"I think someone pushed the wrong button"
The Civil Rights Data Collection for 2018 required every public school — more than 96,000 — to answer questions on a wide range of issues.
It asked what sounded like a simple question:
In the 2015-2016 school year,
"Has there been at least one incident at your school that involved a shooting (regardless of whether anyone was hurt)?"
The answer — "nearly 240 schools (0.2 percent of all schools)" — was published this spring.
The government's definition included any discharge of a weapon at school-sponsored events or on school buses. Even so, that would be a rate of shootings, and a level of violence, much higher than anyone else had ever found.
For comparison, the Everytown for Gun Safety database, citing media reports, listed just 29 shootings at K-12 schools between mid-August 2015 and June 2016. There is little overlap between this list and the government's, with only seven schools appearing on both.
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