The Problem Of The Megaschool: In the crowded halls of enormous high schools, some students are sure to get lost in the shuffle.(The Last Word)(Column)(Brief Article)

Publication: Newsweek

Publication Date: 26-MAR-01

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My high school graduating class had 175 students. Last year the same school had 420 seniors. This bit of biographical data comes to you by way of Charles Andrew Williams. He's the latest teenager to become a national bogeyman after being charged with killing classmates in the school corridors, supplanting for the moment the two boys who committed murder and then suicide at Columbine High. I am willing to wager there will be others.

And there will be a rhythm to the event, the wounded witnesses, the court appearance and then the questions. How much blame attaches to divorce and dislocation, how much to easy access to guns? How much culpability must parents share with their son, how much a violent society that plies its children with video shoot-'em-ups? How in the world has high school turned into a ubiquitous venue for homicide?

Was it ever halcyon? The 1989 movie "Heathers," in which Winona Ryder and Christian Slater...

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