Pennsylvania students are not being provided with safe school choice options as the law requires because of its weak definition of “persistently dangerous,” a Commonwealth Foundation analysis finds.

Senior Education Policy Analyst of the Commonwealth Foundation Rachel Langan told The Center Square by email: “Federal and state law require that students attending a persistently dangerous school or those experiencing violence at school be provided with a transfer to a safe charter school, school within their own district, or at a neighboring district.”

Langan said that Pennsylvania law “defines a dangerous school based on the number of arrests, not the number of incidents.”

“Incidents,” according to Pennsylvania law, “include but are not limited to: simple assault, aggravated assault, sexual assault, rape, terroristic threat, bomb threat, arson, vandalism, criminal trespass, theft, robbery, suicide attempt, vandalism, and possession of weapon,” Langan said.

In its analysis, the Commonwealth Foundation proposes that state lawmakers redefine the definition of “persistently dangerous” to include violent incidents.

The Commonwealth Foundation said in its analysis that Pennsylvania is in violation of state and federal law for “failing to identify persistently dangerous schools and neglecting to provide safe school choice alternatives for students attending dangerous schools.”

If the Commonwealth Foundation’s solution of redefinition is enacted, over a third of Pennsylvania’s schools would qualify as dangerous, its analysis found.

According to a 24-year longitudinal study, 37.3% of Pennsylvania’s approximately 3,000 public schools are dangerous when dangerous is defined by incident, the foundation analysis says.

“These dangerous schools represent 46.5 percent of the public school student population statewide,” the analysis said.

Currently, the Pennsylvania Department of Education “has no records identifying persistently dangerous schools and failed to provide safe alternatives for students attending dangerous schools,” the analysis stated.

Langan told The Center Square that the result of defining dangerous schools based on arrests and not incidents is “under-reporting of violence because a district with thousands of incidents but only a handful of arrests can avoid being labeled as violent.”

“But for students experiencing violence, their safety is compromised when assaulted, whether or not the assault results in arrest,” Langan said.

The analysis stated that: “Calculating danger based only on arrests exploits a loophole in the law that results in school districts turning a blind eye to violence unless or until the violent incident results in an arrest. This practice neglects the law and, more importantly, ignores student safety.”

The worst areas in Pennsylvania for persistently dangerous schools as defined by incident are Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with over 70% and 80%, respectively, of schools in the two districts falling under that category, according to the analysis.

Langan told The Center Square that “every child deserves a safe environment where they can learn and thrive.”

“By neglecting to follow and enforce federal law, Pennsylvania is not only endangering the lives of students but also risking the loss of billions of dollars in federal funding given the US Dept of Education’s recent enforcement of the ‘persistently dangerous schools’ labelling,” Langan said.

The Commonwealth Foundation’s analysis follows a May letter from the U.S. Department of Education to chief state school officers reminding them of the Unsafe School Choice Option provision located in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

In the letter, states are reminded of their duty to provide a safe school choice for students and encouraged to regularly review and revise their definitions of “persistently dangerous.”

The Commonwealth Foundation is an organization aiming to “transform free-market ideas into public policies” in the state.

BY TATE MILLER | The Center Square contributor