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News Blogs
 
Dangerous schools?
By Carl Strock
Saturday, August 23, 2008
In case you saw the news the other day that Schenectady High School is among just 19 “persistently dangerous” schools in New York, and you have kids in the school, and you’re panicking, I’m here to tell you to relax. The report is bogus. Schenectady is no more one of the most dangerous schools in the state than I’m the man in the moon. And the state Education Department, which put out the claim, knows it. The ranking is based on self-reporting, and big-city schools, by which I mean those in New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, simply don’t report. Or rather they don’t report anything remotely resembling the truth. On the state forms where they are supposed to enter the number of assaults, the number of altercations, the number of sex offenses and so forth, that they experienced in the past year, they just enter zero after zero, with an occasional 1 or 2 for variety, whereas Schenectady and other smaller, less brazen districts enter something that at least approximates the truth. Schenectady appears to be especially aggressive in recording disruptive incidents, thus the ranking. I expound on this subject more thoroughly in my column in the Sunday Gazette, which I invite you to read. Or you can research it yourself at State Ed’s Web site, www.nysed.gov. You will see two lists, one for New York City schools and one for schools in the rest of the state. Check them out. If you believe that schools in the Bronx and Brooklyn and Buffalo and Yonkers experience almost no violence at all, as they report and as the state Education Department meekly swallows, then I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell you. And if you think Education Commissioner Richard Mills is acting as a responsible public official when he declares he is releasing the information (or anti-information) so that “parents can exercise their right of school choice,” meaning take their kids out of schools that he knows perfectly well are not even remotely close to the most dangerous, then I’ve got another bridge for you. Here’s an idea: If the governor and the Legislature are anxious to find areas where they can cut spending, maybe they should take a look at the Education Department. I would like to know how much the department spends compiling, cataloguing and disseminating flagrantly false statistics, and how much more it will spend on the “Incident Reduction Plans” that it requires of such hapless districts as Schenectady.
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December 4, 2008
1:33 p.m. [ Suggest removal ]
I dont dispute any of your findings Mr. Strock, but ask did you consider not only the number of students still enrolled in schools, but also the number of drop outs. I was unable to find any info to compare but am thinking maybe this is why the numbers are lower south of the capital region. We still have parents that care enough to send the kids to school, whereas a lot of the kids in the Bronx, Brooklyn etc. are probably being raised by drop outs themselves. Not to mention the number of kids in gangs in certain areas of NYS do not attend school there for the number of school criminal incidents would be less.
just a thought.
8:02 p.m. [ Suggest removal ]
Mr. Strock, have you considered that perhaps there's another reason for NYC schools to under report violence in addition to avoiding a pejorative label? In 2007, Mayor Bloomberg signed a contract with the principals providing for a $25,000 troubled-school bonus and a $25,000 performance bonus, annually. (See http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/24/nyregi... ).
"The contract ... aligns the Principal Performance Review with the Department of Education’s new school accountability system, so that principals will be evaluated according to the same standards by which New York City schools are now measured" (News from the Blue Room, PR-122-07, April 23, 2007).
I couldn't find a copy of the principals' contract online, not even at http://www.seethroughny.net/, but I'm guessing that one of the considerations for setting the amount of bonuses is the amount of violence in a principal's school. If that's true, then there's more than simple under reporting going on here. It's fraud--failing to report violent incidents for the purpose of receiving bigger bonuses.
Given the reportedly large reduction of school violence in NYC this year, even as measured by police reports, it's not beyond the pale to consider that perhaps principals are deliberately failing to report incidents to both the police and to the education department. It's possible that what they previously called assaults are now being defined as unreportable disorderly conduct and handled in house. It's also possible that schools were over charging students before so they could pass of their discipline problems to the courts. See, "CRIME DIP AT SCHOOL" at http://www.myshortpencil.com/schooltalk/...
Perhaps it's not the Education Dept. that should be looking into this matter, but the Comptroller and the Attorney General.
8:28 p.m. [ Suggest removal ]
On second thought, perhaps the principal bonus plan has focused the attention of principals on reducing school violence, and perhaps they've been successful. If that's the case, they are getting paid more to do what they neglected to do before. Increasing the pay of public workers to end their neglect is poor public policy, but what else can you do to workers protected by contractual rules that make firings prohibitively expensive?
11:54 a.m. [ Suggest removal ]
After reading the number of incidents at Schenectady High School, I would also have to qualify it as a dangerous school, regardless of the report declaring it so.
There are a few nice areas around here, but let's face it... most of Schenectady is dangerous. It's only natural for the high school to reflect that. I mean, just take a look around. Go ahead, have a nice little drive through Schenectady's lovely Hamilton Hill district. Maybe do some grocery shopping at the Price Chopper on Eastern. You'll soon determine this isn't safe place to raise children.
Cheers,
Dr. Chim Richolds