School Discipline Tougher On African Americans

America's public schools have racial differences when measured in terms of disciplinary sanctions such as suspensions and expulsions, according to little-noticed data collected by the U.S. Department of Education for the 2004-2005 school year. In every state but Idaho, black students are being suspended in numbers greater than would be expected from their proportion of the student population. In 21 states, that disproportionality is so pronounced that the percentage of black suspensions is more than double their percentage of the student body. No other ethnic group is disciplined at such a high rate, the federal data show. Hispanic students are suspended and expelled in almost direct proportion to their populations, while white and Asian students are disciplined far less.

Yet research studies have found that black students are no more likely to misbehave than other students from the same social and economic environments. While such factors contribute to the disproportionate discipline rates, researchers say that poverty alone cannot explain the disparities. "In fact, the data indicate that African-American students are punished more severely for the same offense, so clearly something else is going on", said Russell Skiba, a professor of educational psychology at Indiana University whose research focuses on race and discipline issues in public schools. "We can call it structural inequity or we can call it institutional racism."

Studies show that a history of school suspensions or expulsions is a strong predictor of future trouble with the law—and the first step on what civil rights leaders have described as a "school-to-prison pipeline" for black youths, who represent 16% of U.S. adolescents but 38% of those in youth prisons. After Austin, Texas administrators discovered that black youths were 14% of the school district's population but 37% of the students sent to punitive alternative schools, they introduced a program in some schools based on encouraging positive student behaviors rather than punishing negative ones. At one school, Pickle Elementary, which serves mostly Hispanic and black students, the results were dramatic—disciplinary referrals dropped from 520 in 2001-2002 to just 20 last year.

Students who receive free school lunch are at increased risk for school suspension. Another study concluded that "students whose fathers did not have a full-time job were significantly more likely to be suspended than students whose fathers were employed full time." But those studies and others have repeatedly found that racial factors are even more important. "Poor home environment does carry over into the school environment," said Professor Skiba. "But middle-class and upper-class black students are also being disciplined more often than their white peers. Skin color in itself is a part of this function."

Some experts point to cultural miscommunications between black students and white teachers, who fill 83% of America's teaching ranks. Some of the highest rates of racially disproportionate discipline are found in states with the lowest minority populations. "White teachers feel more threatened by boys of color," said Isela Gutierrez, a juvenile justice expert at the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, a watchdog and policy group. "They are viewed as disruptive. What might be their more assertive way of asking a question, for example, is viewed as popping off at the mouth." Even in urban schools where most of the students are black, black youths are still disciplined out of proportion to their population.

My response: I believe part of the issue is that black students are often punished more severely than other students for the same infraction. However, most of this issue stems from poor home training by black parents of the badass kids. It is not a coincidence that such behavioral problems especially come from black kids from fatherless, poor homes (and especially among black folks, fatherlessness increases poverty for children). Instead of focusing limited resources on not punishing badass kids for their bad behavior, the focus should be on keeping these kids in line in the first place. Back when I was in elementary school down South, teachers used the paddle on bad children. By middle school, that was ruled out as "child abuse". No wonder there are so many problems in today's classrooms. I know teachers who discuss how the bad-acting kids disrupt their class, use foul language, and even physically challenge them...and later the parents are often as bad or worse than the children in response to being told about their child's badass ways. I also wonder if this problem would decrease if there were more male teachers.