A leading school-shooting researcher, Ron Avi Astor of UCLA, told colleagues at a 2026 American Educational Research Association (AERA) meeting that long-held assumptions about what prevents school shootings were wrong. Astor said the evidence on school climate and bullying interventions diverged from national incident trends: California students’ reported weapon-related behaviors declined over decades, while national counts of school shootings increased sharply. He described a “complete change” in thinking after reviewing what the data showed. The report frames the shift as an evidence-based correction rather than a dismissal of related student supports, noting that schools have generally improved on some safety and reporting measures even as shootings remain a persistent problem. For universities and schools of education, the development underscores the importance of evidence-to-practice review for prevention programs, including how teacher and counseling initiatives are evaluated over longer horizons.