The headline asks:
Did Trump or the 2016 election ramp up bullying in schools?
The Raleigh News & Observer article starts with this background:
Can ugly campaign rhetoric and electoral bullying trickle down to students, leading to more bullying in schools? What about in North Carolina?
That’s what Politico tried to discover with data mined from a handful of school systems across the country. Did students mimic Donald Trump’s aggressive attacks against his rivals with name calling, bullying and other questionable behavior in their classrooms?
It’s too bad we have to wait until the fifth and sixth paragraphs of the online report (and the eighth and ninth paragraphs of the print version) before we get to the real news, or lack of news, depending on your viewpoint.
Wake County and six other districts had fulfilled Politico’s request as of last week: Milwaukee, Wis.; Fairfax, Va.; Houston, Texas; Denver, Colo.; Portland, Ore.; and Columbus City, Ohio.
In those districts, there was no significant spike in reported incidents of bullying or harassment, according to the data Politico collected.
In other words, this appears to be a media narrative in search of supporting facts.
