Fact Check: Are City Schools Unsafe?

“Whether it’s the student in Brooklyn who brought a gun to school on the first day of the new school year or today’s tragedy in the Bronx, one thing is perfectly clear; students are not safe in NYC Public Schools and anyone who says they are is simply delusional.”
Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, Republican nominee for mayor, September 27, 2017Nicole Malliotakis was among the first to pivot from this week’s news of a tragedy in a Bronx classroom to a critique of Mayor de Blasio’s handling of school safety—but it was far from the first time, and she was in no way the first person, to raise questions about violence in schools under the progressive mayor.

As City Hall has touted record-low school crime, opponents (especially those in the charter-school movement) have accused the mayor of ignoring statistics that show an uptick. Malliotakis’ charge actually goes a step further. She doesn’t just say schools are seeing more crime or more violence but that they “not safe.”

Is it safe? Is it safe?

Obviously, the two incidents to which Malliotakis refers above do not on their own prove either that schools are getting more dangerous or that they can be deemed “not safe.” The public school system is huge and statements about the state of or trends in safety cannot be based on individual episodes.

The mayor bases his statements about school safety on statistics about school crimes that are reported to the police. Reports of the seven major felony crimes (murder, rape, assault, robbery, burglary, larceny and auto theft) in schools have dropped each of the past five years, from 699 in fiscal year 2013 (the last full year of the Bloomberg era) to 504 in fiscal 2017, which ended this past June.

* * * *
Data from the Mayor’s Management Report

Fiscal Year	Seven major felony crimes in schools
FY09	902
FY10	839
FY11	801
FY12	812
FY13	699
FY14	654
FY15	614
FY16	532
FY17	504

* * * *According to the Mayor’s Management Report, incidents under “other criminal categories” have also dropped over that period, from 2,626 to 2,007. Stuff listed as “other incidents” dipped and then increased ago to be about where they were in FY13.

The Bloomberg administration also relied on police reports for its proclamations about crime in schools.

Of course, some crimes aren’t reported to the police. De Blasio’s opponents say the city should instead use a state system called VADIR (Violent and Disruptive Incident Reporting) that takes reports directly from schools.

If you compare the overall number of incidents reported to VADIR in the 2012-2013 school year with what was reported in the 2015-2016 school year, the most recent for which numbers are available, there is an 11 percent decrease in reports.

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Data from VADIR

	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16
Enrollment	997,518	991,312	1,034,559	1,039,737	1,041,715	1,051,966	1,063,853	1,069,842
Homicide	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0
Forcible sex acts	10	13	13	21	17	10	19	20
Other Sex Offenses	2,113	1,875	2,015	2,436	2,105	2,151	2,239	2,317
Robbery with a weapon	8	6	3	10	6	3	5	5
Robbery without a weapon	149	154	194	229	182	111	116	70
Assault With Serious Physical Injury, weapon	15	21	37	43	36	39	66	77
Assault With Serious Physical Injury, no weapon	237	316	491	471	352	345	504	631
Arson	266	270	233	312	320	214	238	208
Kidnapping	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
Assault With Physical Injury, weapon	393	309	491	488	560	660	875	954
Assault With Physical Injury, no weapon	3,643	2,849	3,785	4,434	3,946	4,021	5,696	6,687
Reckless Endangerment, weapon	289	329	152	166	138	124	247	98
Reckless Endangerment, no weapon	1,228	1,184	710	1,020	904	951	1,133	1,547
Minor Altercations, weapon	601	795	1,292	1,268	1,097	1,079	1,375	978
Minor Altercations, no weapon	21,648	21,158	22,052	21,443	18,497	20,087	17,031	15,642
Intimidation, Harassment, Menacing, or Bullying (weapon)	662	676	688	864	823	862	835	576
Intimidation, Harassment, Menacing, or Bullying (no weapon)	5,907	6,132	6,924	7,100	6,086	5,986	4,374	4,877
Burglary	2	1	6	4	7	6	2	2
Criminal Mischief with a weapon	57	62	23	45	38	36	56	24
Criminal Mischief without a weapon	1,889	1,609	1,628	1,557	1,249	1,227	1,178	463
Larceny	1,467	1,366	1,410	1,495	1,324	1,218	1,145	826
Bomb Threat	93	76	95	27	111	98	112	148
False Alarm	337	242	345	307	377	425	373	439
Riot	3	2	1	1	1	11	2	4
Weapon Possession	3,247	3,285	2,775	2,735	2,416	2,371	2,530	2,656
Drug possession	728	917	1,065	1,230	1,219	1,207	1,333	1,422
Alcohol possession	441	536	670	583	334	361	317	333
Other disuptive	18,962	17,380	21,215	21,743	13,194	17,101	15,647	8,184
Total incidents	64,395	61,563	68,313	70,032	55,339	60,705	57,448	49,189

* * * *That overall total masks big changes in particular categories, however. The number of “other disruptive” incidents fell 38 percent over that time, but the number of assaults resulting in serious injury rose 80 percent. Sexual offenses jumped 10 percent while robberies plummeted by 60 percent. As the New York Times has noted, experts have long questioned the validity of VADIR data.

It’s worth noting that in some of the categories that showed significant changes over time, the number of incidents is relatively small. That means a few incidents here or there generate big percentage changes.

It also means that, thankfully, a very small number of students are victims in those categories. As horrible as it is that any student might suffer a “forcible sex act,” the fact that there were 20 reports of such acts in a system of more than a million students suggests the risks are relatively low.

Feelings matter

Whether it’s regarding schools or the city in general, talking about safety often means discussing perceptions of safety as much as the actual probability of coming to harm. Perceptions can be irrational and self-reinforcing, for sure, but they aren’t uniformly inaccurate, and on some level perceptions are always relevant because they can affect daily life.

The Department of Education surveys parents, students and teachers each year on a range of topics, including safety. Overall, in the 2017 survey done last spring, 91 percent of students said they felt safe in classrooms and 84 percent said they felt safe in hallways and other parts of school. Both measures were on par with what was reported the previous two years.

However, 5 percent of parent respondents did identify school safety as their top concern. That ranked eighth in terms of issues identified as parents, well behind the desires for more enrichment and smaller class size. But it indicates that while safety is not broadly a concern within the DOE community, it is for some families.

A look at survey results for individual schools suggests a similar story. Students were asked about safety across four areas of the school experience. An average of 80 percent or more of respondents said they agreed or strongly agreed that those areas were safe at 836 of the 1100 schools for which responses were reported. When it comes to teachers, 1153 of the 1876 schools listed had more than 80 percent of respondents agreeing that “discipline and order” are maintained at the school. Only at around 10 percent of school did fewer than half of teachers say that was the case.

Signs of trouble

Those same teacher-survey numbers do lead to some questions about the Bronx school, Urban Assembly for Wildlife Conservation, where this week’s tragedy occurred. Sixty-seven percent of teachers there strongly disagreed with the notion that order and discipline were maintained there. Only 19 percent agreed with the statement. Of the roughly 1900 schools surveyed, only three showed higher levels of teacher concern about discipline.

Asked about whether the DOE had seen those numbers and taken any action based on them before this week’s killing, the school department’s press office provided this statement from Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña: “I have instructed my team to conduct a thorough investigation on all issues, and this is underway. We have additional safety measures and grief counselors in place and will continue to support the school community.”

Taken together, the available evidence offers a mixed picture of whether violence is rising or falling in schools, although the most reliable figures indicate it is decreasing. It does not indicate that there is a system-wide problem of violence. It does suggest, however, that there safety is a worry at a minority of schools.

Beyond the facts is the question of policy response. Some commentators have called for metal detectors and tougher disciplinary policies in the wake of the stabbing, but last night one Bronx organization, the New Settlement Parent Action Committee, made a different call:

While many are calling for increased police presence and metal detectors in the school in response to this tragedy, the New Settlement Parent Action Committee maintains that these measures are merely temporary and superficial solutions to a deep and complex problem. … We must invest in social workers and counselors, not police and metal detectors. … Metal detectors will not prevent violent fights in our schools; we know that anything can be made into a weapon if a student is feeling trapped and desperate, but if our schools are safe, affirming, and supportive environments for young people, we can eliminate violence in our schools altogether.

While the use of suspensions has fallen during the de Blasio years, some of his critics contend more reform is needed because stark racial disparities persist.