The state Department of Education yesterday named 14 schools as "persistently dangerous," all of them in Philadelphia.

This is the second consecutive year that schools in Western Pennsylvania have avoided getting on the list.

"We're pleased that none of our schools is on the list of persistently dangerous schools, but we are going to have to monitor the data regularly to make sure that our schools remain safe so we can duplicate their record next year," said Pat Crawford, spokeswoman for Pittsburgh Public Schools.

The designation was established under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which enables parents in public schools deemed persistently dangerous to seek transfers for their children to safer schools. The "unsafe school choice option" took effect last fall.

Parents are not required to seek transfers. If there is not another safe school available in a district, the district may ask other districts to accept the students, but it is not required to do so.

The law also enables students who are victims of violent crime to be offered transfers to safer schools.

Under the law, each state set its own definition of "persistently dangerous."

In Pennsylvania, it is based on incidents involving arrests, including those for weapons possession, homicide, kidnapping, robbery, sexual offenses and aggravated assaults.

The number of such incidents varies by size of school, ranging from at least five at a school with 250 or fewer students to at least 20 at a school with more than 1,000 students.

The current list includes 13 high schools and one middle school, most of which have more than 1,000 students.

The school must meet the criteria in the most recent school year, as well as in at least one of the two prior years.

Pennsylvania relies on data reported by school districts. The accuracy of such figures historically has been questioned because the record-keeping varies widely among districts.

The state has pledged that the figures for 2003-04 are more accurate because specific reporting rules were established and a new online system makes tracking and reporting easier for districts.

The numbers for incidents at schools throughout the state are not yet available to the public.

Last year, the first using the designation, 28 schools were considered persistently dangerous. Twenty-seven of them were in Philadelphia. That list also included one school in the Chester-Upland School District in Delaware County.

In announcing the new list in Philadelphia, acting state Secretary of Education Gerald Zahorchak said:

"Substantial progress was made during the last school year. ... The department commends the administrators, teachers, parents and students in those schools which have been removed from the list for all the positive steps they have taken to make their schools safer."