{
  "id": "2005-novemberdecember-assault-data-riddled-with-holes",
  "slug": "2005-novemberdecember-assault-data-riddled-with-holes",
  "url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2005-novemberdecember-assault-data-riddled-with-holes.html",
  "year": 2005,
  "month": "November/December",
  "monthNum": 11,
  "headline": "Assault data riddled with holes",
  "kicker": "TROUBLE IN SCHOOLS",
  "author_name": "Jeff Roberts and David Olinger",
  "author_title": "",
  "affiliation": "The Denver Post",
  "summary": "An investigation found that Colorado school districts use narrow legal definitions to exclude serious violent incidents from their public accountability report cards.",
  "keywords": [
    "School Violence",
    "Accountability",
    "Colorado Education"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Crime & Justice",
    "Education",
    "Investigative Methods"
  ],
  "technologies": [],
  "full_text": "When is an assault not an assault? When public schools in Colorado say so, as these cases illustrate: A child is beaten on his way home from middle school by five older boys in ski masks. Five girls ambush a 10th-grader with a blow to the head. They hold her down, pull up her sweater and burn her with a cigarette. A 13-year-old girl suffers bruised kidneys and blood in her urine after a girl jumps her from behind. None of these were assaults. Not according to the yearly \"report cards\" – or School Accountability Reports (SARs) – the schools delivered to parents last year along with their children's performance on the state assessment tests. Parents get a nice pamphlet with all sorts of information about their kid's school such as student-teacher ratios, academic ratings, teacher experience and average daily attendance. While Jefferson County, the state's largest school district, listed nearly 650 fights and assaults on its report cards to parents, Denver Public Schools listed only 103. Suburban Cherry Creek schools reported just one fight for the entire school year, as did the Aurora school district. Police reports, detailing each time officers were called to a school because of violence, were the key. From the reports we learned Denver police had recorded at least 345 assault arrests at high schools last year, while the SARs listed only 38 assaults. State education officials told us they had limited the \"assaults/fights\" category on accountability reports to first- and second-degree felony assaults to avoid listing every shoving match, but this definition effectively hid serious violence from parents.",
  "provenance": {
    "extracted_by": "pre-v2",
    "extracted_at": "",
    "verified": true
  },
  "similar": [
    {
      "slug": "1999-november-more-resources-on-school-violence",
      "score": 0.245
    },
    {
      "slug": "1999-november-a-few-of-the-stories-on-school-violence-at-the-ire-resource-center",
      "score": 0.196
    },
    {
      "slug": "1999-november-inconsistent-data",
      "score": 0.193
    },
    {
      "slug": "1999-november-school-violence-resources",
      "score": 0.189
    },
    {
      "slug": "1998-august-analyzing-school-analysis",
      "score": 0.185
    }
  ],
  "html_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2005-novemberdecember-assault-data-riddled-with-holes.html",
  "json_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2005-novemberdecember-assault-data-riddled-with-holes.json"
}