Should a Federal Database of School Safety Research be Available to School Officials? (H.R. 6798)

What is H.R. 6798?

(Updated November 7, 2018)

This bill — known as the Make Schools Safer Act — would require the Director of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) at the Education Dept. to make research about school safety available to elementary and secondary school officials and school counselors through the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC). That would include best practices for educating appropriate school personnel on techniques for identifying students who may pose a violent threat would be made available under this bill.

Additionally, the IES Director would collaborate, as appropriate, with healthcare professionals, state and local law enforcement, youth organizations, and parents to implement procedures for:

• Early identification of students at risk of committing violence, including those who may have mental illnesses;

• Use of crisis response systems;

• Use of referral mechanisms for mental health and other treatment services; and

• Designing interventions for students at risk of committing violence, including those who may have mental illnesses.

This legislation does not authorize either advocacy or promotion of gun control.

Argument in favor

Keeping students safe in school is a public policy priority. Giving educators access to research about best practices in school safety and helping students with mental health issues will help keep schools safer.

Argument opposed

There are already plenty of ways for educators to access information about best practices in school safety and handling students’ mental health problems, and this bill may not put better information in their hands.

Impact

Elementary and secondary school officials; elementary and secondary school guidance counselors; Dept, of Education; and the Institute of Education Sciences.

Cost of H.R. 6798

A CBO cost estimate is unavailable.

Additional Info

In-Depth: Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-AL) introduced this bill to require the Institute of Education Sciences’ Director to include studies and resources relating to school safety and mental health in the What Works Clearinghouse:

“School safety should be a priority for every level of government. While I do not want the federal government to mandate how schools protect their students, I believe it is appropriate for the federal government to provide high quality research and information to schools about the best practices for keeping students safe, coordinating with law enforcement, and identifying at-risk students. My bill offers a simple yet profound step toward making our schools safer.”

Straight Talk on Evidence criticizes WWC, contending that it often reports on shoddy studies and represents them as significant:

“Our concern is that the WWC equates small preliminary studies, which are often unreliable, with larger, more definitive evaluations. In a number of cases, this results in the WWC determining that programs are beneficial when the evidence suggests exactly the opposite… [T]he WWC routinely reports programs as having positive or potentially positive effects based solely on preliminary studies (i.e., when the WWC has not found a more rigorous evaluation of the program). Illustrative examples include Read Well, First Step to Success, and ClassWide Peer Tutoring. Although these programs may be good candidates for further evaluation based on the positive initial findings, most of these findings would likely be reversed in a more definitive evaluation, based on the long history of rigorous evaluations in education and other fields.”

This legislation has the support of one cosponsor, who is also a Republican.

Of Note: The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) is an IES investment established in 2002. WWC is meant to provide educators, policymakers, researchers, and the public with a central source of scientific evidence on what works in education to improve student outcomes. WWC’s goal is to help decision-makers contend with differing messages from various research studies and product offerings by serving as a web portal to comprehensive, systematic, high-quality reviews of studies on the effectiveness of educational programs, products, practices, and policies.

Media:

• Alabama Today