“Persistently Dangerous” Schools

This headline caught my eye.

State, in Response to Critics, Adds to List of Unsafe Schools

By ELISSA GOOTMAN

Published: August 23, 2006

'New York State, recently criticized for underestimating the number of unsafe schools it oversees, yesterday added 17 schools to the list of those considered “persistently dangerous,” including 11 city schools for special education students.

States are required to compile yearly lists of “persistently dangerous” schools under the federal No Child Left Behind Law, and each state defines the term differently. Since New York started identifying such schools in 2003, various public officials have ridiculed the lists for their brevity: Until this year, only seven schools had been identified as “persistently dangerous,” and none were the “impact schools” that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had deemed particularly unruly. Those seven schools remain on the list.

In May, the state comptroller, Alan G. Hevesi, released an audit finding that in previous years, school officials had significantly underreported cases of violent and disruptive behavior, and that the State Education Department had made things worse by keeping sloppy records. In response, the state education commissioner, Richard P. Mills, vowed to conduct his own audit of 100 schools’ reporting practices. '

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'At a news conference yesterday announcing this year’s list, Mr. Mills said that when his audit was finished, the “persistently dangerous” category would likely grow. He also released a “watch list” of 10 schools that he said had narrowly avoided the designation.'

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'Keith Kalb, a spokesman for the New York City Department of Education, said that while “we all obviously agree that our schools must be safe,” the department did not “necessarily believe this appropriately represents safety in our schools.” '

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The criteria used to define “persistently dangerous” schools varies from state to state, and year to year. According to the New York State School Board Association, in 2003 "identification was based on having two consecutive years of a ratio of 3 percent or greater weapons incidents to enrollment."

New York's EMSC (Office of Elementary, Middle, Secondary and Continuing Education) reports that the new criteria "is a ratio of violent incidents to enrollment in a school and is determined by the number of incidents involving the use or threatened use of weapons, homicide, serious sexual offenses, robbery, assaults resulting in serious physical injury, arson and kidnapping."

I found this explanation of the designation process in a document for Philidelphia schools. In 2003, for a school to be designated "persistently dangerous," the school district must have reported more than 5 "dangerous incidents" per 250 students or a number that represented at least 2% of the school’s enrollment.

A dangerous incident was defined as a weapons possession incident resulting in arrest (guns, knives, or other weapons) or a violent incident resulting in arrest (homicide, kidnapping, robbery, sexual offenses, and assaults) as reported on the Violence and Weapons Possession Report (PDE-360), which school districts file each year.

The Philidelphia designation did not take into account incidents where there was no arrest made.

California and the District of Columbia reported having no schools as "persistently dangerous." Having worked in down town Los Angeles and visited Washington, DC, I find that hard to believe. It calls into question the whole process, if each state or district can make up their own criteria.

Here's a link to the ECS Report to the Nation: State Implemention of the No Child Left Behind Act that compares the process from state to state.]


I can see the bumper sticker now: My child attends a Persistently Dangerous School!

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Related Tags: school violence, school crime, persistently dangerous schools, public education, No Child Left Behind Act