City Schools Are Dangerous Places, Report Says

Just 14 New York City schools reported enough violent incidents to make it onto the state's list of "persistently dangerous" schools, the state education commissioner, Richard Mills, announced yesterday.

That list, which is required under the federal education law known as No Child Left Behind, includes 11 special education schools.

Just months ago, the state comptroller charged that school officials were underreporting the number of violent incidents in the classroom.

Yesterday, Mr. Mills added 17 schools to the state's list, but said about 19% of the state's 4,452 schools reported no incidents of violence, prompting both critics and the commissioner to challenge the accuracy of the reporting.

"We need to verify that we're looking at real results and not bogus results," Mr. Mills said at a news conference yesterday in Albany.

The state started keeping the list of "persistently dangerous" schools in 2003. In its first year, education analysts raised eyebrows when no schools made the cut.

Because the state changed the way it determines which schools are dangerous — it now includes all incidents of reckless endangerment and assault and not just those that involve weapons — many more schools were put on the list than last year.

Among the schools added this year is one of the city's nine "impact" schools, which the Bloomberg administration has flooded with extra police to help stem the tide of violence — Samuel Tilden High School in Brooklyn. City school officials also appealed Tilden's inclusion on the list, saying that its aggressive metal detection program makes the school appear to have more violence than other schools.

Of the 73 incidents of violence reported at Tilden last year, 54 were for weapons possession, according to state figures.

Aside from Tilden, the two other non-special education schools were Junior high School 78 and P.S. 109 in Brooklyn.

Last year, only five schools made the state list, including just one in the city: the Brooklyn School for Career Development.

The city's Department of Education has appealed the inclusion of the special education schools, claiming that such schools should be exempt under the regulations.

"The regents and commissioner believe that children with disability are entitled to the same safe school that other children are," a spokesman for the state's department of education, Tom Dunn, said.

To make it onto the persistently dangerous list, schools must have had six violent incidents per 100 students for two consecutive years. Those incidents can include homicide, sexual offenses, robbery, assault, arson, kidnapping, reckless endangerment, and possession, use, or threatened use of a weapon.

The president of the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, said the small number of city schools on the list didn't make sense. She said schools are under pressure to report fewer incidents.

"What we are seeing is a Catch-22 situation," Ms. Weingarten said. "No one wants to be held accountable for reporting big numbers. So they find ways to underreport. The underreporting then undercuts the ability to make schools safe."

She said the union is launching a safety plan for the coming year that will ensure accurate reporting, "which is the first step in creating a safe environment in every school so the children who want to learn can learn."

Mr. Mills said yesterday that he would launch an audit of the state's schools to make sure that they are all reporting violent activity. He said the audit would start with the 858 schools that reported no violent incidents.