'No Child' Data on Violence Skewed

In Maryland, a proposed policy that would have defined persistently dangerous schools based on one year of data was thrown out because it would have identified 36 schools, according to the Department of Education report.

Modzeleski said the Department of Education was unable to force the states to adopt a stricter definition.

"If Congress feels the provisions aren't working well, they have every right to go in and modify them," he said. "We don't have the authority in the law to require that it's one year. We could show that that's the best practice, we could say we'd like them to go there, but we can't mandate them."

The reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act will give Congress a chance to introduce changes to the law or simply abolish it.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) has introduced a bill that changes "persistently dangerous schools" to "schools which do not have a safe climate for academic achievement," on the grounds that the name alone was causing anxiety over the policy.

"It's not going to be as threatening for schools," she said. "This will remove the stigma associated with high violence."

Chuck Buckler, Maryland's director of student services and alternative programs, said the original term is unpleasant -- akin to telling parents that they were sending their children to a war zone.

"I don't like the title at all," he said. "When this all came about, I said, 'This is something that's going to be a death knell for a school. Everybody will transfer out.' "

He said he was surprised to find that most parents at the six persistently dangerous schools in Baltimore didn't transfer their children to other schools.

The designation, he found, caused communities to rally around their schools and try to make them safer, an effort he said had brought improvements.

Nevertheless, McCarthy hoped that the softer title, which goes along with additional federal aid to unsafe schools, will encourage more states and school systems to take the policy seriously and address problems with violence.

"You can't keep hiding that and you wonder why kids are failing," McCarthy said. "No child should be afraid to go to school."