Coakley, who chaired the seven-member commission, said tracking would be important to help the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education understand the size of the problem.
As part of last year’s law, public schools already are required to report all potential criminal cases of bullying to law enforcement.
“Regardless of what a good job schools are doing, unless we are able to establish a mechanism’’ for tracking bullying incidents, “we’re not going to get a handle on the scope and whether, down the road, other changes are needed,’’ Coakley said.
But the report immediately drew fire from critics who said that a state mandate to track bullying might encourage under-reporting by staff who would not want to reflect negatively on their classrooms or schools.
“Requiring schools to report the number of bullying cases that they experience is going to drive the entire problem underground,’’ said Elizabeth Englander, director of the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center, based at Bridgewater State University. “It’s a strongly stigmatized issue, and schools would understandably go to great lengths to avoid having to report numbers.’’
Instead of illuminating the problem, Englander said, such a law might have the opposite effect.
“I understand measuring the effectiveness of laws, but this is the wrong way to measure it,’’ she said. “It’s actually dangerous.’’
The 2010 antibullying law requires school staff, from custodians to teachers, to report bullying to school administrators and develop detailed programs to curb such behavior. “I think the way to do this is to do exactly what we’re doing, and to educate people’’ about the problem, Englander said.
A better, proven way to measure bullying is through anonymous surveys and not mandated, public reporting, Englander said.
