Home > Projects > Education Policy Research and Technical Assistance

Persistently Dangerous Schools

Client: Indiana Department of Education
Term: January 2003–June 2003

The Unsafe School Choice of the No Child Left Behind Act requires each state to designate a procedure for identifying “persistently dangerous schools” and offer students in such schools the choice to transfer to a “safe” school. To provide data to assist and inform the decision making on this issue by the Indiana Department of Education, the Center conducted a series of focus groups in Indiana.

Focus groups for teachers and for students and parents were conducted in three locations to represent different geographical locales: Gary (urban), central Indiana (suburban), and southern Indiana (rural). Protocols developed for each focus group included:

Perceptions of behaviors that make a school dangerous
Types of information that might serve as indicators ranking of various offenses as dangerous
Types of support that might be provided to improve schools identified as dangerous