[House Hearing, 108 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
KEEPING SCHOOLS SAFE - THE IMPLEMENTATION OF NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND'S
PERSISTENTLY DANGEROUS SCHOOLS PROVISION
=======================================================================
FIELD HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION REFORM
of the
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
AND THE WORKFORCE
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
September 29, 2003 in Denver, Colorado
__________
Serial No. 108-34
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and the Workforce
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
house
or
Committee address: http://edworkforce.house.gov
______
90-139 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2003
____________________________________________________________________________
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512�091800
Fax: (202) 512�092250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402�090001
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE
JOHN A. BOEHNER, Ohio, Chairman
Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin, Vice George Miller, California
Chairman Dale E. Kildee, Michigan
Cass Ballenger, North Carolina Major R. Owens, New York
Peter Hoekstra, Michigan Donald M. Payne, New Jersey
Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon, Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey
California Lynn C. Woolsey, California
Michael N. Castle, Delaware Ruben Hinojosa, Texas
Sam Johnson, Texas Carolyn McCarthy, New York
James C. Greenwood, Pennsylvania John F. Tierney, Massachusetts
Charlie Norwood, Georgia Ron Kind, Wisconsin
Fred Upton, Michigan Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio
Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan David Wu, Oregon
Jim DeMint, South Carolina Rush D. Holt, New Jersey
Johnny Isakson, Georgia Susan A. Davis, California
Judy Biggert, Illinois Betty McCollum, Minnesota
Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania Danny K. Davis, Illinois
Patrick J. Tiberi, Ohio Ed Case, Hawaii
Ric Keller, Florida Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona
Tom Osborne, Nebraska Denise L. Majette, Georgia
Joe Wilson, South Carolina Chris Van Hollen, Maryland
Tom Cole, Oklahoma Tim Ryan, Ohio
Jon C. Porter, Nevada Timothy H. Bishop, New York
John Kline, Minnesota
John R. Carter, Texas
Marilyn N. Musgrave, Colorado
Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee
Phil Gingrey, Georgia
Max Burns, Georgia
Paula Nowakowski, Staff Director
John Lawrence, Minority Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION REFORM
MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware, Chairman
Tom Osborne, Nebraska, Vice Lynn C. Woolsey, California
Chairman Susan A. Davis, California
James C. Greenwood, Pennsylvania Danny K. Davis, Illinois
Fred Upton, Michigan Ed Case, Hawaii
Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona
Jim DeMint, South Carolina Ron Kind, Wisconsin
Judy Biggert, Illinois Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio
Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania Chris Van Hollen, Maryland
Ric Keller, Florida Denise L. Majette, Georgia
Joe Wilson, South Carolina George Miller, California, ex
Marilyn N. Musgrave, Colorado officio
John A. Boehner, Ohio, ex officio
------
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on September 29, 2003............................... 1
Statement of Members:
Musgrave, Hon. Marilyn N., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Colorado...................................... 3
Prepared statement of.................................... 4
Osborne, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Nebraska.......................................... 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 2
Statement of Witnesses:
Andrews, Senator John K. Jr., President of the Senate,
Colorado State Senate...................................... 27
Prepared statement of.................................... 29
Moloney, William J., Commissioner of Education, Colorado
Department of Education.................................... 6
Prepared statement of.................................... 7
Schaffer, Hon. Bob, President, Colorado Department of
Education.................................................. 20
Prepared statement of.................................... 21
Smith, David, Director of Prevention Initiatives, Colorado
Department of Education.................................... 8
Prepared statement of.................................... 10
Ware, Vicki, Parent, Denver, Colorado........................ 30
Prepared statement of.................................... 30
Zradicka, Gloria, Policy Analyst, Education Commission of the
States..................................................... 24
Prepared statement of.................................... 26
Report submitted for the record, ``No Child Left Behind -
Persistently Dangerous School Criteria''............... 39
KEEPING SCHOOLS SAFE - THE IMPLEMENTATION OF NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND'S
PERSISTENTLY DANGEROUS SCHOOLS PROVISION
----------
Monday, September 29, 2003
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Education Reform
Committee on Education and the Workforce
Denver, Colorado
----------
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m., at the
State Capitol Building, Old Supreme Court Chamber, Room 220,
200 East Colfax Avenue, Denver Colorado, Hon. Tom Osborne
presiding.
Present: Representatives Osborne and Musgrave.
Staff Present: Melanie L. Looney, Counsel and Josh Holly,
Director of Media Affairs.
Mr. Osborne. Good morning, everyone. A quorum being
present, the Subcommittee on Education Reform and the Committee
on Education and the Workforce will come to order. We're
meeting today to hear testimony on the implementation of the No
Child Left Behind's Persistently Dangerous Schools Provision.
I'd like to begin by thanking those here at the Colorado State
Capitol (inaudible). I appreciate your hospitality, and I'm
very pleased to be here.
We're ready to hear from our witnesses, but before I begin,
I'm going to ask for the unanimous consent for the hearing
record to remain open 14 days to allow member statements and
other extraneous material referenced during the hearing to be
submitted in the official hearing record. Without objection, so
ordered.
I'll now proceed with an opening statement.
STATEMENT OF HON. TOM OSBORNE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FORM THE STATE OF NEBRASKA
Mr. Osborne. My name is Tom Osborne. I am the Vice Chairman
of this subcommittee, and I represent Nebraska's third
congressional district. On behalf of the Subcommittee on
Education Reform, I would like to extend a warm welcome to
everyone in the audience today. I would like to thank our
distinguished panels for taking part in today's hearing,
entitled, ``Keeping Schools Safe - The Implementation of No
Child Left Behind's Persistently Dangerous Schools Provision.''
Today's hearing will focus on an extremely important
topic--the protection and safety of America's children. When
Congress passed bipartisan ``No Child Left Behind Act'' on
December 31, 2001, it had the well-being of its students in
mind. In order to receive funding under this Act, states are
required to identify schools that are ``persistently
dangerous.'' Students who are enrolled at a school that has
been identified by the state as being ``persistently
dangerous,'' are subsequently given the option of transferring
to a safe school within their local education agency.
Ultimately, the requirements established by No Child Left
Behind are intended to provide parents with both knowledge and
options when it comes to the safety of their children. The
provisions help parents feel secure that they are sending their
children to safe, nonthreatening environments in which their
children can learn and succeed.
As we consider this issue, it is important to look at this
issue from a number of perspectives. We will hear about why
this provision was included. We will also hear from two of the
state's schools' chiefs--actually one, I believe now--who is
from the State of Colorado--on the implementation of this
provision at the state level. One of our panelists will provide
a broader view of what the other states are doing to implement
this provision. Finally, we will hear from a state legislator
and a parent on the impact of this provision and its
implementation.
Again, the topic at hand is of primary importance to all of
us as we seek to ensure the safety and security of our nation's
children. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Osborne follows:]
Statement of Hon. Tom Osborne, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Nebraska
Good morning.
My name is Tom Osborne. I am the vice chairman of this subcommittee
and I represent Nebraska's third congressional district. On behalf of
the Subcommittee on Education Reform, I would like to extend a warm
welcome to everyone in the audience today. I would like to thank our
distinguished panels for taking part in today's hearing, entitled,
Keeping Schools Safe - The Implementation of No Child Left Behind's
Persistently Dangerous Schools Provision.
Today's hearing will focus on an extremely important topic--the
protection and safety of America's children. When Congress passed the
bipartisan ``No Child Left Behind Act'' on December 13, 2001, it had
the well-being of its students in mind. In order to receive funding
under this Act, states are required to identify schools that are
``persistently dangerous.'' Students who are enrolled at a school that
has been identified, by the state, as being persistently dangerous, are
subsequently given the option of transferring to a safe school within
their local education agency.
Ultimately, the requirements established by No Child Left Behind
are intended to provide parents with both knowledge and options when it
comes to the safety of their children. The provisions help parents feel
secure that they are sending their children to safe, non-threatening
environments in which their children can learn and succeed.
As we consider this issue, it is important to look at this issue
from a number of perspectives. We will hear about why this provision
was included. We will also hear from two state school chiefs--one from
my home state of Nebraska and one from here in Colorado--on the
implementation of this provision at the state level. One of our
panelists will provide a broader view of what the other states are
doing to implement this provision. Finally, we will hear from a state
legislator and a parent on the impact of this provision and its
implementation.
Again, the topic at hand is of primary importance to all of us as
we seek to ensure the safety and security of our nation's children. I
look forward to hearing from our witnesses today. At this time, I yield
to my distinguished colleague, Representative Musgrave, for any opening
comments she might have.
______
Mr. Osborne. And at this time, I yield to my distinguished
colleague, Representative Marilyn Musgrave, for any opening
comments that she may have.
STATEMENT OF MARILYN N. MUSGRAVE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO
Mrs. Musgrave. Thank you. Good morning to all of you. It's
like ``old home week'' to be back here at the State Capitol.
And it's very good to see friends and family, I might add.
I also am very delighted to have the opportunity to hold
this hearing in our state capitol today. And, Congressman
Osborne, I'd like to thank you very much for coming. I will not
bring up the topic of football at all; that will not be
mentioned today. And I'm just appreciative of the work that you
are doing.
I'm certainly glad that we're here today to focus on this
extremely important topic. The safety of America's students
should be one of our top priorities as a nation, and I am
pleased that Congress included the ``persistently dangerous
schools'' provision in the No Child Left Behind Act. As a
former school board member, a teacher, and the mother of four
grown children, I have spent many years working in our
educational system and know the importance that a safe
environment plays in a child's ability to learn. But not only
is safety a priority due to the educational benefits it
provides. Safety is a priority because in this country it is
never reasonable nor necessary to send our children into
dangerous environments.
The ``persistently dangerous schools'' provision causes
states to evaluate the safety of each school and notify parents
when their children are attending a school found to be
persistently dangerous. This provision makes it clear that the
safety and well-being of our students is to be taken seriously.
It provides parents with an educational option by allowing them
to send children in such a school to another, safer school.
Even in states like Colorado that offer public-school
choice, this provision is important for two reasons. First, it
focuses--it forces us to assess the quality of education we are
providing by making sure each school meets a safety standard.
Second, it empowers parents to make an informed decision
regarding their child's education through the notification
process.
After a year to prepare for the implementation of this
provision, we have just begun to hear back from the states
regarding the policies they have established to define a
``persistently dangerous school'' and how these policies are
being implemented.
No schools in Colorado were identified as ``persistently
dangerous.'' I would like to commend the Department of
Education for the steps it has taken to improve school safety
in our state. However, the findings surprise me, and today I
would like to learn more about the standards to ensure that
they are an accurate reflection of school safety in Colorado.
Colorado is not the only state to determine that there were
no persistently dangerous schools in the state. Specifically, I
find it interesting that 44 states--including Nebraska, Mr.
Osborne--did not identify any schools as persistently
dangerous. More incredulous was the finding that none of the
public schools in the urban areas of Los Angeles, Chicago,
Miami, Detroit, Cleveland, San Diego, Baltimore and even
Washington, D.C. were determined to be persistently dangerous.
These findings raise some major concerns.
The finding in Los Angeles was particularly troubling with
regard to Banning Senior High School near Los Angeles, because
in the 2001-2002 school year it was the scene of 28 batteries,
two assaults with a deadly weapon and three sex offenses; and
this year an 18-year-old student died of a head injury hours
after a fistfight in the school parking lot, and a fellow
student was charged with murder.
But safety is not just a concern in our nation's most
metropolitan areas. In fact, last week a student brought a gun
to Wheat Ridge High School in Colorado. All of us want to
prevent another tragic situation like Columbine. It is
essential that we accurately evaluate our schools before
declaring they are not persistently dangerous.
Today we have a wonderful opportunity to hear from leaders
in the education policy, and I hope that we can determine where
we are in the process of effectively implementing this
provision and what steps we can take to better protect our
students, better inform our parents and improve the quality of
the learning environment for all students.
I am here today to listen to our witnesses and learn what
is being done at the state level to implement this provision
and how its implementation is viewed by those this provision is
intended to help. I would like to thank our distinguished
witnesses for their participation today. I look forward to
hearing from them and their insights.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
Mr. Osborne. Thank you, Mrs. Musgrave.
[The prepared statement of Mrs. Musgrave follows:]
Statement of Hon. Marilyn N. Musgrave, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Colorado
Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us today. I'm
Marilyn Musgrave and, as Colorado's only representative on the House
Education and Workforce Committee, I am delighted to have the
opportunity to be in our state's capitol for this hearing today.
First, I would like to thank Congressman Osborne for taking so much
time to come to our state in order to make this hearing possible. I
appreciate your willingness to join me in reviewing this very important
issue for children across America. I would also like to personally
welcome you to Colorado.
Let me begin by saying that I am certainly glad that we are here
today to focus on this extremely important topic. The safety of
America's students should be one of our top priorities as a nation, and
I am pleased that Congress included the ``persistently dangerous
schools'' provision in the No Child Left Behind Act.
As a former school board member, teacher and mother of four grown
children, I have spent years working in our education system and know
the importance that a safe environment plays in a child's ability to
learn. But not only is safety a priority due to the educational
benefits it provides, safety is a priority because in this country it
is never reasonable nor necessary to send our children into dangerous
environments.
The ``persistently dangerous schools'' provision causes states to
evaluate the safety of each school and notify parents when their
children are attending a school found to be persistently dangerous.
This provision makes it clear that the safety and well-being of
students to must be taken seriously. It provides parents with
educational options by allowing them to send children in such a school
to another, safer school. Even in states like Colorado that offer
public school choice, this provision is important for two reasons.
First, it forces us to assess the quality of education we are providing
by making sure each school meets a safety standard. Secondly, it
empowers parents to make an informed decision regarding their child's
education through the notification process.
After a year to prepare for the implementation of this provision,
we have just begun to hear back from the states regarding the policies
they have established to define a ``persistently dangerous school'' and
how those policies are being implemented.
No schools in Colorado were identified as persistently dangerous. I
would like to commend the Department for the steps it has taken to
improve school safety in our state. However, the findings surprise me
and today, I would like to learn more about the standards to ensure
they are an accurate reflection of the school safety in Colorado.
Colorado was not the only state to determine that there are no
persistently dangerous schools in the state. Specifically, I find it
interesting that 44 States, including Nebraska, did not identify any
schools as persistently dangerous. More incredulous was the finding
that none of the public schools in the urban areas of Los Angeles,
Chicago, Miami, Detroit, Cleveland, San Diego, Baltimore and
Washington, D.C. were determined to be persistently dangerous. These
findings raise some major concerns.
The finding in Los Angeles was particularly troubling with regard
to Banning Senior High near Los Angeles which in the 2001-2002 school
year was the scene of 28 batteries, two assaults with a deadly weapon
and three sex offenses, and where this year an 18-year-old student died
of head injuries hours after a fistfight in the school parking lot, and
a fellow student was charged with murder.
But safety is not just a concern in our nation's most metropolitan
areas. In fact, last week a student brought a gun to Wheat Ridge High
School in Colorado. All of us want to prevent another tragic situation
like Columbine, therefore, it is essential that we accurately evaluate
our schools before declaring they are not persistently dangerous.
Today we have a wonderful opportunity to hear from leaders in
education policy and I hope that we can determine where we are in the
process of effectively implementing this provision and what steps we
can take to better protect our students, better inform our parents and
improve the quality of the learning environment for all students.
I am here today to listen to our witnesses and learn what is being
done at the state level to implement this provision and how its
implementation is viewed by those this provision is intended to help. I
would like to thank our distinguished witnesses for their participation
today. I look forward to hearing from them and their insights. And with
that Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
______
Mr. Osborne. Just an additional comment. We know that out
of 50 states only 6 have identified any schools that are
unsafe. And of those 6 states there are 52 schools. And I
believe 28 of those 52 come from Pennsylvania; 27 of the 28 in
Pennsylvania come from Philadelphia. So obviously, we have a
wide range of what people are determining ``unsafe'' and what
they aren't.
And I've been in Banning High School and in many of the
high schools around the country and realize the disparity and
the different types of schools that we're dealing with.
So anyway, we appreciate the witnesses coming this morning.
Without any further comments, I'd like to begin and call
the gentlewoman from Colorado to introduce the witnesses, and
we'll proceed after that.
Mrs. Musgrave. First of all, there's Dr. William J. Moloney
as our Commissioner of Education in Colorado. When I was in the
legislature--I have had a great deal of respect for you and I
certainly enjoyed working with you. So I'm happy to have you
here today.
Previously, Dr. Moloney served as the superintendent of
schools for the Calvert County Public School District in
Maryland. Prior to that, he was superintendent of schools in
the Easton Area School District of Pennsylvania. Currently, Dr.
Moloney serves as a member of the Governor's cabinet and
secretary to the state board of education and as an advisor to
the general assembly.
Also on the distinguished panel today, we have Mr. David
Smith. I have worked with him previously and have a great deal
of respect for him also. He is the director of Prevention
Initiatives for the Colorado Department of Education, and he
served on the committee that created Colorado's definition of a
``persistently dangerous school.''
Prior to this, Mr. Smith was the supervisor of the Colorado
Preschool Project and also the Dropout Prevention Project for
the Colorado Department of Education. He currently assists
local communities in developing an integrated approach to
serving high-risk students. And it's good to have you here
today.
Mr. Osborne. Thank you, Mrs. Musgrave.
And I would like to ask the witnesses to limit their
statements to 5 minutes--which is very difficult in political
offices to limit it to 5 minutes, but we would appreciate that.
Your entire testimony will be included in the official hearing
record.
And so, Dr. Moloney, we thank you for coming this morning,
and we will begin with you.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM J. MOLONEY, COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION,
COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Dr. Moloney. Thank you very much, Chairman Osborne. And
it's good to see you again, Congressman Musgrave, bringing back
recollections of shared values and projects when you were more
frequently beneath the Golden Dome here.
Let me just preface my remarks by saying--speaking of the
importance of the subject which we're going to address today.
Thirty-eight years ago, I was a young congressional intern. I
was present for the passage of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act of 1965. As a school administrator in six states,
I have been intimately connected with the implementation of
this for most of those 38 years. I think it's fair to say, as
Congressman Boehner has pointed out, that there were some
things that were left to be desired as to how well it turned
out, particularly when Congress began to look at what had
happened with the reauthorization of 1994.
Another hat I wear is as Chairman of the Education Leaders
Council--a group, I believe, known to you for its strong
commitment to reform and playing a very key and supportive role
to Secretary Paige in the implementation of the No Child Left
Behind Act. In fact, this week before last, I was honored to
share a press conference with Senator Bill Frist in Nashville
defending No Child Left Behind from its legion of critics. I
would just say of that, that probably the best evidence to be
found that this law that you passed is making a difference is
in fact the criticism that it received. And it's our strong
hope here in Colorado--and I think we're all friends for reform
across the country--that it would stay the course.
Understandably, in the passage of such a monumental
statute--the most important Federal education legislation
probably in the history of the republic--there are elements of
compromise, which are inevitable--in fact, a healthy part of
the process. I was honored to testify before the House
Education and Workforce Committee more than once at a time when
our Congressman Tancredo and Congressman Musgrave's
predecessor, Congressman Chaif, who were--were on that panel.
We in Colorado relative to No Child Left Behind--in
general--and ``persistently dangerous schools''--in
particular--have insisted on two things: One, the cause is so
great and the end so worthy that the strongest good-faith
effort must be made. Criticism of the law before the race is
even begun will have the most deleterious effect. In working
closely with our minority community here in Colorado, our
Closing the Learning Gap Coalition, which is headed by the
senior members of the republican and democratic party in the
state, Governor Owens, and Attorney General Salazar--one thing
we've been very much aware of--and that is an apprehension
among those who represent our most vulnerable children--that in
fact the voices of criticism would say: This is too hard. We
can't do it. We can't get there. That must not be allowed.
The second part of our approach to this has been our
recognition that no statute is perfect--certainly not one of
the vast scope of No Child Left Behind--and that as with all
such statutes, No Child Left Behind will evolve over time in
the interest of meeting its most admirable goals. When we
looked at No Child Left Behind and the ``persistently dangerous
school'' aspect, we took literally what the law said, which
indicated that each state had to work this out by the best
lines available to them. There was not a preconception or a
notion that we must strive for a result that would make us look
good or avoid legislative intent, but rather to make a good-
faith effort.
As I think was indicated by Congressman Musgrave's remarks,
like 43 other states we reached a result that very candidly
looked a little peculiar in the eyes of many onlookers. Many of
those onlookers, who were anything but friendly to the
legislation, took this occasion to say, ``Ah-hah.'' One
commentator among that group said, ``See? See? It's a farce.''
And what is disturbing about that is that a good-faith effort,
let's say, made by people like those of us in Colorado, should
be used as a club to beat the purposes and the prospects of
this piece of legislation.
So we continue to, as Mr. Smith will make clear, soldier on
in this regard. As I think we all are aware--and this state
suffered the horrendous tragedy of Columbine--safety in schools
is not a cause to which we are indifferent. So if there are
disagreements as to the implementation, they're perhaps
disagreements that will require some adaptation on our part and
perhaps also some adaptation to bring more clear and specific
the intent of Congress.
So I'll stop there and prepare to entertain any questions
you have either before or after Mr. Smith's remarks. Thank you.
Mr. Osborne. Thank you very much, Dr. Moloney.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Moloney follows:]
Statement of William J. Moloney, Commissioner of Education, Colorado
Department of Education
Chairman Osborne, on behalf of the Colorado State Board of
Education I wish to extend a warm welcome to Colorado. My name is
William J. Moloney and I am the Commissioner of Education for Colorado.
The issue of safe schools where children and youth can achieve high
academic standards is central to our mission. We take the challenge to
identify any school in our state that is persistently dangerous for our
students as serious work. We understand the importance of providing
parents with accurate information so that they can make wise choices
for their children.
Quite frankly, we have taken this commitment to assure that schools
are a safe place for students to learn, quite seriously, long before
the No Child Left Behind legislation. Our Colorado legislature has a
history of funding services that focus on students who engage in
behavior that is considered to be dangerous to their fellow students.
Dangerous behavior results in expulsion. We have model programs in our
state that focus on the expelled student in order to prevent further
violence and disruption to the classroom.
We are here today to respond to your request for information about
the process that Colorado utilized to comply with the requirements of
No Child Left Behind. To that end I have asked Dave Smith from the
Colorado Department of Education to outline for you how we developed
our criteria. Dave was a member of a team of people who worked on this
issue and will be able to respond directly to you request.
I look forward to responding to any questions that you may have.
Again, welcome to Colorado.
______
Mr. Osborne. We will hear testimony from both, and then we
will address a few questions to you.
And so, Mr. Smith, why don't you go ahead and give your
testimony at this time.
STATEMENT OF DAVID SMITH, DIRECTOR OF PREVENTION INITIATIVES,
COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Mr. Smith. Chairman Osborne and Representative Musgrave,
welcome to Colorado--welcome back.
When faced with the charge of defining ``persistently
dangerous schools,'' the first step we took in the Colorado
Department of Education was to form a Safe Schools Committee.
The legislation required us to develop this definition in
consultation with local school districts. We developed a
process that actually increased the input to other people
within the educational community.
On that committee the following roles were represented: A
president of a local, rural school board; an executive director
of student services from a suburban school district; a
representative from the Colorado Association of School
Executives; a principal from an alternative school serving both
rural and city areas--Greeley; a high school counselor from an
urban school district; and the educational-policy analyst from
the Governor's office; a representative of the Colorado
Congress of Parents and Teachers, and a representative from the
Colorado Association of School Boards. The Department of
Education staffed this committee.
When the committee convened, it took a look at the charge
of the legislation, and it took a look at the data that was
already available around suspension, expulsion, drug offenses--
the kind of data that we already collect--and made it available
on the report cards that each individual school must issue to
the community and to their parents. So the data was there, and
it existed. And because we were collecting existing data rather
than new data, in order to be able to look at 2 years' worth of
data, we had to look at data that was already present in our
system in order to be able to look at the second year to get
the 2-year qualification of a ``persistently dangerous.'' That
was the purpose of those definitions.
The committee itself decided to support the expansion of
even their involvement. To meet that end, we held a 1-day
meeting that included parents, students, law enforcement
officers, principals, teachers, local school board members, the
executive director of the regional office of the U.S.
Department of Education, school counselors, and local safe and
drug-free schools and community coordinators. All were invited
for a full-day meeting to provide input into the definition of
``persistently dangerous school.'' That day primarily was like
small groups facilitated by people other than people on the
committee in order to keep the process fair and impartial. The
outcome of that particular day was to come up with a set of
principles to guide us in the actual definition.
The kinds of things we heard that day include: A value of
identifying schools that were truly and ``persistently
dangerous''--as opposed to schools where some unsafe behaviors
occur but overall are basically safe; a desire to direct more
assistance toward schools in the greatest need of addressing
school-safety issues provided within the resources by the Act;
the need for the data to be objective; the need to use
indicator data that was already collected by CDE in order to
notify schools by the 2003/2004 school year if they are
potentially identifiable to be ``persistently dangerous''; the
desire to create a system that encourages more accurate
reporting rather than dealing with discipline problems that
don't necessarily rise to the level of danger to self and
others.
Utilizing those principles, the following outcomes
occurred: One, the state board adopted a policy on victims of
violent crime. Essentially that policy gave parents the right--
if any of these violent crimes which are defined in my
testimony--and in the interest of time, I'll skip over those--
but if any of those things occurred within the school, the
parent would not have a way (inaudible). In other words, those
incidences rose to a level so serious that parents could choose
at that point to make their own determination if the school is
unsafe and move their child or youth.
Part two, the definition of ``persistently dangerous
school.'' The definition was arrived at by looking over some
things that I had mentioned earlier that's already on a
``student report card.'' Those things include: ``alcohol
violations, drug violations, assaults/fights, robberies, and
'other' felonies as defined by the Automatic Data Exchange'';
expulsions for firearms per the Gun-Free Schools Act; and the
third component was the number of reports to the Department of
Education of school employees engaged in unlawful behavior, as
required by the State Board of Education Rules.
With that, we decided the incidence rate based upon the
population of students in schools. Essentially, the incidence
rate would require 15 percent of the students to engage in the
described behaviors. And the way that I most--it's most helpful
to me to understand is that there would have to be 180
incidences for a school of 900 to 1,199, and that would be
approximately 1 day.
The reason for those--and the most problematic in this
whole process for us in our discussions (inaudible) with a
larger community was the term ``persistently dangerous.'' That
word assumes--or actually taken from Webster's dictionary--
means ``continuous and ongoing.''
In Colorado, when we ran--we set the criteria. It was
approved by the board. We did our first data run to see how
many schools in fact would qualify. Based on that data run, we
had 20 schools that would qualify as ``persistently dangerous''
under that criteria--that outline.
Mr. Osborne. Mr. Smith, thank you. We've run out of time,
so we'll begin the questioning at this point. And I'm sure
you'll have a chance to amplify some of the points that you're
bringing up at a later time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]
Statement of David B. Smith, Director, Prevention Initiatives, Colorado
Department of Education
Good morning Chairman Osborne. My name is David Smith and I am with
the Colorado Department of Education. My official title is Director of
Prevention Initiatives. In response to your request I will be
addressing the process that the Colorado Department of Education (CDE)
utilized in developing persistently dangerous schools criteria as
required by the No Child Left Behind Act. My testimony will include the
definition that was arrived at through this process and the subsequent
findings based upon data submitted by local school districts to the
department.
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 required each state to
identify a method for determining a persistently dangerous public
school. The first step in our process was to establish a Safe Schools
Committee. Members of this committee represented the following roles: a
president of a local, rural school board (Buffalo School Board), an
executive director of student services from a suburban school district
(Lewis-Palmer), a representative from the Colorado Association of
School Executives (CASE), a principal from an alternative school
serving students from both rural and city areas (Greeley), a high
school counselor from an urban school district (Denver), the
educational policy analyst from the governor's office, a representative
from the Colorado Congress of Parents and Teachers and a representative
from the Colorado Association of School Boards (CASB). The committee
was staffed by CDE members who represented No Child Left Behind and
Safe and Drug Free Schools.
The Safe School Committee began meeting in August of 2002. It was
the role of CDE to provide the committee with information requested
that included data on expulsions and suspensions, data collected from
schools per the Safe Schools Act and safe school data sent to parent's
homes by way of the school accountability reports. The committee helped
the department staff develop a Safe Schools Forum in order to seek
broader input from schools and communities from throughout Colorado.
This was a full day meeting held in October of 2002. Approximately 60
people attended this meeting and included the following representation:
students, law enforcement officers, principals, parents, teachers,
local school board members, the executive director of the regional
office of the U.S. Department of Education, school counselors, and
local safe and drug free schools and communities coordinators. The
majority of the day was spent in small group sessions facilitated by
independent volunteers. Department staff and members of the committee
were intentionally excluded from the discussions in order to keep the
input from local representatives as objective as possible. This allowed
committee members to hear from a broad spectrum of people on issues
related to persistently dangerous schools. The department absorbed the
cost of this Forum as well as committee member participation over
several months which amounted to $7,046.
The outcome of the Forum included many suggestions about school
safety as it relates to persistently dangerous schools. In addition to
taking these suggestions under consideration, the Safe School committee
also utilized guiding principles as follows:
A value of identifying schools that are truly and
persistently dangerous as opposed to schools where some unsafe
behaviors occur, but overall are basically safe.
A desire to direct more assistance toward schools in
greatest need of addressing school safety issues within resources
provided by the Act.
The need for data to be objective.
The need for the indicators to be measurable and based on
standardized definitions.
The need to use indicator data that is already collected
by CDE in order to notify schools by the 2003/2004 school year if they
are potentially identifiable as persistently dangerous.
The desire to create a system that encourages more
accurate reporting rather than dealing with disciplinary problems that
don't rise to the level of dangerous to self or others.
The Safe School Committee then set about developing criteria to be
utilized in identifying a persistently dangerous school. After much
discussion and several drafts the following Safe School Choice Option
policy was adopted by the Colorado State Board of Education in January
of 2003:
Part One: Victims of Crimes of Violence
Any student who becomes a victim of a violent criminal offense
while in or on the grounds of a public elementary school or secondary
school that the student attends, shall be allowed to attend an
available safe public elementary school or secondary school within the
school district.
Crimes of Violence
Crimes of violence, as defined by Colorado Revised Statute 18-1.3-
406(2)(a)(I) and (II), are those crimes that have been committed,
conspired to be committed, or attempted to be committed by a person
during which, or in the immediate flight there from the person:
A Used, or possessed and threatened the use of, a deadly weapon;
or
B Caused serious bodily injury or death to any other person except
another participant.
Crimes of violence are:
(A) Any crime against an ``at risk'' adult or ``at risk''
juvenile:
(B) Murder;
(C) First or second degree assault;
(D) Kidnapping;
(E) Sexual assault;
(F) Aggravated robbery;
(G) First degree arson;
(H) First degree burglary;
(I) Escape(from custody or confinement); or
(J) Criminal extortion.
``Crime of violence'' also means any felonious unlawful sexual
offense in which the defendant caused bodily injury to the victim or in
which the defendant used threat, intimidation, or force against the
victim.
In addition, local school must follow the prohibitions regarding
the enrollment of expelled students as set forth in CRS 22-33-106(4).
This law requires that a student who has been expelled must be
prohibited from enrolling or re-enrolling in the same school in which
the victim of the offense or member of the victim's immediate family is
enrolled.
Part Two: Persistently Dangerous School
Any student who attends a persistently dangerous public elementary
school or secondary school, as determined by the State in consultation
with a representative sample of local educational agencies, shall be
allowed to attend an available safe public elementary school or
secondary school within the school district.
Persistently Dangerous School
A school is determined to be ``persistently dangerous'' if the
total number of incidents annually reported to the Colorado Department
of Education for:
(A) alcohol violations, drug violations, assaults/fights,
robberies, and ``other'' felonies as defined by the Automated Data
Exchange;
(B) expulsions for firearms per the Gun-Free Schools Act; and
(C) the number of reports to CDE of school employees engaging in
unlawful behavior, as required by State Board of Education Rules 1-CCR-
301-37, 2260.5-R-15.05.
exceed the following numbers per student enrollment per year for
two consecutive years, beginning with the 2001/2002 school year:
45 for fewer than 299 students
90 for 300 to 599 students
135 for 600 to 899 students
180 for 900 to 1,199 students
225 for 1,200 to1499 students
270 for 1,500 to 1799 students
315 for 1800 to 2099 students
360 or more for 2,100 or more students
Procedures for Districts and Schools
Data will be assessed annually. The Colorado Department of
Education will notify districts and schools after the first year, if a
school has the potential of being identified as persistently dangerous
following the second year. When determined to be persistently
dangerous, districts must notify parents about their option(s) for
transferring students and complete the transfer(s) upon request.
Identification of schools
The Colorado State Board of Education approved the policy in
January 2003. The first data run to determine schools that met year one
criteria was completed in May of 2003. As a result 20 schools were
identified as meeting the criteria for year one. In accordance with
state policy those schools were notified. Year two data from the 2002-
2003 school year was submitted to the department on June 30, 2003. The
data run was completed in August of 2003. None of the 20 schools met
the criteria for year two. The primary reason for this was the decline
in numbers under the category of assault/fights. Schools indicated that
they had been reporting all fights including those that did not meet
the state's definition. When using the state definition for the second
year of analysis the number of assaults declined.
This concludes my testimony. Thank you for your time and attention.
I look forward to responding to any questions that you may have.
______
Mr. Osborne. So, first of all, Dr. Moloney, we want to
thank you for being here today. And I'd like to know the
process that Colorado used to build on its definition of
``persistently dangerous school''--and Mr. Smith addressed some
of these issues--and whether that process included a review of
school crime statistics and input from parents. So can you
explain that to us, because we think the parental involvement
is certainly a big part of this, too.
And one of the real concerns that I have is that--and maybe
you can correct me if I'm wrong--a school of 300 students, if
they had incidents at the rate that you would feel they would
need to have over a 2-year period, this means that literally
one out of six students would have been assaulted or involved
in some type of serious incident--which seems pretty high to
me--and at that level of involvement and still to be called a
``safe school.'' You know, I would not feel good if I was
sending a child to a school with those kinds of odds.
So anyway, if--it's kind of a rambling question, but if you
could address that to your ability.
Dr. Moloney. OK. I'll try not to be too rambling in my
answer.
Mr. Osborne. Good.
Dr. Moloney. At the heart of this problem--and always has--
is the unreliability of statistics. I well recall, as a high
school principal, often being accused of running a, let's say,
``nonsafe'' school because I had such a high suspension rate. I
was at pains to contradict that judgment by saying, No, it is
precisely because of our strictness, our careful recordkeeping,
and our follow-up that this is a very safe school.
The reality most recently validated, when we introduced a
``state report card,'' is that sometimes the schools that on
paper look the safest are the most dangerous, and the ones that
on paper look the most dangerous are the safest. This issue of
``how do you define things'' has plagued us yearlong.
Mr. Osborne. Could you explain that a little more
thoroughly to me--``the most dangerous being the safest on
paper.''
Dr. Moloney. Well, let me--my deputy superintendent in
Rochester, New York--(inaudible) is well known to us--and he
said, Building administrators knew that if there were
statistics that made them look bad--statistics which might get
in the media--that might negatively impact their careers. So
there was a tendency--a very human tendency to downplay what
was going on. And so notoriety would not come to some
enterprising reporter or an angry parent who--you know--ripped
the mask off of that circumstance.
Conversely, we had folks who did the opposite; who came as
close to a zero-tolerance policy as they could. And that meant
reporting a lot of fights, a lot of suspensions, a lot of
expulsions. But these were the schools that parents wanted
their children in, because they knew that there was an
administration who was very serious.
So there was a contrast between what the statistics say and
what is the reality, and that is what our committee under Mr.
Smith's direction had to wrestle with. And, of course, it
creates a problem of perception, and it creates problems for
folks in your circumstance who have to kind of look at this
mound of paper from 50 states and say: What is going on here?
Mr. Osborne. So you're saying one of the big problems is
reliability of reporting, building by building, and that there
doesn't seem to be any uniform standard in that regard?
Dr. Moloney. Mr. Smith, would you care to comment on that?
Mr. Smith. Yes. I'd like to add to Dr. Moloney's remarks.
One of the things we really struggled with, as the head
committee, is to engage in any of these behaviors that would
become in our schools as a result of an expulsion. So if the
student is expelled from school, they're no longer in that
environment. And to get into the notion of ``persistent,''
somebody else would have to step up and engage in that same
kind of behavior in order to make the school a ``persistent''
environment. They would also be expelled, and so somebody else
would have to step up. That's where the whole notion of
``persistence'' begins to come into play.
In Colorado we paid very close attention to the ``safe
schools'' option. And we've actually expelled kids, and the
general assembly has created programs for students who are
expelled so that they're not just churned into the community,
but they go on and get services and support. So there's a real
focus on those students who are engaged in these violent-
potentially leveled behaviors. So that was sort of the kind of
thing that we were faced with.
Mr. Osborne. OK. So you're saying that since students are
expelled for certain types of behavior, that then the
``persistent'' definition sometimes becomes removed because
those students were reported? Is that what you're saying?
Mr. Smith. Well, in order for the school environment to be
``persistent,'' that student is no longer there, somebody else
would have to engage in that behavior. And that's what we were
looking at in terms of one of the rates. If a student engaged
in assaulting another student and caused bodily injury, they're
expelled from school. As Commissioner Moloney indicated, that
would show up as an expulsion; having shown up as an assault
from that school, the parents may be alarmed. But the fact of
the matter is that student is no longer in that school. And
that's the dilemma that's posed by statistics.
Mr. Osborne. OK. Well, I understand some of what you're
saying. And at this time, I think my 5 minutes is up.
Mrs. Musgrave, would you care to continue?
Mrs. Musgrave. Thank you, Mr. Osborne.
Well, I don't think I ever heard an answer to the question:
In a school with an enrollment of 300 students, there would
have to be 90 violations in a school year before that school
would be considered ``persistently dangerous.'' And I just want
to know from the both of you: Is that a standard that is an
accurate indicator of how safe our schools are in Colorado? I
mean, that could be one every other day in a school year. Is
that an accurate indicator that our schools are safe?--I mean,
300 violations?
Dr. Moloney. I would defer to Mr. Smith, and then I will
follow up on his response to it more specifically.
Mr. Smith. My (inaudible), again, was that whole idea of
``persistence.'' You know, that--the scenario that you
described of ``every other day'' would be if somebody in that
school environment--somebody making it dangerous ``every other
day''--``persistently dangerous.'' And that, again, is
something that we struggle with.
When you look at the notion of ``persistently dangerous,''
that means--that would indicate to me as a parent and to other
parents that on a regular basis that school is a dangerous
place for my child to be.
Mrs. Musgrave. You know, I think an adult like myself going
into a work environment--and I'm thinking if I were applying
for a job and I read these statistics, what I would think about
going to work at a place like that. And then I think as a young
person, as a minor going into an environment like that, what
they're like.
Some children are very slight in build. Some children are
very needy by nature. They're more likely to be a target. And I
wonder what they feel like--what their gut feels like when they
go to a school that has 300 violations a year. That really hits
home with me.
Dr. Moloney, you worked in Pennsylvania. And we look at
Pennsylvania standards; Colorado standards are much lower.
Could you comment on that? Why is there such a difference?
Dr. Moloney. Well, I cannot speak to the criteria that each
state adopted. I can say something about the realities. Having
worked there for 9 years, I'm quite familiar with realities. I
would strongly submit that the standards for school management
here in Colorado are much stronger. And that is not out of any,
you know, superior wisdom on our part, but it is a very
different demographic knowing Philadelphia--if you're in a
Pittsburgh school--very well, being in an excellent position to
compare them with Denver and Pueblo or to some of our--our
cities. If they appear better in this measurement, I certainly
commend my colleague, Charles Zogby, who was there once we put
it together.
Mrs. Musgrave. Well, Dr. Moloney, in a student body of
2,000 in Pennsylvania, only 20 violations are permitted; in
Colorado a student body of the same size could have 360
violations or more. So I mean, there is a stark difference
between Colorado and Pennsylvania. I wonder how a parent
responds to that. I think I know.
Dr. Moloney. I think part of this--an easy resolution of
this would have been if a national standard had been set that
required every state to adhere to the same standard. This would
have resulted in much greater clarity and much greater
consistency. But for reasons I'm sure you understand, there was
a desire to give flexibility to the states; and when you do
that, you are at risk for 50 different approaches, which is
characteristic of how this country approaches school reform. We
act as if we have 50 sovereign nations. It's astonishing to the
rest of the industrial world, but it is germane to, you know,
what we're doing.
Mrs. Musgrave. Well, I think that the important thing to me
is that parents get accurate information so they can make a
decision for their child. And when you see these kinds of
disparities between the states, you know, I wonder if that's
appropriate. Could you tell me what incentives or consequences
you were implementing to really encourage honest reporting?
In specific, you know, when we may have administrators that
would either overreport or some that underreport, I'd just like
to say I would like to err on the side of giving the parents
the most information, perhaps even if it might be a little
alarmist at times. So what incentives--and either one of you
can answer that--are we giving these individuals to assure
honest reporting?
Dr. Moloney. I think that goal is certainly desirable. It
is indeed a disservice to a parent moving from Philadelphia to
Denver trying to determine what the realities are when they
look at these standards. It would be much more helpful to that
parent if there was a reliable standard set at a national
level. That parent would never be satisfied as long as we allow
50 different approaches.
I would prefer--just as I did when I was a school
administrator--to err on the side of strictness. Every poll
we've ever taken says parents rate discipline and its variance
as the No. 1 concern. More basic than the basics is: Does your
child come home from school in one piece? And we're as
committed to that as anyone. But you're right, the system does
not lend itself to that result.
Mrs. Musgrave. Thank you. I believe my time is up.
Mr. Osborne. OK. We'll entertain one more round of
questions with you gentlemen, if that will be OK with you.
Just a couple of thoughts. I've been in (inaudible) Denver
high schools. I been in quite a few of the Philadelphia high
schools. And I can tell you, from my experience, that there is
a fair amount of similarity; some dissimilarities. But still, I
think we can say that this area of the country is removed from
some of the problems that we see in Philadelphia, and,
obviously, the assessment is quite different in those two
areas.
It seems like we're hung up on the word ``persistent.'' And
I would assume that if one out of every six children were the
victim of some type of assault and violence every 2 years in a
school, most parents would say that's too persistent.
And in terms of a national standard, we understand that
appeal; but we also understand that most of the people at the
state level in education have resisted strenuously a national
standard. They wanted to have the state set the testing
standards; and as you know, there are differences state by
state.
So I think what the people in the Education Committee and
the House at least felt was that we would like to give each
state as much autonomy as possible. But also when you look at
the results here, 46 states say they have no unsafe schools.
Obviously, common sense and logic is this is somewhat
incredulous. And then to have one or two states with almost all
the schools labeled as ``unsafe'' doesn't seem logical. So it
may be that a national standard will come into being.
And then we're thrown back on the reliability of the
reporting at the school level. As you mentioned, that's a
problem. And I can see that every school wants to be considered
safe. And so we're certainly concerned about reliability and
integrity at the individual school building, too, which I would
assume you folks would be more clearly attuned to sitting in
Washington.
So anyway, those are just some of my thoughts. And I would
like to ask one more question and do this question for each of
you. When Colorado implemented their current provision, did you
hear from parents or teachers as to whether this definition met
or did not meet their expectations and whether it provided them
with the information they needed as to the safety of their
children? So, was there input from parents and teachers once
you had decided on your standard?
Mr. Smith. Yes, there was input. The PTA (inaudible)
Standard America Committee, so they approved--you know, they
saw the standards. Parents were quoted in the papers saying
they were not surprised that there were no ``persistently
dangerous'' schools in Colorado, because they didn't feel that
the school that their child attended was dangerous. I did not
receive any phone calls directly from parents saying they--or
any kind of a letter or anything indicating that they disagreed
with this criteria. Although I will add that we strongly
support providing parents with accurate data so that they can
draw the line themselves as to whether they deem it to be a
safe or an unsafe school.
So I really want to emphasize that in Colorado, providing
that information on the ``report card''--one assault may be too
many for one parent, and they may want to move their child
then. So I think the issue is providing accurate information to
the parents. I think that that's a principle that we absolutely
need to stick with, so that the parents themselves can look at
that data and then they can decide. In Colorado they can move
their child (inaudible) without a ``persistently dangerous
school'' label. They can move their child if there is one fight
and their child is involved in it and they deem that school to
be unsafe, they can move their child then.
Mr. Osborne. So you feel that you're willing to or are
providing the information to the parents at the present time?
Mr. Smith. I'm not sure that this information has gone out
specifically to parents. It's been in the press that, you know,
our legislature will require a school labeled as ``persistently
dangerous'' to notify parents. That is one of the requirements
of the legislation.
Mr. Osborne. So my question to both of you is: Do you have
that in process where you are going to notify the parents of
each school how many incidents have occurred at that school on
a given year or a 2-year period?
Mr. Smith. It's on the report card.
Dr. Moloney. OK. I could offer a thought on that of a
practical nature. When we interact with our 178 school
districts and 1700 schools, and particularly when we assert
certain constraints of time, we do not interact with them
directly. If we (inaudible), we suggest that it would be in a
(inaudible) communication. We operate through organizations, as
every state does.
Now, with parents, other than general citizenry, this is
the largest and most diverse group of folks who are involved,
and one can very legitimately raise the question: Which parents
do you communicate with, and is the organization sufficient?
Had we more time or resource or whatever, we might have cast
that net more widely. But as these processes go, it was a--I
think, let's say, a very thorough kind of outreach; but it
still leaves, as I think we all know, parents' differences of
opinion. Organizations and individual parents are often in
somewhat different places. But as Mr. Smith suggests, at the
end of the day, parents are fairly shrewd consumers. Maybe
their sources of information are not entirely scientific, but
they know what they like and they know what they want and have
ways of kind of tapping into this. But it's an imperfect
process.
Thank you.
Mr. Osborne. Mrs. Musgrave.
Mrs. Musgrave. Thank you, Mr. Osborne. I would just like to
say that when I heard about the makeup of the committee, you
know, it was a butcher, baker, and a candlestick maker; but I
tell you that committee should have had a lot more parental
input.
Granted we need administrators, we need folks from law
enforcement and the department and all of that, but really the
heart of this whole issue is letting the parents know about the
environment in the schools as with regard to safety.
I just have a question for either one of you in regard to
the 20 schools in Colorado that were defined after 1 year as
``persistently dangerous schools.'' What happened with that?
When they got that--that label, so to speak--what happened in
those schools? Were there consequences? Were there changes?
Could you respond to that, please?
Dr. Moloney. I think I could help you with a
generalization. We talked directly with the superintendents and
the principals involved, as is the purpose of this legislation.
This got their attention in a large way. I think some of the
circumstances you run into here, very likely you'll run into
with testing. In very small schools you find funny things
happen with numbers. They look like a fever chart. We were not
surprised with the disproportionality with middle schools.
But to specifically answer your question, I think they did
indeed pay very close attention to that. And I think others on
the edge of that bubble, so to speak, did also.
Mrs. Musgrave. But what did they do, Dr. Moloney? I mean,
did they report less fights? What did they do to respond to the
``persistently dangerous'' label that they had received?
Mr. Smith. On the Automatic Data Exchange--which defines
how school districts are to report the data that then goes on
the school ``report card''--the schools were not reading that
definition closely enough, I think. But what we heard and got
back from the school principals is that when you look at the
definition, it said that in order to record in that category a
fight had to arise to a second degree assault, meaning that
there had to be bodily injury.
Their response was, we've been reporting any scuffle on the
playground, a shoving in the lockers--we've been reporting that
as an assault, then. And that was supposed to be reported in
the other category, not in the ``assault/fight'' category. So
what they did is pay (inaudible) close attention to the state
definition than the Automatic Data Exchange. And what you saw
from this is a rise in the other violations and more accurate
reporting of ``assaults'' in that category.
Mrs. Musgrave. Well, what procedures are in place right now
to assure that all dangerous incidents are reported?
Mr. Smith. Well my response to that is the integrity of the
data is only as good as the integrity of the people reporting
it. I don't have any reason to believe that people are fudging
the data. I think there's a honest definition issue--what
constitutes a ``dangerous'' situation--and it may vary from
community to community. I mean, I just don't have the sense
that people are trying to be inaccurate in reporting their
data.
Mrs. Musgrave. Well, if you think that previously they were
overreporting in the ``assaults'' category and now you think
that, you know, the change in reporting is reflective, how--I
would just like to know how you think that officials found it
important to report those fights earlier, even though they were
nonfelony assaults, and we don't want to include them now; is
that appropriate?
Dr. Moloney. Let me offer a perspective on this, as we
(inaudible) the community. The dilemma that we have in all
aspects of reform is the concept of local control. As you know
very well from your days serving your district in the general
assembly here, many very sincerely were not happy with the
reforms that were being thrust at them by the states--uniform
standards, uniform assessment, accountability managers--and
they said that this violated local control; but rightly, the
general assembly and the Governors of both parties persisted in
this.
So now at least--and I use the example of testing in the
CSAP, which made them universally loved--but at least we know
in every single school what portion of youngsters got Question
H right because of that uniformity.
Relative to what we're talking about here today, we do not
have that. We have, as Mr. Smith indicated, where
circumstantial, we need to rely on a good-faith effort of folks
out there. Now, those folks out there aren't necessarily and
probably aren't even aware of what all of their counterparts
are doing. But in our data gathering of things like this--
whereas we can tell you exactly how many free-induced lunches
are given and we know what a lunch is, on the safety statistics
what comes back is--what any statistician will tell you--is
highly skewed data.
Mrs. Musgrave. Well, I agree with that. But when 20 schools
were found to be ``persistently dangerous'' and then magically
the reporting changed and then they weren't anymore, you know,
you do get a little concerned about how the reporting is done.
I do, at any rate.
I believe my time is up.
Mr. Osborne. Well, thank you. We'd like to thank the
witnesses for coming here. We have difficult jobs, and we
appreciate what you do. And so you may step down now. And I
would ask that the second panel come forward and take their
seats and recognize that once they get up here, we will have
the gentlewoman from Colorado make introductions. But thank you
so much for being here today.
Dr. Moloney. Thank you very much for having us.
Mr. Osborne. I want to thank the members of the second
panel for being here this morning. Since all of you reside in
this area in Colorado and since Mrs. Musgrave represents
Colorado, I will let her make the appropriate introductions. We
will call on Mrs. Musgrave at this time.
Mrs. Musgrave. Thank you, Mr. Osborne.
It's a pleasure to introduce all of you to The Honorable
Bob Schaffer, who is the first member of our panel. And, of
course, he served Colorado's fourth district from 1997 into
2002. He was Co-Chairman of the House Education Reform Caucus
and a member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce. I
have now taken his seat on that Committee. And prior to serving
in Congress, Mr. Schaffer served 9 years in the Colorado State
Senate. I believe he was the youngest person ever elected to
the Colorado State Senate, and he was Vice Chairman of the
Education Committee at that point. I knew him well then and I
know him and appreciate him now for the work he does on behalf
of education. It's very good to have you with us today.
We also have Ms. Gloria Zradicka with us today. She serves
as a policy analyst for the Education Commission of the States
in Denver; and prior to this position, she was a state services
analyst and a research assistant for the Education Commission
of the States. Ms. Zradicka has authored numerous publications
throughout her career, including the most recent, a commission
report entitled ``The Persistently Dangerous School Criteria.''
Welcome.
It's a pleasure to introduce my friend, Senator John
Andrews, president of the senate. Unfortunately, when I served
with him, he was minority leader, so we didn't get to have as
much fun; but what a pleasure to have you here, and I commend
you for the interest you have in education reform throughout
the years that I've worked with you. And welcome, Senator
Andrews.
And then it's my pleasure to introduce our last panelist,
Ms. Vicki Ware. And if I may say something very personal to you
today. I know that this may be kind of intimidating to you. I
remember the time when I first testified before the Education
Committee in this building, and I remember my knees were
shaking a little bit; and a few years later, I was on the other
side of the table. And I just want to say to you, even though
this room is set up to where we are elevated above you, we're
not ``above'' you in any way; and your testimony today means a
great deal to us. The most poignant things that we ever hear as
a legislator is testimony from citizens, particularly parents.
So I want you to feel very comfortable today as you tell your
story. And it's a pleasure to have you with us here.
Mr. Osborne. Thank you, Mrs. Musgrave. We'll begin with the
witnesses now. I'd like to call Mr. Schaffer. We served
together on the Education Committee and have come to know you
and respect you, and we certainly look forward to hearing from
you today.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE BOB SCHAFFER, PRESIDENT, COLORADO
ALLIANCE FOR REFORM IN EDUCATION
Mr. Schaffer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome to Colorado;
and to the rest of the Committee and staff, thanks for being
here. I am grateful for your attention not only to this issue
but to express it in a way that involves a field hearing in
this state.
This is one aspect of H.R. 1 that I'm particularly familiar
with, because it is one that--that I followed all the way
through its evolution and development as an idea that dated to
the original drafts, and there was some point of amendment
process. This ``persistently dangerous schools'' definition was
considered even before H.R. 1, and that was during the
reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act,
which did not receive as much interest at the time; but was
spoilage for inclusion in H.R. 1, and I'm grateful for it.
And I might also add that it was discussed in the
Committee. And as I recall, it was discussed on a bipartisan
basis and with wide approval across both sides of the aisle.
And without--and although, I will say that there was some
objection when we met in the back room--and we're dealing with
amendments and staffing and so forth--and when it came to the
actual consideration on the Committee floor, it did not--it was
the kind of amendment that, I think, was adopted in a way that
suggested that there was great hope on both sides of the aisle
for its successful implementation.
And the intention was directed at parents and with the
realization that there would be certain people in school
settings--whether they be administrators or perhaps teachers
and others within various states--that would find this
offensive. This is one more measurement and one more aspect of
public education in America. But the objective was to do--to
begin the process with an accurate assessment of dangerous
schools and to--and to disclose the results of these
assessments to the people who have the greatest responsibility
for educating their children, because they're parents. And so
it was very much student-driven and parent-driven. And the
expectation was that they would be empowered to make choices
when it comes to their children.
And this particular choice was a rather obvious one. I
think a survey of any parents on what they care about--I think
the school is one of their primary issues that they care about,
meaning--the academic quality and professionalism of teachers
and so on are things that they care about. But they also care
about--student security and school safety is high on the minds
of the parents in respect to their evaluation of their child's
school.
The Congress failed to deal with the most difficult part of
this question by letting the states do it, and that was done
for a couple of reasons. One is to defer to the judgment of the
states--which I think is always proper and a good idea--but
second, we would have never arrived at Congress agreeing on a
definition of ``persistently dangerous schools.'' So it makes
perfect sense--it did then and it still does now--to defer this
definition to the several states. It was also somewhat
expected; and from that standpoint when I was there to help
draft this particular provision, I'm not surprised that there
are many states that have decided the threshold should be so
high that, in fact, no schools in their state meet the
definition of ``persistently dangerous.''
And to get around to a conclusion here as well, I think the
Congress did a good thing by establishing a requirement that
schools be evaluated by each state on the basis of the danger
that occurs there and the kinds of the local violence that
students must endure. I think the Congress was correct to
suggest that there should be a connected choice element and a
disclosure element to parents. But in terms of what happens
next, I would--I think that there is one direction I would
recommend to Congress; and that is, we left quite a lot to the
U.S. Department of Education through its guidance on
recommendations to states on how this definition ought to be
presented. And because the Congress was relatively vague, the
Department of Education's guidance is relatively vague as well.
These definitions are really up to states.
And I think, Congressman Musgrave, you put your finger--
and, Mr. Chairman, you put your finger right on the seminal
issue here; and that is, to the extent to which parents are
involved in the definition and implementation of this
particular revision, my belief here in Colorado is similar to
what I would evaluate other states to have; that I think we've
been woefully inadequate when it comes to the involvement of
parents in deciding where this threshold is, because I think
the threshold is far higher than most parents would have
arrived at on their own. And that's not a criticism
necessarily, because these agencies are--they're not elected by
people. They're not--you know, the process that all the states
have gone through in arriving at this definition--are not
individuals who are accountable to the parents to begin with.
And I appreciate the gestures that all states have made,
including parents.
But I really believe that the Congress--perhaps there's one
recommendation that I can conclude with--is that the Congress
make greater effort to recommend that state legislatures define
this definition of ``persistently dangerous schools'' and the
elected representatives of the people play a greater role,
because I think it's very clear the direction that's taken
place by allowing an administrative bureaucratic definition
as--is taking us to a far different place than the Congress had
intended and most parents would expect. That concludes my
remarks.
Mr. Osborne. Thank you, Mr. Schaffer.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Schaffer follows:]
Statement of Hon. Bob Schaffer, President, Colorado Alliance for Reform
in Education
Good morning Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee. My name is
Bob Schaffer. I live in Fort Collins, Colorado with my wife and five
children. From 1997 to January of this year, I represented Colorado's
Fourth Congressional District in the US House of Representatives.
Throughout my six years in Congress, I served on the House Committee on
Education and the Workforce. In fact, I was Vice-Chairman of this very
Subcommittee.
It never occurred to me that I would someday be a Committee
witness, but I am certainly honored to appear before you today. First,
welcome to Colorado--the state I loved talking about so much when I
worked in Washington. It's a great state with big hopes, grand dreams
and expectations for our children that are as big as the Rocky
Mountains.
People here tend to rally around our schools and teachers. We love
seeing them succeed. We support them by applying a candid, direct and
unambiguous philosophy to making them better.
We believe our public schools can compete with others, and this
year, our Legislature entrusted them with the chance to do just that.
Our governor signed the nation's most aggressive voucher bill which
treats teachers like real professionals, parents like real customers,
and the state's poorest children like real Americans.
We also believe that school improvement entails the identification,
disclosure and correction of certain problems. The Committee's focus on
the topic of today's hearing indicates its willingness to do the same,
and I am grateful because the topic is an important one.
In 2001 the Congress passed H.R. 1, President Bush's Leave No Child
Behind initiative. The goal was, and is, to improve the performance of
the nation's schools and elevate the performance of the nation's
students. The program was built upon the president's belief that all
children can learn and that all children deserve a good school to teach
them.
The focus was always on the child. Children trapped in
unsatisfactory schools are the overriding objects of the law's
compassion. The comfort of institutions and the people employed in them
comes later. H.R. 1 seeks to rescue children trapped in failing schools
by offering incentives and other motivation to improve. Through
accountability, rigorous standards and disclosure, America's children
stand a good chance of realizing more equality, economic and civic
participation, opportunity and prosperity.
H.R. 1 also acknowledges that certain schools, for whatever
reasons, are dangerous places. Unable to change or improve, these
schools are places where the chances for academic progress among
students is remote enough to warrant candid assessment, direct
disclosure and unambiguous changes.
Some schools are dangerous because learning is persistently
substandard and improvement is less than adequate. Other schools are
dangerous because they are places of violence, corrupt or immoral
behavior, and lack of discipline. In these schools, it is widely
agreed, children stand little chance of learning and they face a
serious risk of personal, physical injury. Thus the focus of today's
hearing.
As one who participated in the drafting of H.R. 1, I concur with
the overall objectives of the president's initiative. I also know a
little about the origin of the provisions of the law that speak to
``persistently dangerous schools.'' I proposed similar language earlier
during the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act reauthorization. In 2001, I insisted the ``persistently dangerous
schools'' language be included in the very first legislative drafts of
HR1.
The goal was to help children in America's dangerous schools by,
first, identifying them; second, by disclosing the dangerous nature of
these institutions to the parents of children attending them, and;
third, by encouraging, and in some cases mandating, options allowing
parents to choose safe schools more conducive to learning.
As one who played a direct role in the development and passage of
this part of the nation's law, I submit now to this Committee that this
section is being poorly and improperly implemented by most states,
including, I regret to say, my own state.
Clearly, the Congressional efforts to defer judgment to state
officials and encourage state education agencies to carry out the
spirit of the law, gave broad authority to unelected individuals in
almost every state to define ``persistently dangerous schools.''
Unfortunately the definitions established by nearly every state has
established a threshold of violence, lawlessness and disorder that is
far above the tolerance level of the typical parent.
It seems the standards have been set at a comfortable level for
government employees--a level that avoids credible identification,
sufficiently precludes honest disclosure, and perhaps most pernicious
of all, denies liberty to those families which arguably would benefit
most from exercising it. The result, I fear, has so far resulted in a
situation falling far short of the intentions and expectations of the
Congress, the president and therefore, the American people.
Unless addressed by Congress, the resultant tragedy is that public
school children will continue to be unnecessarily exposed to
unacceptable levels of crime and school violence. Administrators of the
government-owned monopoly have once again proved their proficiency at
concealing the ugly truth about crime at public schools. According to
the Colorado Department of Education (CDE), there are no dangerous
schools in the entire state.
No kidding. Under new federal guidelines, states were required to
inform the US Department of Education last month of the number and
identity of dangerous public schools. Colorado's report claimed every
school in each of the state's 178 school districts is safe. No worries.
No problems. No trouble.
The controversy began with the well-intentioned new law enacted by
President George W. Bush and the US Congress. The measure was designed
to rescue children trapped in dangerous institutions and give them
newfound liberty to escape to safer schools. Parents would be informed
if their kids were at risk.
To avoid a one-size-fits-all approach, the Congress left the
definition of ``persistently dangerous schools'' to each state. Under
Colorado's new criteria, however, children would practically have to
attend a school in a war zone before officials would warn parents of
their child's imminent peril.
As usual, the real issue here is parental choice. Government-owned
school managers and their accomplices in the teachers'' unions
reflexively reject any notion that parents are capable of choosing
better schools--even when school safety is an issue.
The CDE convened a committee of these types to advise the state in
implementing the new federal law. The result is a ``farce,'' according
to one school safety expert.
At Fort Collins High School, for example, the school where two of
my daughters are attending at this very moment, students would have to
survive a minimum of 540 felonies over a two-year period before parents
would learn the school is persistently dangerous. It gets worse. Not
all dangerous crimes count toward the state's calculation.
The CDE lists only the most egregious felonies for reporting
purposes--murder, first- and second-degree assault, kidnapping,
aggravated robbery, first degree arson and the like. Even the guy in
charge of drafting the state's report admitted the incredibility of
Colorado's reporting guidelines. The Denver Post quoted the CDE's own
Dave Smith who confided, ``In order to be persistently dangerous, you'd
have to let the staff give up and let the students run the school.
For years, Colorado's parents and students have been victims of
underreporting. Of course, no school principal is eager to report all
incidents of school crime. The conscientious ones do it anyway. Others
just underreport, but that doesn't change conditions in schools.
Every day, according to the Center for Study and Prevention of
Violence at the University of Colorado, approximately 100,000 children
nationally are assaulted at school. Additionally, 5,000 teachers are
threatened with physical assault and 200 are actually attacked.
Approximately one of every eight students has reported carrying some
form of weapon to school, the CU researchers report.
These findings will likely never be accurately reflected in ``self-
reported'' school data. According to Kenneth S. Trump, President of--
National School Safety and--Security Services ``Since being labeled as
`persistently dangerous' has serious political and administrative
implications for local school administrators, principals will be
pressured to underreport and/or non-report school crime and violence.''
In testimony before the United States Senate, Trump explained,
``The ability of school security professionals, school resource
officers, and others in similar capacity to publicly speak about the
real security issues within their schools is also often limited. Again,
denial, image concerns, politics, and bureaucracy often prohibit these
individuals to openly discuss or testify to their real findings and
recommendations on what needs to be done to improve school safety. It
is not uncommon to find that individuals who do so against the will of
their superiors soon become transferred or unemployed.''
Trump is right. It is the politics of public education that has
betrayed the interests of children by placing them behind those of
dangerous schools and the people employed by them. To avoid the
prospect of parents choosing competing institutions, state officials
have simply decided to look the other way and ignore dangerous crime.
Sending kids into persistently dangerous schools, according to
President Bush ``is the ultimate betrayal of adult responsibility.''
It's a greater crime that parents in Colorado will be denied full
disclosure and the empowering choices Bush and Congress intended.
When it comes to persistently dangerous schools, our state and
others have gone to pathetic lengths to deny parental choice by simply
understating the ``danger.'' It is the moral equivalent of locking
innocent children in a burning building. Colorado schoolchildren
deserve better.
Mr. Chairman, I think it was a good idea to leave the definition of
``persistently dangerous schools'' to the states. I have always opposed
the heavy hand of government, yet I always support laws that empower
individuals over governments--federal, local, or even state ones.
In finding a solution to the failure of the law to be applied as
intended by the Congress, I urge you to seek solutions that perhaps
involve statutory definitions established by State Legislators. Without
involving those elected individuals who answer directly to the very
parents who love their children, we should expect this and other
sections of H.R. 1 to be defined by mediocrity.
This concludes my remarks. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
______
Mr. Osborne. Ms. Zradicka.
STATEMENT OF MS. GLORIA ZRADICKA, POLICY ANALYST, EDUCATION
COMMISSION OF THE STATES (ECS)
Ms. Zradicka. Good morning.
The (inaudible) provides some background information among
all states (inaudible) as far as implementing this requirement
of No Child Left Behind, and it's been mentioned that the
purpose of this is to allow children who are attending schools
designated as ``persistently dangerous'' to have the
opportunity to transfer to schools that are safe. The U.S.
Department of Education requires states to provide information
to the Secretary of Education annually on the number of schools
that are identified. It also requires the schools to maintain a
list of persistently dangerous schools that's readily available
to the U.S. Department of Education. And the local education
agencies are required to notify the parents at the point at
which schools are identified within 14 days prior to the
beginning of the school year, so children get the opportunity
to transfer to a safe school.
The analysis that I've done has been on 46 of the adopted
and public state policies that were available to us at the time
that we were looking at these. And the policies identified that
the states used a variety of factors to determine what
``persistently dangerous'' schools are.
One of the factors that states across the board looked at
was a time span. The majority--I shouldn't say ``majority''--
over 50 percent of the states looked at a 3-year time span when
they were considering what period should they look at to decide
which school was ``persistently dangerous,'' and most said that
they need to--the events needed to happen every one of those 3
years. About 25 percent of the states looked at a 2-year time
period; again, that the events must happen in each one of those
2 years. The remaining states did a combination of two and 3
years. Some of it was because they were just forming the new
policy and didn't have 3 years' worth of data. Some of them--
they looked at the current year and said that they needed to be
additionally in one of the previous 2 years, so there's a
combination of both. So there's a factor of two to 3 years that
states looked at when they were developing the criteria.
Another factor that was considered is the threshold number
of incidences or offenses that should occur before the school
is identified as ``persistently dangerous.'' About half of the
schools used a combination of the percentage of the student
enrollment for some offenses and a specific number of
incidences for other offenses. A real typical way that the
states did this is they might use a percentage of the
enrollment when they were looking at less serious offenses or
violations, and then they might use a specific number when they
use something like the Gun-Free Schools Act, so they would be
looking at distinguishing between less-violent and more-violent
situations as to how they looked at those.
Slightly less than a third of the states used only a
specific number of incidences to determine where their
threshold was, and less than one-fifth of the states used
(inaudible) based solely on the percentage of the student
enrollment. And when they were based on the percentages of the
student enrollment, these percentages range from one-half of a
percent to 5 percent of the student enrollment.
So you can see there's a wide variation of how the states
determined how they were going to consider as situations to
consider this--as situations to determine this.
The other factor that states looked at is: What did they
consider as the instances or offenses that would be counted
when they were figuring out their threshold numbers? Some of
them did a very detailed list of offenses, and some of them did
just the Gun-Free Schools Act violations. About 20 percent of
the states used their generic terms on weapons for violent
defenses to determine--to define what their situation was going
to be; 16 states referred to offenses that were defined
according to their state criminal codes. And about half the
states, in addition to whether they used offenses defined as
criminal or otherwise, specifically referred to the Gun-Free
Schools Act violations, and most of the remaining states in
some way referred to ``possession of weapons'' in their
definition of what they used as criteria for ``persistently
dangerous'' schools.
The number of schools that states determined really varies
on that factor; and it can be a combination, because some
states used a very narrowly defined list of offenses, but they
may also have a very low threshold. And when they have a very
low threshold, that (inaudible) the potential of still having a
large number of ``persistently dangerous'' schools. But
(inaudible) we know from circumstances that that's not what
happened. And conversely, states that have a very detailed list
of offenses might have a very high threshold of offenses, and
that has the potential, again, of attracting a very relatively
low number of dangerous schools.
When I did this written testimony, at that point there were
29 states that had declared what the number of ``persistently
dangerous'' schools was. Since then--as we all know, and we've
mentioned here--44 states have said they do not have
``persistently dangerous'' schools, in addition to D.C. Saying
they don't have ``persistently dangerous'' schools, and then
the remaining schools have been identified (inaudible) total to
52. So that's kind of where it is across the states.
There's a couple of notes of interest that I might comment
on. Indiana's policy says that after a school meets their
criteria for the third consecutive year, they don't
automatically designate that school as ``persistently
dangerous.'' They establish a panel of local and state safety
experts to decide if in fact: Is that school ``persistently
dangerous''?
Florida is the other one that has done a somewhat unique
way of defining it. Once a school has met their criteria of
what ``persistently dangerous'' is, then they do a survey of
the students, parents, and the school personnel. And if the
majority of the survey respondents perceive that school to be
unsafe, then they declare that's ``persistently dangerous.''
So those two are the most unusual. Most of the rest of them
have a pretty much--a time span. What are their threshold
numbers? And what are their criteria? What are the offenses and
the instances that they use in determining ``persistently
dangerous''?
Thank you very much.
Mr. Osborne. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Zradicka follows:]
Statement of Gloria Zradicka, Policy Analyst, Education Commission of
the States (ECS)
This testimony provides information on the federal requirement,
specified in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), that allows students
attending a ``persistently dangerous school'' to transfer to a safe
school. It provides descriptions of the requirement and of respective
state policies.
States receiving funds under the NCLB are required to adopt and
implement an ``Unsafe School Choice Option'' policy.1 This
policy must include a provision allowing students who attend a school
designated as ``persistently dangerous'' to transfer to a safe school
within the local education agency (LEA), including public charter
schools. The definition of what constitutes a ``persistently dangerous
school'' is determined by each individual state.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ H.R. 1, Title IX, Part E, Subpart 2, Section 9530.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The U.S. Department of Education2 requires states to
provide information to the U.S. Secretary of Education annually about
the number of schools identified. It also requires states to maintain a
list of persistently dangerous schools, so that it is readily
accessible to the U.S. Department of Education's representatives upon
request. LEAs that have a persistently dangerous school are required to
notify the parents of students attending the school that the school has
been identified as ``persistently dangerous'' and offer students the
opportunity to transfer to a safe school.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Unsafe School Choice Option: Draft Non-Regulatory Guidance
(Sections B-C, July 23, 2003).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
States must also identify persistently dangerous schools in
sufficient time for the LEAs to notify affected parents of the option
of transferring their children to a safe school at least 14 days prior
to the start of the school year.3
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Federal Register (pages 35671-35672, Vol. 68, No 115, 2003).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This analysis is based on 46 adopted or proposed state policies
that ECS has been able to document. These policies reveal that states
use a variety of factors to identify persistently dangerous schools.
(Criteria used by individual states are outlined in the report attached
to this testimony.)
One factor is whether the number of offenses/incidents taking place
at a school are examined over the course of two- or three-years. Over
50 percent of the state policies consider a three-year period and
require the offenses/incidents to occur in each of the three years for
a school to be designated as persistently dangerous. Twenty-five
percent of the states consider offenses/incidents occurring in each
year of a two-year period. The remaining states use a combination of
two and three years, such as considering offenses/incidents occurring
in any two years of a three-year period.
Another factor considered is the threshold number of incidents/
offenses required to occur before the school is identified as
persistently dangerous. Almost half the states use a combination of a
percentage of the student enrollment for some offenses and a specific
number of incidents for other offenses. For example, a state might use
an enrollment percentage for determining the threshold number of less
violent offenses/incidents but will establish a specific number for
more serious offenses such as Gun-Free Schools Act
violations4 or homicide. Slightly more than one-third of the
states use only a specific number of offenses/incidents to determine
their allowable threshold. Less than one-fifth of the states determine
the allowable number of offenses/incidents based solely on a percentage
of the student enrollment. When percentages of student enrollment are
used, the percentages range from one-half percent to 5 percent.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ A state law mandating the expulsion from school for a period of
at least one calendar year any student who is determined to have
brought a weapon to school.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
States' definitions of offenses/incidents vary from Gun-Free
Schools Act violations to detailed lists of offenses or crimes. Almost
20 percent of the states use the generic terms of ``weapon'' or
``violent offense'' to define applicable incidents/offenses. Sixteen
states define offenses according to their state's criminal code. About
half the states specify ``Gun-Free Schools Act'' violations to
determine persistently dangerous schools and many of the remaining
states include some reference to weapons possession in their
definition.
The number of schools in a state determined to be persistently
dangerous thus depends on the factors included in a state's policy. A
state using narrowly defined offenses also may have a low threshold for
the number of offenses, potentially increasing the number of schools
determined persistently dangerous. A state using a detailed offense
list may have a high offense threshold, potentially resulting in a
relatively low number of persistently dangerous schools.
A search of state Web sites and the news media found the number of
persistently dangerous schools identified in 29 states. No schools were
deemed persistently dangerous in Alabama, Arkansas, California,
Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky,
Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana,
Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Virginia,
Washington and Wisconsin. States identified as having persistently
dangerous schools are: New Jersey--seven schools, New York--two
schools, Oregon--one school, Pennsylvania--28 schools and Texas--six
schools.
______
[An attachment to Ms. Zradicka's statement is located at
the end of the hearing.]
Mr. Osborne. Senator Andrews.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN ANDREWS, PRESIDENT, COLORADO SENATE
Mr. Andrews. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Congressman
Musgrave.
Mr. Chairman, it's my hope that at the end of the day
today, you'll be able to say you had a much more friendly
welcome at the capitol in Denver than you ever did at Folsom
Field in Boulder.
Mr. Osborne. I was always treated well, until one time
Ralphie about ran over me.
Mr. Andrews. And as far as my friend, Mrs. Musgrave, you
were very gracious in telling Ms. Ware that you don't feel that
you rank above her. And I want the record to show that I know
you rank above me, and I think it's exactly as it should be.
I certainly agree with the Committee that no student should
have to attend a public school in which his or her personal
safety is constantly at risk, and so I applaud the intent of
Congress in requiring Colorado and other states to guarantee
children an exit from such schools as a condition of receiving
Federal grant money.
What a contrast from the late '40's when I entered public
school. The survey said that the main problems in public
schools across the land were things like chewing gum and
running in the halls, and now it's weapons and pregnancies and
drugs, all too prevalent.
I'm just concerned that the intent of the Persistently
Dangerous School Provision won't be fulfilled in a number of
states--including Colorado, as matters now stand--because of
some of the data problems that were identified by Commissioner
Moloney and Mr. Smith earlier in their testimony.
I want to focus on the 20 schools that were almost
classified ``persistently dangerous'' that you were asking
about earlier, Mrs. Musgrave. As Mr. Smith indicated, the
distinction is between second-degree assault, which is called
an ``assault and fight'' for purposes of the rankings or third-
degree assault, which is excluded now. What is this crime that
we're excluding? According to the Colorado Revised Statutes, a
person commits the crime of assault in the third degree if he
knowingly or recklessly causes bodily injury to another person
or with criminal negligence he causes bodily injury to another
person by means of a deadly weapon. Or as the rules are written
now, no incident of this kind that occurs in a Colorado public
school can count toward the tabulation of ``persistently
dangerous'' schools, so that countless fights between students
leading to countless bodily injuries aren't enough to trigger
the escape provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act, unless
someone makes a judgment call upgrading those fights and those
injuries to at least a second-degree assault.
I'm entirely in favor of allowing--under Federal law
allowing states to make their own rules as much as possible,
but this seems to me to be bureaucratic hairsplitting that
defeats the intent of No Child Left Behind. What difference
does it make to the students who got injured if it was only a
third-degree assault? What difference does it make to the other
students who stood by intimidated or to the parents who were
left feeling that the education rulebook defies common sense.
I was just talking with Mr. Smith, and I'm not clear
whether the distinction between third-degree and second-degree
assault was written in our School Report Card Statute--you
remember helping us in that 4 years ago, Congressman Musgrave--
or whether it is a rulemaking. But whichever, I'm going to see
what can be done to include this in the incident reporting, so
that instead of giving the benefit of the doubt to face-saving
for administrators and school boards, we give the benefit of
the doubt to student safety.
I associate myself with Congressman Schaffer's comments. I
don't criticize our fine State Board of Education elected
members, Commissioner Moloney, or our fine State Board of
Education staff, but we've got to get some common sense into
this process. It doesn't really matter what schools get
embarrassed or whose applecart gets turned over or how many
students are allowed to transfer out. This is supposed to be
about the students.
One more point. In the State Department of Education
published guidelines, if a school is declared ``persistently
dangerous,'' the department suggests local officials then
provide families with survey data that indicate which nearby
schools are perceived as safe or not, based on perceptions
scientifically gathered from students, employees, and parents.
This is saying, ``If you really want to know how dangerous a
particular school is, ask the people who go there every day.''
Now, that's common sense.
And again, legislatively or by rulemaking, I want to press
for a wider use of such survey data on school safety. These are
``customer satisfaction surveys,'' as we would call them in the
private sector.
In summary, I think we need to put the burden of proof
where it belongs, not on citizens and taxpayers to prove that
schools are dangerous--but the other way: Put the burden of
proof on educators to prove that schools are safe and unlock
the doors if they are not. We have to make consumer
satisfaction the ultimate yardstick for public education, as it
is for all the other goods and services we buy.
I'm proud Colorado now leads the Nation with a voucher
program to allow students to transfer out of unsatisfactory
public schools for reasons of safety or otherwise. But this
voucher law of ours, if it has any shortcomings, is too
bureaucratic in its yardsticks. Statistics on poverty and test
scores are fine, but let's have more involvement of parental
self-determination. That's my same concern about No Child Left
Behind. I welcome the oversight and the monitoring from
Congress on this, and we will try to do the same from the
Colorado General Assembly.
Mr. Osborne. Thank you, Senator Andrews.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Andrews follows:]
Statement of Senator John Andrews, President, Colorado Senate
No student should have to attend a public school in which his or
her personal safety is constantly at risk. I applaud the intent of
Congress in requiring states to guarantee children an exit from such
schools as a condition of receiving NCLB federal grant money.
But I am concerned that this intent will not be fulfilled here in
Colorado, as matters presently stand. We are one of many states across
the country that claim to have no persistently dangerous schools.
The claim rests on shaky data. According to media reports, along
with information I have received from state education officials,
Colorado would have had to identify 20 dangerous schools in this year's
rankings if the incident category labeled ``assaults and fights'' had
included the criminal offense of third-degree assault, as well as
first- and second-degree assault.
Let me read you the definition from section 18-3-204 of the
Colorado Revised Statutes: ``Assault in the third degree. A person
commits the crime of assault in the third degree if he knowingly or
recklessly causes bodily injury to another person, or with criminal
negligence he causes bodily injury to another person by means of a
deadly weapon.''
No incident of that kind, occurring in a Colorado public school,
counts toward the tabulation of persistently dangerous schools, under
the official policy adopted by our state department of education.
Countless fights between students, leading to countless bodily
injuries, are not enough to trigger the escape provisions of the No
Child Left Behind Act unless someone makes the judgment call that
upgrades those fights and those injuries to second-degree or first-
degree assault.
I'm all for federal law letting states make their rules as much as
possible, but this kind of bureaucratic hairsplitting cannot be what
Congress intended when it offered kids a transfer to safer classrooms.
Tell it to the students who got injured. Tell it to the other students
who stood by intimidated. Tell it to the parents who feel cheated by an
education rulebook that plays word-games and insults common sense.
I challenge Colorado's education policymakers to redraw their
incident reporting guidelines in a way that gives the benefit of the
doubt to student safety, rather than face-saving for administrators and
school boards. I urge them to include third-degree assault in the
statistics from now on, no matter whose applecart gets upset--no matter
how many schools get embarrassed--no matter how many students are
entitled to transfer out. Aren't the students what this is all about?
Let me draw the committee's attention to one other significant item
in the Colorado Department of Education document entitled ``Safe School
Choice Option: Procedures for Persistently Dangerous Schools.''
When and if any school in our state is ever identified as
dangerous, the department suggests that local officials provide
families with survey data on which nearby schools are perceived as safe
or unsafe, based on perceptions scientifically gathered from students,
employees, and parents.
That's just a fancy way of saying that if you really want to know
how dangerous a particular school is, ask the people who go there every
day. I endorse that common-sense approach, and I will encourage
Colorado educators to make much wider use of survey data on school
safety--customer satisfaction surveys we might call them.
A 1994 study produced by Metropolitan Life Insurance found that
annually across the United States, one in four students and one in nine
teachers are attacked in schools.
A 1996 poll by Public Agenda, sampling 1300 high-school students
nationwide, found that 48 percent of them said drugs and violence are
serious problems in their schools.
Are things still that serious in 2003? Are they that serious here
in Colorado? We need to know. We need to put the burden of proof where
it belongs--not on citizens and taxpayers to prove that schools are
dangerous, but on educators to prove that schools are safe. We need to
find ways of making customer satisfaction the ultimate yardstick for
public education, just as it is for all the other goods and services we
buy.
That was the idea behind a bill that Congresswoman Musgrave will
remember my proposing several years ago. It was called the Colorado
School Guarantee Act. The bill simply stated that as a condition of
receiving state aid, every public school shall guarantee, to the
satisfaction of the parent, a learning environment fully conducive to
the student's academic progress, moral development, and physical
safety.
The guarantee would be enforced as follows: (1) A parent who is not
satisfied may file an affidavit stating the reasons, after which the
school has 90 days to take corrective action. (2) If the parent is
still not satisfied, a hearing is held for school to show cause why
relief should not be granted. (3) Relief, if granted, will consist of a
scholarship voucher good for tuition at any accredited nonpublic
school, not to exceed 80% of district per-pupil revenue, for the
student's remaining years at the current level of education--
elementary, middle, or high school.
My proposed School Guarantee Act died in committee in February
2000. It went too far too fast, in the direction of affirming that the
parent is the ultimate educator of the child--thus limiting the role of
government to facilitating, not dictating.
I am grateful and proud to note that three years later, April 2003,
Colorado did enact a far-reaching school voucher program, House Bill
1360, which is already signing up families and schools for its
launching next summer. If this new program has any shortcoming, in my
opinion, it is the reliance on bureaucratic measurements such as
poverty and test scores, rather than pure parental self-determination,
to decide when the doors will be unlocked and families will get to
choose.
Colorado's voucher program is still a step in the right direction,
and so is the federal safe school choice option. That option too is
overly bureaucratic, as I have stated--too easy for the establishment
to sabotage, too difficult for parents to take advantage of. I hope the
Congress will continue to monitor its implementation and make necessary
changes. We here in Colorado will do our part to make the promise of
school safety is honestly fulfilled for every child, every family.
______
Mr. Osborne. Ms. Ware.
STATEMENT OF VICKI WARE, PARENT
Ms. Ware. I just have a statement to make.
Mr. Osborne. That will be fine.
Ms. Ware. My son attended MLK for 2 years. And the last
year, on the way home, he was followed by a known gang member
and was beat up really, really bad. He was beat up horribly
bad.
I went to the school the next morning; and they said, if
they suspend the other guy, they would have to suspend my son.
And I didn't have any understanding of that. I just removed my
son out of MLK and placed him in a different school.
And shortly after that, my 12-year-old daughter was beat up
on the way home from school, and so I removed her from MLK and
placed her in another public school to where I feel they will
be safe there.
Mr. Osborne. So that's the experience you've had
personally?
Ms. Ware. Yes.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Ware follows:]
Statement of Vicki Ware
In the year of 2000 my son was followed home by a known GANG MEMBER
and beat up horribly bad. He had to miss one week of school due to his
injuries. MLK Middle School then filed charges with the Juvenile Court
because my son had missed a week of school. I called the school
everyday to let them know that my son was hurt and he wouldn't be in.
So shortly thereafter, I removed my son from MLK Middle School and
placed him in Gove Middle School. About three months later, after
school my 12 year old daughter was followed home and was in a fist
fight with another 12 year old girl. The next morning I took my
daughter into the school to let her counselor know what was going on.
As we sat waiting for her counselor, I noticed a boy in the next office
pulling razor blades from the bottom of his shoe. All the while the
counselor that was in the room with him said, ``Your parents are going
to be very upset when they hear about this.'' I feel that the police
should have been called first, then his parents. My concern was about
my daughter at the time. This was the 2nd to last day of school. I
removed my daughter from MLK Middle School and placed her in Gove
Middle School.
______
Mr. Osborne. OK. Well, I'd like to thank all of the
witnesses for coming today, and we'll ask a few questions at
this point. And starting with Mr. Schaffer.
You were in Congress when ``No Child'' was written. I
remember your sitting up on a higher dias than I was, and
deservedly so. And I wondered if you could amplify a little
bit--some of your opening remarks, I think, addressed this--but
could you tell me a little bit more about what you thought the
intent of this provision was when Congress drafted the law.
Mr. Schaffer. Sure. Just within the context of the overall
purpose and intentions of H.R. 1, there are really three parts.
One was a higher level of national evaluation of student
performance, the second was granting greater degrees of
flexibility to the states, and the third element, the president
asked us to move forward on. His proposal was making greater
opportunities available for parents to exercise marketplace
decisions with respect to education. And that last element
was--was to be supported by better data-gathering--again, both
on an academic side and on a performance side from the
standpoint of America's public schools.
And so it was--it's an interesting thing here that one of
the driving elements of this ``persistently dangerous school''
language was to allow for greater levels of choice. We--in
fulfilling the president's vision of leaving no child behind--
we wanted to make sure that children who were trapped in
schools that were not teaching them well would have the
opportunity to leave and choose other schools.
And that marketplace dynamic is believed by the president
and ultimately by the Congress--or eventually by the Congress--
to create school improvement through greater levels of
competitive schools. And this--and it was also agreed, Well, if
we're going to be concerned about the intellectual well-being
of children, parents tell us, We should also be concerned about
the physical well-being of children in certain schools.
And so this information and data-gathering was designed to
be a tool to, first, begin the process of getting better data,
but also arming parents with that data so that they could
exercise those choices. It was designed to be for parents--pro-
parents--and not to be an extraordinary high threshold so that
the law would not apply in the vast majority of America's
states and the schools within them.
Mr. Osborne. OK. Thank you very much.
And, Ms. Zradicka, apparently you're somewhat of an expert
in this area--at least you've gathered a lot of data--and I
wondered if you could provide any suggestions as to what you
think maybe would be a little bit more uniform standard that we
might look at across the country.
Ms. Zradicka. Well, you could look at the data from the
policy's perspective. I think one of the things that the states
were trying to get at--and this is only, you know, based on my
perceptions--is they were trying to avoid tagging schools as
being ``persistently dangerous'' if there were one or two
instances that happened, which is why they were getting into
the time period.
The actual document that the Honorable Robert Schaffer
referred to--a nonregulatory document--actually used the phrase
``a pattern of violence.'' And I think that's what states were
trying to get into with their two- to 3-year time period that
they looked at, and also, you know, looking at what the
situations (inaudible). And possibly that's what people need to
look at is: Were they considering in this (inaudible)--as
Senator Andrews mentioned--(inaudible) you know, What do they
consider as situations of violence? Do they consider them third
degree? Don't they consider them third degree? Because a lot of
the states, when they spelled out (inaudible) criminal code,
they specified first- and second-degree assault, first- and
second-degree, you know, whatever. So that might be a place
that people can look at and say: Is this valid or not valid?
Mr. Osborne. All right. Senator Andrews, you mentioned the
``second'' and ``third'' distinction. And is this strictly a
legal distinction made by the courts, or who makes that
distinction?
Mr. Andrews. As I understand, when criminal charges would
be brought by a district attorney, Mr. Chairman, it is a
judgment call according to certain criteria.
I heard Mr. Smith clarify in response to a question that
fights were overreported in year one causing the 20 schools to
qualify as almost ``persistently dangerous'' because third-
degree assaults were included, and I heard him say that a
``third-degree assault involves no injury.'' The definition I
read you from our statutes twice mentions that ``injury has
occurred.'' It doesn't just say that ``there might have been''
but that there was in fact an injury. Now, I imagine when a
prosecutor would bring charges, the question was: How serious
was the injury? How intentional was the injury?
But as I said earlier, it seems to me that it doesn't
matter very much to the student injured, the other students who
live in a climate of fear as a result, and the families who
also have a sense of apprehension, as Ms. Ware would have had
in sending her child off to school every day.
Mr. Osborne. OK. Thank you. My time is up.
Mrs. Musgrave.
Mrs. Musgrave. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In regard to Martin
Luther King Middle School--that is not in the category of
``persistently dangerous schools''--in the 2001 and 2002 school
year it had 326 assaults/fights--where CDE might think that's
overreported--it had 8 dangerous weapons, 8 drug abuses, and 5
alcohol and tobacco abuses, and not to mention 626 other
violations of the code of conduct. Senator Andrews, do you
think this school is safe?
Mr. Andrews. I certainly don't. And this is why--whether it
involves a legislation or whether it involves simply
consultation with our State Board of Education--I think we need
to change the threshold.
Reference has been made several times to our ``School
Report Card.'' I'm proud that Colorado is leading the United
States in this regard, as we are with our voucher plan. But I
think that we may need to consider whether the School Report
Card statistical reporting is classified in a way that we as
legislators feel honestly gives the right information to
parents and to the public, or we may need to delink the School
Report Card criteria from the ``persistently dangerous
schools'' qualifications to comply with No Child Left Behind.
But the numbers you read me at Martin Luther King Junior
High School are shocking. They ought to disturb all of us. They
ought to alarm all of us. And these aren't just numbers on
paper. Every single one of those 326 assaults and fights was a
child like the son and daughter of Ms. Ware, and something has
to be done.
Mrs. Musgrave. Senator Andrews, further--you know, I asked
the question earlier: What happened to the 20 schools? What
happened when they were classified as ``persistently
dangerous''? Do you have a comment on that in regard to those
20 schools in Colorado?
Mr. Andrews. The Rocky Mountain News focused in on the
dramatic falloff of reported fights and assaults in year two.
It pointed out not only--I believe it used Martin Luther King
Junior High here in metro Denver. It also used a school in
Leadville, a middle school in the rural Colorado community
where I grew up where we thought it was pretty safe. So this is
a problem across the state.
And the technically correct guidance given by Mr. Smith and
his colleagues at the state department to tell these schools,
You're not reading the criteria correctly; put this in a
different box--it was put under the box called ``other''
instead of ``assaults and fights''--I don't fault them for
giving that guidance, but something is clearly--the ball has
been dropped somewhere between the legislature and the
rulemaking to allow, as I call it in my testimony,
``bureaucratic hairsplitting'' of this kind to get in the way
of the commonsense intention of No Child Left Behind.
I should mention that Colorado is--Colorado parents and
students are fortunate that there is already a wide-ranging
option to transfer a student out of one public school into
another in the same district or a different district before No
Child Left Behind was ever passed, and that's the option Ms.
Ware exercised.
So this issue is really less urgent in Colorado, because of
the initiatives that have been taken already in legislation to
allow a wide-ranging choice of public schools for parents for
whatever reason. They don't have to give a reason at all. They
just say, I'm moving my child as soon as I can find space. But
it is more urgent in other states that don't have that kind of
escape option in the absence of the proper application of the
``persistently dangerous'' criteria.
Mrs. Musgrave. Well, I am not without sympathy for teachers
and administrators that constantly face the challenge of
dealing with students that are committing criminal behavior or
even inappropriate behavior. It's not their fault. And I'm not
trying to say that. But transparency is the goal here.
And, Senator Andrews, how can we make that more attractive
for these school administrators so that parents can really get
an accurate idea of what's going on in the schools in regards
to (inaudible)?
Mr. Andrews. I think Mr. Smith is absolutely right when he
said that the integrity of the data is only as good as the
integrity of the people who compile the data. But the very fact
that the MLK Middle School reported those 326 assaults says to
me, There is good faith in the reporting compliance by many,
many of these school administrators, and so--Commissioner
Moloney is correct. Sometimes there's a disincentive to report,
lest I make my school look bad, lest I get penalized or even
lose my job. But it sounds like in the face of that, there's
still a good-faith effort to comply with this reporting.
I bring it right back to myself and the 99 others of us who
serve in the state senate and the state house. We have got to
take a hold of this thing and define it better, as Mr. Schaffer
suggested.
Mrs. Musgrave. Well, that brings me to a question for
Congressman Schaffer. What do you think is the best solution to
this problem that we're facing with transparency?
Mr. Schaffer. I do believe it would make eminent sense for
the Congress and the Department to--not to mandate, certainly,
but to the extent that the DOE guidance lays out a vision or a
process for state education agencies and local education
agencies to implement this law, I think that--I think we ought
to put more emphasis at the Federal level on encouraging states
to make this at a legislative level. And I think that's a
relatively easy thing to do, and perhaps it doesn't even
involve Federal legislation.
But within a broader context of expectations, I think we
should expect that the tendency of states is going to be--even
with legislative language--is going to be to underreport. And
if there are--and if the data collection accounts for that, I'm
persuaded by Senator Andrews that it ought to be on the basis
of having schools prove to parents essentially the safety
associated with all the individual schools, rather than argue
from the assumption that they're all safe; and if the
statistics get high enough, then we'll get around to notifying
parents.
This parental notification part is the most powerful
element. And that is what is being avoided--the quest is to
avoid parental notification, the letter that goes home from a
school to parents saying, This is a ``persistently dangerous
school.''
And again, I'm much in the place where Ms. Ware is. My
level of tolerance and threshold is much lower than what I
would get--my twin daughters right now are in public high
school in Fort Collins. And given the size of that school, it
would take 540 dangerous events over a 2-year period before I
would be notified that my children are in a dangerous place
under Colorado's guidelines.
I'm--and I realize--there's just something that has to be
said here. I went to the Department of--the Denver Health
Department Web page to find out what it takes to close down a
restaurant. And the enclosure for imminent health hazards
include: There's justification that there would be no hot
water, sewage problems, no utilities, pest infestation,
contaminated food, a food-borne illness outbreak, extreme
uncleanliness, and inadequate refrigeration. One event. And
now, the people who implement the ``persistently dangerous
schools'' language are different than the ones who deal with
health inspections. And from that standpoint, it's not an
apples-to-apples comparison, except for the commentary it makes
about us as a society, when it takes one event to shut down a
restaurant, but 540 before I get a notice as a parent. It just
indicates that as a society we care more about what I feed my
stomach rather than what our schools feed my children's minds.
Mrs. Musgrave. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Osborne. Thank you. I think we might mention one thing
here--and that is, that in my previous travels, sometimes I'd
run into a school that had a fence around it that was very
high--not a deer or elk could get over that fence--and metal
detectors required to get into that school, and I'm sure that
administrator felt that he was doing everything he could and
probably still had quite a bit of violence in that school.
So this is not an easy problem. It's very easy for us to
sit and throw stones at the schools. But some of it is
neighborhood-driven. The clientele, if they come to school
violent, there's going to be violent type of events, and I
think we recognize that fact. But having said that, however, I
think we also would probably agree here today that something is
amiss when you have 44 states who can't find one single school
that is not dangerous.
Ms. Ware, I would like to just ask you a couple of
questions here. When your children were assaulted, do you know
whether those were second- or third-degree assaults? Did
anybody ever tell you?
Ms. Ware. No. I just assumed that my daughter was maybe a
first-degree assault--not first-degree--maybe second-degree,
and my son first-degree.
Mr. Osborne. All right. And then what criteria did you use
as to what schools you would send them to when you pulled them
out? Did you have any information that you were able to
(inaudible)?
Ms. Ware. I asked other parents. And I've known personally
like six different parents that transferred their kids out of
MLK.
Mr. Osborne. So you went primarily by word of mouth and
just on what other parents would say?
Ms. Ware. Yes.
Mr. Osborne. All right. Then I guess that brings us back to
maybe the most common point that I've heard, and that may be
some type of survey information. And so I would ask this of all
the panels: Do you have any idea as to what type of survey we
might implement? What would be the criteria? Because you
realize that, you know, some parents--one may have heard one
rumor, and they're going to say, Well, this is a very violent
school, and they're going to take several documented cases. But
do you have any way that you would advocate implementing a
survey and that type of approach to this problem?
Mr. Andrews. Mr. Chairman, in looking at the guidelines
that our state department has issued, that would be, as I
understand, triggered when and if the school was termed
``persistently dangerous.'' The exact phrase in their guideline
is that it would be reliable and valid--or reliable and
verified--I forget two of those three words--survey data
gathered from parents, employees, and students.
And so I think we're talking about scientific polling,
which in politics--and in market research, for that matter--we
know it can be done to within a very high degree of certainty,
three or 4 percentage points. And there are some costs to that.
But again, I think the cost is money well-spent, as Congressman
Schaffer suggested, money well-spent toward the goal of finding
out and publicizing--finding out and publicizing what the
people who go into these buildings every day or send their
loved ones into these buildings every day feel and know about
the place, not just based on anecdotes, but based on some kind
of scientific polling survey or market research.
Mr. Osborne. So you're advocating maybe a series of
questions that would be asked of the parents, and you would
have to have a statistically significant sample?
Mr. Andrews. I think a valid sample and carefully drawn
questions to weed out the emotional overreaction to
overreaction. Congress has told us to look for ``persistently
dangerous'' schools; and I think that previous testimony was on
target in saying, Let's not overreact based on isolated
instances. Let's look for the pattern. Let's look for the
continuity of the danger.
So I think the right questions and the right sample of
parents, students, and employees can get us that data.
Mr. Osborne. All right. Would you advocate that that be
constructed at the state level or at the Federal level?
Mr. Andrews. Mr. Chairman, I believe that that should be at
the state level. I believe that almost all of these
determinations need to be made at the state level to the extent
that we can. I'm a pretty thoroughgoing Tenth Amendment
Federalist, particularly as to the rights of education, which I
don't see mentioned in the U.S. Constitution anywhere, with due
respect to your Committee.
Mr. Osborne. We don't worry about those things.
Mr. Schaffer, did you have a comment?
Mr. Schaffer. I do. I would just point out that the state's
``report card'' and data-gathering process in Colorado is
probably--and I've had a chance to review--sitting in your
capacity--to review similar data-collection processes in other
states. Colorado's really is one of the best. And the data-
collection categories that we find when it comes to safety and
discipline are good categories and give us perhaps a head start
in this state.
But here again, when the difference between 1 year and
another year can be so dramatic as a matter of--and changed as
a result of interpretation, it just suggests that this is an
inexact science at the moment and very difficult to get our
hands around, but I think it charts a clear path for what needs
to happen--not only in Colorado but throughout the country as
well. And it comes down to the individuals reporting to the
state as well.
I think there's 178 school districts in Colorado. I don't
know what that translates to in terms of the number of
principals to fill these reports out, but it's quite a lot of
opportunity for a difference of interpretation and in what must
be interpreted in order to arrive at these statistics.
Mr. Osborne. Yes.
Ms. Zradicka.
Ms. Zradicka. One thing that--if you were going to have a
survey, you might have to talk with the U.S. Department of
Education, because in their (inaudible) it says that state
education agencies should develop objective criteria for
(inaudible) in identifying ``persistently dangerous schools.''
And they say ``objective'' usually means the type of data that
includes records and (inaudible) for bringing violence to
school. They do include results from certain student surveys
about issues, such as physical fights on school grounds or data
from gang presence on school grounds. And they say in
(inaudible) subjective information might include data-gathering
from focus groups about community-wide perceptions of safety
and (inaudible) information.
So at least on the surface it looks like the U.S.
Department of Education is focusing on (inaudible), although
they're putting in (inaudible).
Mr. Osborne. So you're saying that you don't think that the
surveys would qualify under the guidelines that have been laid
out at the present time?
Ms. Zradicka. It mentioned ``surveys.'' It's talking about
getting data from students as far as actual instances that
happen--is the way that I interpret that. Now, other people may
interpret it differently. But I think at least from the
surface, when I read this, the focus seems to be on (inaudible)
things that have happened, although, they do mention
(inaudible) things. But that would be one thing that might be
considered (inaudible)--if you considered the survey route, you
know, having the department give some different guidelines or
expanding (inaudible).
Mr. Osborne. And then last. Ms. Ware, which would you put
your faith and reliance on--the reports from other parents as
to what's going on in the school or some type of report from
the administration at the school as to the safety level of the
school?
Ms. Ware. The administration.
Mr. Osborne. You would go with the administration in terms
of what they said?
Ms. Ware. Yes, I would.
Mr. Osborne. OK.
Mr. Andrews. Mr. Chairman, if I might just add the thought:
As a parent--my children are beyond school age, but I also have
a grandson that will soon go to school. It matters to me that
if there is a climate of fear in my child's school and if you
can find that out by surveys--when you study how New York
cleaned up its crime problem, there was this broken-windows
approach that they were going to start with the smallest
incidence and send a message to the community that authority in
law enforcement--now we're serious. And I think that is the
message that needs to prevail in our schools. That if schools
have even a climate of fear among the students, parents, and
employees, that we could determine by surveys, that in itself
is significant. It's going to stay in the way of learning that
has to take place there.
Mr. Osborne. I have an additional comment. Because
obviously if you're a young person and you get slammed up
against the locker once a week, there may not be any physical
evidence of damage, but the internal scars are there. And it
certainly is something that's hard to quantify. But it's very
real, and it's very present, and it really affects the school.
Mrs. Musgrave.
Mrs. Musgrave. Thank you, Mr. Osborne. I would just like to
say that on a personal level, I can very much identify with
what you've gone through, Ms. Ware. My children are all grown
now, but we had a couple of incidences with our children where
two of them were beat up, so to speak--or pushed down and
harmed. And the turmoil that goes on in the home and the things
that we go through as parents--with the knotting in the gut,
sending our child off to school every day--is enormous. The
toll that it takes on the family trying to imagine your child
in an environment where they're supposed to be learning, and
all they're thinking about is: Is somebody going to beat me up
today? It's a distraction that is very, very difficult to deal
with.
When I think about the education process, I think
underreporting of school violence is much like what inflated
grades did to academic rigor. Parents think that things are OK
because their kids are getting good grades or parents think
that the environment of the school is safe because the school
is not classified as ``persistently dangerous.'' But I think--
and with respect to teachers and administrators and the
Colorado Department of Education, I think that transparency
needs to be our goal, because there's one thing that we all
have in common: We want a good education for our children.
You know, I don't fault the schools. I don't fault the
Department. It's a reflection of our culture when children
commit violent acts when they're in school. And the challenges
that educators face today--and the administrators--are
enormous, and I'm very appreciative of that. But when we have
problems, we need to know about them. And we're not going to
address those problems unless they're evident to parents and
other members of society.
I would just like to thank you all for your testimony, and
I appreciate it very much. And particularly for a mother to
come forward and talk about something that's very personal--I
appreciate how difficult that is, and I thank you.
Mr. Osborne. I wish to thank the witnesses for being here
today. And if there's no further business, we stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:44 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[An attachment to Ms. Zradicka's statement follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0139.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0139.002
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0139.003
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0139.004
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0139.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0139.006
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0139.007
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0139.008
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0139.009
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0139.010
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0139.011
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0139.012
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0139.013
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0139.014
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0139.015
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0139.016
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0139.017
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0139.018