Smoking Gun for Snookered Stats

You couldn’t ask for a more blatant sign that gremlins are messing with school-safety statistics than this: Officially, the only four “persistently dangerous” schools in the city are elementary schools.

That prompted Gregory Floyd, the head of the school-safety-agents union, to ask, “Not one high school in the city was persistently dangerous last year?”

Not Richmond Hill HS in Queens, which in the first quarter of this year registered seven arrests, with raps including gang assault, criminal weapon possession and petit larceny. Nor Evander Childs HS in The Bronx, which had 13 incidents, including forcible touching, weapons possession and assault.

Nor any of the city’s middle schools. Nope: The only blackboard jungles are filled with prepubescents.

Even though state education data show that 2015 (the latest year on record) saw violent incidents in city schools rise 23 percent.

And, as of May, 1,751 weapons were recovered in city schools over the last school year, up more than 26 percent. Making the most recent school year the city’s worst for weapon possession. What’s going on? Well, schools get the “dangerous” label according to a specific formula that crunches data on incidents including assault, weapon possession and harassment. If the school makes the list, parents get the right to transfer their kids out.

And if enough students leave, even Team de Blasio (which hates closing schools, since it upsets the teachers union) has to shut the place down.

That gives school leaders a strong incentive to mess with the statistics they report — and plainly, lots of administrators are getting the message.

They’ve had plenty of practice: As the mayor keeps noting, city data show school violence falling. Of course, he also insists that school administrators face no pressure to cook their stats.

Putting a happy face on grim reality matters more than actually keeping the schools safe.