Good news: The number of city schools the state deems “persistently dangerous” fell from 39 last year to 27 this year.
Bad news: That’s at least 27 schools where kids aren’t safe — four of which were on last year’s list.
We say “at least” because it’s an open secret that school staff play even more games with safety stats than they do with grades, test scores and graduation “requirements.”
By federal law, parents can transfer children out of any school on the danger list.
Funny: When the government finds a bridge is dangerous, it closes the thing down.
This is how low the nation’s expectations for public schools have fallen — and how much failure America tolerates.
It’s one thing to throw up your hands at academic failure. It’s another to just shrug at danger in the halls.
Stopping kids from assaulting each other, after all, is only a matter of will.
The will to set a zero-tolerance school-discipline code, and enforce it. The will to insist that teachers play their part. The will to expel truly bad kids (which requires the will to admit that some kids are truly bad.)
The “persistently dangerous” problem hits home especially hard for four dozen Upper West Side families who’ve been told there’s no room for their kids to start Kindergarten at PS 199, the local school.
Instead, as Sunday’s Post reported, the city Department of Education told the parents their children would attend PS 191. That school’s nearby — but it just made the “dangerous” list, after running up 97 “violent and disruptive” incidents in the last school year.
That includes four sex offenses, 12 assaults that caused physical injury (four with weapons) and 10 “bullying” cases — eight of which involved weapons. At a primary school.
In some ways, the “dangerous” label is a blessing, because the DOE must now offer those parents another choice. They were already up in arms because (around) 80 percent of kids at PS 199 pass Common Core exams; at PS 191, it’s about 12 percent.
That low level of achievement is what you’d expect at a school where children and teachers spend the schoolday in fear.
The real tragedy here is that hundreds of kids will still attend PS 191 next year. Some will be the kind of kids at the heart of the violence — but others will be children who could make something of their lives, if the system gave them a real chance.
If you really want to do something about the “two New Yorks,” Mr. Mayor, wouldn’t this be a good place to start?