On April 21, Montana Governor Steve Bullock signed his state’s anti-bullying law, eliminating the title his state has held for the last few years as the only state without one. The law, which is nothing more than a statement that bullying is not allowed, ends a push that started before Columbine in 1999 to establish laws and policies on bullying across the United States. With every state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the other territories now possessing a bullying law, what’s next for the fight against bullying?
It is first critical to ask, what is the purpose of these laws to begin with? The vast majority of the laws, with Montana a notable exception, have but one major requirement – that all schools adopt a bullying prevention policy. Yet, as I found in my work in DC, absent any oversight or technical assistance, which DC has uniquely provided, many schools will not be in compliance with their states’ laws. Without any mechanism to ensure schools and districts actually follow through with their obligations, these anti-bullying laws do essentially nothing to help prevent bullying. In fact, we saw no improvement in rates of bullying between 2005 and 2011, a period in which a significant number of new or revised state bullying laws were enacted.
[For more of this story go to http://www.childtrends.org/all...llying-law-now-what/]
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