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Dangerous School Label is Dangerous
The persistently dangerous schools label is ineffective and leads stigmatization and underreporting of violent incidents, a panel of experts told U.S. Department of Education officials Monday.
“We all know [the words] ‘persistently dangerous’ was a death sentence to this legislation,� said Bill Bond of the National Association of Secondary School Principals.
Bond knows about school violence firsthand. He was principal of Heath High School in Paducah, Ky. in 1997 when a 14-year-old shot and killed three students and wounded five other students.
Education officials from several states including Texas, New Jersey, Colorado, and California addressed the effectiveness of the label and other components of the unsafe school choice option of the No Child Left Behind Act in front of the Safe and Drug Free Schools and
Communities Advisory Committee.
The provision requires schools identified as persistently dangerous to develop and implement a corrective action program within 20 days, notify parents of the designation, offer students the opportunity to transfer to a safe public or charter school and complete transfers
for students who accept.
“It’s a violation of a lot of people’s belief systems,� said Janelle Krueger of the Colorado Department of Education. “We don’t want to spend time simply reacting to when children have been behaving badly.�
Panelists pointed to the fact that Pennsylvania currently has more than 20 schools with the ‘persistently dangerous’ label, whereas more populous states like California have none as evidence of the provision’s ineffectiveness and the need to focus on violence
prevention.
Congress will consider reauthorization of the legislation in 2007. The safe and drug free schools and communities advisory committee will give Education Secretary Margaret Spellings recommendations
about the provision.
Educators who spoke in front of the committee Monday characterized the provision as reactionary and said it does not provide schools with enough resources to avoid receiving the persistently dangerous label.
“It’s one more thing we have to deal with,� said Cory Green, of the Texas State Education Agency when asked if Texas was better off because of the law.
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