School Performance - How Safe Are Our Schools?

In 1998, students aged 12-18 were victims of more than 2.7 million total crimes at school, including 253,000 serious violent crimes (rape, sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault). But schools seem to be getting safer than they were. As we see from the chart, the non-fatal victimization rate declined between 1992 and 1998, from 144 incidents per 100,000 students to 101. Most school crimes involve thefts. Students are about two times as likely to be victims of serious violent crime away from school.

Children get hurt at school. The Centers for Disease Control reports that about 4 million children and adolescents suffer mainly minor injuries each year at school — sports injuries, playground falls and the like. Fatalities are rare: fewer than one in 400 injury-related deaths among children aged five to 19 years occurs in schools.

School safety was on the minds of legislators when Congress passed the Improving America's Schools Act of 1994. That act included the Gun-Free Schools Act (GFSA), which requires that each state receiving federal funds under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act have a state law that requires all local educational agencies in the state to expel from school for at least one year any student found bringing a firearm to school.

The table shows data related to expulsions in 1998-99. There were 3,371 expulsions: 59% (1,991) involved handguns, 12% (418) involved rifles or shotguns, and the remaining 29% (962) involved other types of firearms (bombs, grenades, starter pistols, and rockets). Alabama had the highest number of expulsions per 1,000 students. Most expulsions were at the senior high school level (57%), followed by junior high school (33%) and elementary school (10%).

States with the Most Students Expelled for Violations of the GFSA: 1998-1999

State	Expulsions
1. Texas	294
2. California	290
3. Georgia	208
4. New York	206
5. Alabama	174
6. Missouri	171
7. Tennessee	152
8. Pennsylvania	145
9. North Carolina	141
10. Virginia/Washington	115

A report released in 2000 by the Hamilton Fish Institute, a federally financed research group affiliated with George Washington University, claimed that school principals are underreporting the problem of guns at schools. The authors claimed that there were "100 times more guns in the hands of children attending American schools than principals have been reporting to Congress." William Modzeleski, the director of the U.S. Department of Education's safe and drug-free schools office, called the report "foolhardy," according to Education Week on the Web.

The government says our schools were safer in 1999 than they were in 1995. As we saw in the previous panel, it is a cause for concern that homicides at school now tend to involve multiple victims. Next we will look at perceptions of school safety. Finally, we will look at the problem of bullying.

Sources: Chart: U.S. Departments of Education and Justice. Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2000. Online. Available: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/ April 24, 2002. "New CDC Guidelines Help Schools Prevent Injuries In Children." Medical Letter on the CDC & FDA. 30 December 2001 p. 3. "Report on State Implementation of the Gun-Free Schools Act — School Year 1998-99." Online. Available: http://www.ed.gov/offices/OESE/SDFS/GFSA/report_2000/part1.html. April 26, 2002. Jessica Portner, "Report Claims Guns More Plentiful at Schools," Education Week on the Web, 27 September 2000. Online. Available: http://www.edweek.org/ April 26, 2002.