Some people may react to the current bullying issue with an acute feeling of deja vu. Didn't we go through this back in the 1980s? And didn't we address it in the '90s when teachers and administrators rejected the old thinking that kids were bullied for a reason and instead acknowledged them as victims of intolerable behavior? Because when they did that, they at least agreed to keep track of reports of bullying in public schools.
What we have learned with the recent rash of bullying-related suicides is that, in fact, they weren't keeping track at all. Bullying never went away, but since there were no records it didn't exist, at least as far as the government and the media were concerned.
The education establishment has become ever more bureaucratized. Even teachers work on the assumption that their goal is to achieve positive statistical results, and as in any bureaucratic organization the appearance of good results is all that matters.