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There is a subconscious way of taking violence as a way of expression, as a normality, and it has a lot of effects in the youth in the way they absorb education and what they hope to get out of life.

There is no accurate or useful 'profile' of students who engage in targeted school violence. Some come from good homes, some from bad. Some have good grades, some bad.

Progress for black Americans depends on good schools because education is the last great equalizer.

It's hard to say whether the general incidence of school violence of all types is increasing or not.

The lives of African-Americans in this country are characterized by violence for most of our history. Much of that violence, at least to some extent, you know, done by the very state that's supposed to protect them.

African American children can't be educationally disadvantaged for 12 years and then experience a miracle cure when it comes time for admission into college.

I want to get violence - I want schools to start from K through 12 to just every day have teachers understand that they don't want to talk about anything that is violent, and they want to explain to the children how bad violence is and how behavior - violent behavior, is something that they really should not practice and think about.

Education is the vaccine for violence.

We've got to look to our educational programs and focus on doing what we can to stem violence in the schools.