Blue-state governors are on high alert these days, fearing that President Donald Trump will send federal troops to address the rampant crime ravaging their constituents. But these very same governors — many of whom have presidential ambitions for 2028 — have ignored violence in not only their major urban centers but also their public schools.
While they eye higher office, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom have all abdicated their responsibility to protect students in their respective states. (RELATED: The Most Dangerous Teenagers in America)
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires states to identify “persistently dangerous schools.” This federal law requires states to help students — either victims of school violence or those attending one of the designated schools — transfer to another school under the “Unsafe School Choice Option.” (RELATED: For Too Many in Education, Charlie Kirk’s Assassin Is Exactly the Type of Person They Are Trying to Create)
Yet, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Illinois, and California claim to have no persistently dangerous schools. None. Nothing. Zilch. And this bold claim allows these states to skirt their responsibilities to provide genuine school choice to students trapped in violent schools. (RELATED: Wisconsin Places Limits on School Choice)
So, how do they do it? The devil is in the details.
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania, at one point, was a national leader in identifying persistently dangerous schools. In years past, the Keystone State was one of the only eight states to follow the law. According to an investigation by The 74 (an education-advocacy publication), Pennsylvania had identified 155 persistently dangerous schools by April 2019.
But based on the latest data, the Pennsylvania Department of Education now has zero persistently dangerous schools.
Pennsylvania decided to stop counting reports of violent incidents … and instead opted to count only incidents involving arrests.
What changed? The ESSA enabled states to choose how they categorized dangerous schools. As a result, Pennsylvania decided to stop counting reports of violent incidents — such as assault, weapons possession, and robbery — and instead opted to count only incidents involving arrests.
However, this latter data-collection methodology creates giant loopholes. It makes the definition of a dangerous school so narrow that states can claim to have no persistently dangerous schools in their state. Despite schools reporting hundreds of violent incidents in a year, Pennsylvania lawmakers can weasel their way out of offering genuine school choice.
Yet, school violence is no secret, especially for Pennsylvania students. According to recent analysis by the Commonwealth Foundation, about 37 percent of Pennsylvania schools qualify as persistently dangerous when counting incident reports, not just arrests, over a 24-year period.
This problem is even more acute in urban areas. Nearly three-fourths of Philadelphia and almost 90 percent of Pittsburgh schools qualify as persistently dangerous.
Sadly, Pennsylvania isn’t alone.
Maryland
Maryland is also plagued by school violence. Over the past three school years, the Maryland State Department of Education reported a 16 percent increase in suspensions and expulsions and a 19 percent increase in attacks, threats, and fighting in schools.
However, despite this increased violence, Maryland also reports having zero persistently dangerous schools. Maryland only counts student suspensions that exceed 10 days or expulsions toward their persistently dangerous criteria. The state only counts a school if it has suspended or expelled 2.5 percent of the student body for violence over a three-year period.
“The rising number of violence within city public schools has been unfathomable,” said Lillian Green, a student attending Baltimore City College High School, reading an open letter to her city’s leadership. “If you’re a student, you fear walking through your building. And, if you’re a parent, you wonder if your child will be the next name on the evening news.”
Illinois
Illinois also has a sweeping school violence problem. Chicago Public Schools witnessed a 26 percent increase in violent crime in 2023.
And this violence isn’t limited to the hallways and classrooms. Simply walking to school is dangerous for these students. A recent study found that nearly two-thirds of schools in Englewood, a Chicago neighborhood, had at least one gun incident within 400 meters of student pathways.
It’s almost like this dereliction of duty, which traps kids in violent schools, is by design.
However, the Illinois State Board of Education reported no persistently dangerous schools. According to the state’s criteria, a persistently dangerous school has (1) expelled 3 percent or more of enrolled students for violent conduct, (2) expelled one or more students for firearms possession, and (3) transferred at least 3 percent of enrolled students who have been victims of school violence.
The third condition seems circular. How can students transfer when their school isn’t deemed persistently dangerous in the first place?
It’s almost like this dereliction of duty, which traps kids in violent schools, is by design.
California
Headlines depicting school violence in California seem downright cheerful, celebrating a “steep decline” in day-to-day violence.
But students in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD)—the largest school district in California — might challenge this overly optimistic narrative. LAUSD reported more than 4,500 incidents of physical aggression in the 2022–23 school year — almost double that of pre-pandemic levels.
Despite this violence, California, much like the rest of the aforementioned states, has never reported a school as persistently dangerous. Not once.
California’s criterion is also wonky. The Golden State focuses on “non-students” in its definition of a violent school. The state also uses student expulsions as a criterion, requiring a school to expel at least one student in every 100 for three consecutive years.
Let’s apply this criterion to one of the LAUSD’s most violent schools. In the Green Meadows neighborhood of Los Angeles, almost 800 students attend Mervyn M. Dymally High School — a school surrounded by the most homicides of any other school statewide, according to The Los Angeles Times. For Dymally to qualify as persistently dangerous, the school would have to expel 8 students per year, three years in a row.
Yet, for the past three school years, the school has expelled zero students, according to the California Department of Education. All this despite, well-documented violence — both on- and off-campus.
California’s tortured math — as well as the numbers fudged by Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Maryland — doesn’t add up.
Ambitious Governors and the Opposition They Face
The governors leading these states all have their targets set on the White House. Shapiro, Moore, Pritzker, and Newsom are all on the short list of candidates vying for the Democratic nomination in 2028.
But these governors are getting the cart before the horse. Before they start to make plans to become leaders of the free world, they must attend to their own affairs in their backyard.
Voters are deeply concerned about the state of public education. Gallup polling found that nearly three-fourths of Americans are dissatisfied with the quality of K–12 public education. Also, about 44 percent of parents expressed their concerns about their kids’ physical safety while at school, representing a 29-point increase since 2008.
On top of it all, voters aren’t keen on the Democratic Party, either. The party’s approval has reached a 35-year low, according to recent polling.
To reassure these voters, these ambitious governors must address school violence in an honest, transparent manner.
If they don’t, they run the risk of running headfirst into President Donald Trump. In May, the Trump administration issued guidance to “establish and implement a policy designed to ensure students in persistently dangerous schools are provided with an opportunity to attend a safe public elementary or secondary school.”
This federal guidance encourages states to better identify violence by augmenting their criteria. Rather than relying on selective data that ignores the violent reality transpiring in their public schools, states like Pennsylvania and California must adopt a broader definition.
The Trump administration hasn’t yet pursued action against noncompliant states. But as we have seen in recent months, Trump is willing to withhold federal funding for states not meeting his expectations.
Moreover, with a more accurate gauge of the danger awaiting students, these states must also provide students with better educational alternatives. To do so, these states will need to reconsider their educational policies. They must either facilitate student transfers to safer public schools or fund scholarships for these kids to attend nonpublic schools.
“It’s time for the Left to come to the school choice table, not to dismantle public education, but to help reinvent it for a new era,” writes Jorge Elorza of Democrats for Education Reform.
But school choice is more than a matter of political expediency. Instead, it provides a clear and efficient pathway out of persistently dangerous schools. Choice may prove to be the most effective tool yet to address and mitigate school violence. When given the freedom to chart their own course, students are better equipped than governors and other politicos to find a school that cherishes their personal safety.
Andrew Lewis is president and CEO of the Commonwealth Foundation, Pennsylvania’s free-market think tank.
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