Reader Bas Braams sent along an interesting tidbit about a little-known segment of the NCLB act, known as the Unsafe School Choice Provision. Under this provision of the NCLB, if a school is persistently violent for two years in a row, parents can transfer their kids to other non-persistently violent schools. This is meant to give parents more freedom to protect their children.
New York, though, seems to be doing its best to stymie these opportunities. This month, the New York State Education Department submitted a new proposal to the NYS Board of Regents with new definitions of a "persistently violent" educational environment. This proposal re-defines in-school "violence" in such a way as to leave out many violent and criminal acts from which parents would want to protect their children. Under the proposals the schools are complying with NCLB (which gives them great latitude in definining "violence), but parents would find it very difficult to actually transfer their child.
Dee Alpert, a NY lawyer, describes the proposal in an email:
Under this proposal, only weapons offenses count as crimes. If a 12 year old is raped in school by a fellow who just beats her unconscious first with his fists, it doesn't count. If he rapes her at knife point, it does. A homicide does not count if it's done with fists, or by banging the victim's head into a wall or throwing him/her down a flight of stairs. Gotta be a gun, knife, etc. involved!
And they make it plain that bullying and intimidation are the big problem in the State of NY. Now, every research paper in the world has shown that kids with disabilities get bullied, physically intimidated, beat on, at a far higher rate than any other kids.
So . . . one more time when NYS Ed. is looking to count disabled kids out. But this is so bad for every child in school, or who wants to attend school but can't because it's just too dangerous, it's really hard to stomach no matter which kids you're looking out for. It's a short and sweet memo. Read it for yourself, if you can stomach getting past the first half. The NYS Ed. Dept. will do anything it can to insure that parents cannot exercise parental decision-making authority by being able to force their kids' transfers to other public schools in a district. But really, this goes just too far. Except in New York.
Posted by kswygert at June 16, 2003 09:44 AM