Photo by Jeffrey Basinger/Newsday RM via Getty Images
Kids trapped in dangerous schools are supposed to have an escape hatch — it’s their right under federal law.
But a few years ago, New York state education officials quietly changed the rules governing how schools must report violent incidents.
That’s led to a steep apparent drop in serious offenses — making it much harder for families to exercise their right to transfer their kids out of unsafe schools.
But it doesn’t mean our schools are actually safer, according to state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
The federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 requires every state to enact policies giving students enrolled in “persistently dangerous” schools the right to transfer to a safer school within their district.
New York designates a school as “persistently dangerous” if it meets a threshold level of serious violent incidents — that is, homicide, physical assault, sexual offense or weapons possession — for two consecutive years.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the New York Post
______________________
Neetu Arnold is a Paulson Policy Analyst at the Manhattan Institute. Daniel Buck is a research fellow and the director of the Conservative Education Reform Network at the American Enterprise Institute.
Photo by Jeffrey Basinger/Newsday RM via Getty Images