, school choice, and federal education policy. He was coeditor, with Frederick M. Hess, of The Every Student Succeeds Act: What It Means for Schools, Systems, and States (2017). He holds a B.A. in history from Yale University.

communications@manhattan-institute.org