SCHOOL DISCIPLINE TOUGHER ON AFRICAN AMERICANS

Here is the precis by The PEN Weekly of a Chicago Tribune report on the inequity of school discipline by race. This is not new, yet we seem unable to respond to it, and change it.

America’s schools remain as unequal as they have ever been when it comes to disciplinary sanctions (think suspensions and expulsions), according to recent data collected by the U.S. Department of Education for the 2004-05 school year, reports Howard Witt in the Chicago Tribune. On average, African American New Jersey public school students are almost 60 times as likely as white students to be expelled, Minnesota black public school students are suspended six times as often as whites, and in Iowa, black students, who constitute only five percent of public school enrollment, account for 22 percent of suspended students. In every state except Idaho, black students are suspended in numbers greater than would be expected given their proportion of the student body. In 21 states alone, the percentage of black suspensions is more than double their percentage of the student body. Unfortunately, this is not purely a socioeconomic issue, as middle- and upper-class black students are being disciplined more often that their white peers as well. Russell Skiba, widely regarded as the foremost authority on school discipline and race, says "we can call it structural inequity or we can call it institutional racism." The problem goes way beyond being unfair to black youths, as research shows that a history of school suspensions is a strong predictor of future trouble, or the first step on the "school-to-prison pipeline" for black youths. Additionally, few districts across the country have recognized the stark inequity in school discipline. One district that has done something is the Austin (Texas) Independent School District. When school administrators realized blacks accounted for 37 percent of students sent to punitive alternative schools, yet only 14 percent of the district’s population, they introduced a program aimed at encouraging positive student behaviors rather then punishing negative ones. At one school, disciplinary referrals dropped from 520 in 2001-02 to just 20 last year. Skiba cautions that "there is no silver bullet for this problem," and it is possible that schools implementing positive behavioral programs are simply reducing white suspensions, while increasing black suspensions.