UCLA study finds sharp decline in violence at California middle and high schools

A new study by UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs analyzed 18 years of data from the California Healthy Kids Survey to find massive drops in violence and weapons incidents throughout California.

The California Healthy Kids Survey is a confidential, anonymous questionnaire given each year to all California students in grades five, seven, nine and 11 asking about school climate, safety, student wellness and youth resiliency, according to the California Department of Education. The study’s authors looked at survey results between 2001 and 2019 to find a 56% reduction in physical fights, a 70% reduction in reports of carrying a gun onto school grounds, a 59% reduction in students being threatened by a weapon on school grounds and larger declines in victimization reported by Black and Latino students compared with white students.

The study’s findings challenge the perception that California schools are less safe now than they ever were, sparked by outbursts of mass shootings throughout the country, UCLA scholar Ron Avi-Astor, who co-authored the study, said in a news release. Astor suggests that “eruptions of gun violence should be treated as a separate social and psychological phenomenon.”

“Each school shooting is a devastating act that terrorizes the nation, and there is a growing sense in the public that little has changed in two decades to make schools safe,” Astor said. “But mass shootings are just one part of this story. Overall, on a day-to-day basis for most students, American schools are safer than they’ve been for many decades.”