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How state bureaucrats conspired to conceal the violence in New York’s schools

Kids trapped in dangerous schools are supposed to have an escape hatch — it’s their right under federal law.

But a few years ago, New York state education officials quietly changed the rules governing how schools must report violent incidents.

That’s led to a steep apparent drop in serious offenses — making it much harder for families to exercise their right to transfer their kids out of unsafe schools.

But it doesn’t mean our schools are actually safer, according to state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

The federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 requires every state to enact policies giving students enrolled in “persistently dangerous” schools the right to transfer to a safer school within their district.

New York designates a school as “persistently dangerous” if it meets a threshold level of serious violent incidents — that is, homicide, physical assault, sexual offense or weapons possession — for two consecutive years.

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But starting in the 2021-2022 school year, the state tightened the reporting rules significantly.

Now, schools must only report incidents of assault, weapons possession or sexual offenses if they are committed by students over age 10, constitute a felony, and were reported to police.

All three conditions must now be met for the state to be informed.

As a February report from DiNapoli’s office noted, the new rules “risk that ‘violent and disruptive’ incidents are underreported.”

So it’s no surprise that, according to state data, assaults, weapons possession, and sexual offenses plummeted in the last few years.

Assaults, for example, went from 4.9 incidents per 1,000 students in 2017-2018 to 0.5 incidents per 1,000 students in 2023-2024.

Meanwhile, reports of bullying and drug use soared — safety issues that don’t count toward the “persistently dangerous” designation.

Narrowing what’s regarded as a severe incident makes it far less likely that any school will meet the state’s “danger” criteria.

According to my analysis of state data, virtually no schools have met the “persistently dangerous” threshold designation since the pandemic’s end.

In 2018-2019, 50 schools statewide met the threshold for a single year, while 11 schools met the two-year threshold.

By 2023-2024, only seven schools met the single-year threshold — and no schools at all met the two-year threshold.

DiNapoli last month reported no “persistently dangerous” schools for the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 school years, indicating that the trend is continuing.

But the “persistently dangerous” label is an important policy lever for families.

In 2007, when now-defunct Jamaica High School was identified as a “persistently dangerous” school, the city was required to inform parents of transfer options — and many families grabbed that chance.

But when no schools qualify for the designation because of how offenses are defined, students effectively lose their federally guaranteed right to move to safer schools.

And school safety remains a major concern for New York parents: In 2025, the city’s annual survey of former public-school families found it to be one of the top reasons for leaving the system.

The State Education Department claimed that the new reporting rules “reflect developmental age and intent,” citing the example of a “minor” event like a kindergartener hitting another kid with a block as one that’s no longer necessary to report.

But even young kids are capable of serious acts that pose immediate danger to other students. 

And restricting reportable incidents to those that involve law enforcement ignores the fact that administrators often strive to deal with conflicts internally.

In Rochester, for example, school officials allegedly failed to call police in 2023 after a student reported a sexual assault to multiple staff members.

The state’s data-collection rules only give schools more grounds to keep troubling incidents out of official records.  

The comptroller’s February report recommends using “complementary methods of data collection,” such as annual school climate surveys, to gauge school safety.

But relying on parents’ and students’ perceptions is no substitute for data on actual incidents.

New York should restore its former standards and stop clouding the realities of school safety.

Parents and students deserve the truth — and the right, guaranteed by federal law, to escape dangerous schools.

Neetu Arnold is an education policy researcher at the Manhattan Institute. X: @neetu_arnold

State Education Department

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