Vox: The hidden racism of school discipline, in 7 charts

[Bozo the kKklown]

The video of a school police officer at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina, brutally throwing a black student across the room after she refused to give up her phone is a visceral reminder of how school discipline can fall more harshly on black students.

Starting even before kindergarten, black students are more likely to be suspended or expelled. They're more likely to be referred to law enforcement or even arrested. And even when they're breaking the same rules, studies have found black students are punished more often and more harshly than their white peers.

 

1) The gap between discipline for black and white students starts in preschool

 

 

 

Black students make up about 18 percent of preschool enrollments. But they're far more likely to be suspended than their white peers. Nearly half of all preschoolers suspended more than once during the 2011-'12 school year were black, according to a 2014 report from the Education Department.

Even when preschool programs don't lead to better grades for students later, studies have generally found that kids who attend are less likely to have behavioral problems in elementary school. So sending preschoolers home for acting out means kicking out the students who could benefit the most.

And suspending and expelling 3- and 4-year-olds is more common than you might think. A 2005 study from Yale University found that kids are expelled more frequently in pre-K than they are in K-12 education. The study also concluded that black children in public preschool programs were suspended at twice the rate of Latino and Caucasian children, just as the Education Department found.

2) Black students are suspended or expelled at higher rates throughout their school years

 

 

 

The disparities that start in preschool continue into K-12 education. Black students, who make up 16 percent of the population, are three times more likely than white students to be suspended or expelled. In the 2011-'12 school year, 20 percent of black boys enrolled in school were suspended, as were 12 percent of black girls.

Teachers and administrators argue that sometimes it's necessary to suspend students because they're disrupting class and making it harder for other students to learn. But the evidence for that proposition is lacking. A study of suspensions in Kentucky schools found that students in the schools that suspended students most frequently had lower test scores in reading and math — and that was true even for students who hadn't been suspended. The relationship held even after controlling for school violence, poverty, and other factors that could affect schools' use of suspensions as discipline.

3) Black students are far more likely to be arrested at school

 

 

 

When police get involved in school discipline, students start down the "school-to-prison pipeline": Their disciplinary infractions at school turn into a criminal record. The number of school resource officers, police officers assigned to schools, has been growing fast since the 1990s.

Schools hired these officers due to concerns about school shootings and, in some places, gang violence. But a school with a school resource officer is also much more likely to refer kids to the juvenile justice system, even after controlling for outside factors, such as poverty. And nationally, the kids who are referred are disproportionately black, according to data from the Office for Civil Rights.

Some judges are pushing back at the creep of the criminal justice system into school. A juvenile court judge in Georgia testified before Congress in 2012, saying school "zero tolerance" policies — which sent kids to the court system on their first offense — were overloading the system and making it impossible to concentrate on, and prevent, more serious crimes.

 

More in the link below:

https://www.vox.com/2015/10/31/9646504/discipline-race-charts

 

 

Also, you can search for every school, district, etc in America on the Department of Ed's website:

https://ocrdata.ed.gov/DistrictSchoolSearch#schoolSearch

 

This all matters because this is the first step in the prison industrial complex.

[Springfield]

So basically, be Asian.  And if you must be black, be lighter skinned.  I briefly glanced at the text but mostly was looking at the graphs.  Does the article go into the “why” of these stats at all?

[Bozo the kKklown]

12 minutes ago, Springfield said:

Does the article go into the “why” of these stats at all?

School to prison pipeline

[Zguy28]

1 minute ago, BenningRoadSkin said:

School to prison pipeline

You are saying that the why is because people are intentionally sending black children down the path to prison from pre-school for the purpose of imprisoning black people?

 

Just trying for clarity.

 

 

[LadySkinsFan]

Sure, and guess what else? They loose their voting rights along the way, usually at a very young adult age.

[Mr. Sinister]

Not surprising. I guess I witnessed some of it growing up in Waldorf, with the way a lot of the older white LE and more specifically teachers reacted to white flight. And as less and less people commit violent crimes, they have to find other ways to keep that economy afloat.

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

Teachers aren’t targeting minorities in order to intentionally ruin their lives. I’m not saying that this isn’t an issue, I’m just saying that it’s unfair (and also preposterous) to assign the most evil intentions and then draw a giant circle around all of our educators, as if they’re all in on this systematic conspiracy to funnel black children to prison.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

I would love to see these numbers broken down by majority white schools and majority minority high schools. Because while I don't doubt this is the case, I think inner-city schools could wildly skew this data.

 

One thing I've been struggling with in my oldest daughter is her attempts to define herself as "black." She's a black girl with white parents and attends a diverse but still largely white suburban school. (Houston suburbs are going to have high Latino populations and our neighborhood attracts a ton of foreign oil execs). To some degree, she, her friends, and the school tend to see "black" in mostly negative stereotypes. And there is this weird pressure to live up to those. Like if she has a conflict with another girl, it's expected that it will lead to a fight because of course, she is going to fight. The whole thing becomes this crazy self-fulfilling prophecy that white kids don't deal with, I think.

 

(Cue everyone to tell me that racism ended in 1972 and every kid is treated the same way, because they don't see color and had black friends when they graduated).

Just now, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

Teachers aren’t targeting minorities in order to intentionally ruin their lives. I’m not saying that this isn’t an issue, I’m just saying that it’s unfair (and also preposterous) to assign the most evil intentions and then draw a giant circle around all of our educators, as if they’re all in on this systematic conspiracy.

 

Racism in 2018 is not really teachers or cops or social workers or business owners waking up and saying "I'm going to ruin the life of a darkie" today. There's certainly still a small amount of that, but it's not the case.

 

It's this more benign thing of lower expectations and lesser tolerance. Cops are probably too quick to pull their gun on anyone in 2018. They are especially too quick to pull their gun on minorities. Schools are too quick to recommend expulsion. They are especially too quick with minority students.

 

When you are treated subtly worse your whole life by people who don't even realize they are doing it, you are start to believe that you are subtly worse - worse behaved, dumber, etc.

[Fresh8686]

Eh, from what I read the article doesn't really say why this is happening. And the prison pipe-line thing was more about how having RSO's in school, paired with a greater prevalence of punishing black kids more harshly than others, makes it even more likely that school punishment leads to criminal charges.

What was interesting to me was that 2002 study that

"found black students are more likely to be disciplined for subjective offenses, such as defiance or loitering; white students are more likely to be disciplined for more clear-cut reasons, such as cutting class, smoking, and vandalism. And a sweeping 2012 study of discipline policies in Texas backed this up: Even after controlling for 83 other factors, black students were 31 percent more likely to be suspended for discretionary reasons, rather than because they committed infractions where suspension was a mandatory punishment. That suggests some form of implicit bias is at play that leads to harsher punishment for black students than for others."

Pair that with the data that says 55% of all black suspensions come from 13 southern states and it's reasonable to feel like, one of the reasons why this is happening might be because there is a cultural history in those places of punishing black kids who question authority or don't blindly obey with a servile manner. There is still a generation of white people in those places who want certain groups to "know their place" or to put it more mildly are more likely to be angered by the childhood rebellions of minorities, because of their cultural programming.

 

[Zguy28]

9 minutes ago, Lombardi's_kid_brother said:

I would love to see these numbers broken down by majority white schools and majority minority high schools. Because while I don't doubt this is the case, I think inner-city schools could wildly skew this data.

 

One thing I've been struggling with in my oldest daughter is her attempts to define herself as "black." She's a black girl with white parents and attends a diverse but still largely white suburban school. (Houston suburbs are going to have high Latino populations and our neighborhood attracts a ton of foreign oil execs). To some degree, she, her friends, and the school tend to see "black" in mostly negative stereotypes. And there is this weird pressure to live up to those. Like if she has a conflict with another girl, it's expected that it will lead to a fight because of course, she is going to fight. The whole thing becomes this crazy self-fulfilling prophecy that white kids don't deal with, I think.

 

(Cue everyone to tell me that racism ended in 1972 and every kid is treated the same way, because they don't see color and had black friends when they graduated).

 

Racism in 2018 is not really teachers or cops or social workers or business owners waking up and saying "I'm going to ruin the life of a darkie" today. There's certainly still a small amount of that, but it's not the case.

 

It's this more benign thing of lower expectations and lesser tolerance. Cops are probably too quick to pull their gun on anyone in 2018. They are especially too quick to pull their gun on minorities. Schools are too quick to recommend expulsion. They are especially too quick with minority students.

 

When you are treated subtly worse your whole life by people who don't even realize they are doing it, you are start to believe that you are subtly worse - worse behaved, dumber, etc.

This is the type of information I was hoping to get from this thread. How does our culture equalize expectations and tolerance, while maintaining sub-cultural distinctives? Is it about changing what "black" means culturally? How is that achieved? Or is that trying to make them adopting "whiteness"?

Also, where does that "weird pressure" come from to perpetuate the negative stereotype?

 

I've heard many different paths presented to resolution: economic/income equality, education, restoring the nuclear family (too many kids with no father in their life).

I have so many questions and I would love for my children to not have the prejudices my generation has.

 

Signed,

A middle class white guy whose honestly trying to understand a complicated issue

[Gamebreaker]

36 minutes ago, Zguy28 said:

You are saying that the why is because people are intentionally sending black children down the path to prison from pre-school for the purpose of imprisoning black people?

 

Just trying for clarity.

 

 

 

The purpose isn't just to imprison black people, but to keep the prisons full, and America as a whole has shown to not care when prisons are full of black people. There are plenty of companies who make a profit off the prison industry. It's cheaper to have a prisoner making 13 cents/hour manufacture your products than to send it overseas. Also, the way this is all setup is after they get out, they owe massive back taxes on their own imprisonment, can't get jobs, and often fall back into the same criminal behavior(whether they were involved in crime life prior to prison or not) and end up back in prison. 

[Bozo the kKklown]

21 minutes ago, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

Teachers aren’t targeting minorities in order to intentionally ruin their lives. I’m not saying that this isn’t an issue, I’m just saying that it’s unfair (and also preposterous) to assign the most evil intentions and then draw a giant circle around all of our educators, as if they’re all in on this systematic conspiracy to funnel black children to prison.

No one is saying its intentional (well except some private prison operators)

 

What I am saying is that this is what it leads too. The administering of punishment comes from expectations they have of students. 

 

Racism isnt just someone saying that n***er isn't going to read. Its Jamal is a trouble maker, so he needs to be in-school suspension. Jamal is 7, btw.

14 minutes ago, Fresh8686 said:

There is still a generation of white people in those places who want certain groups to "know their place" or to put it more mildly are more likely to be angered by the childhood rebellions of minorities, because of their cultural programming.

It is very easy to say it is just an older generation of people from one portion of the country.

 

I would love to see what "Teach for America" teachers numbers are in this.

 

10 minutes ago, Zguy28 said:

You are saying that the why is because people are intentionally sending black children down the path to prison from pre-school for the purpose of imprisoning black people?

 

Just trying for clarity.

 

 

Im saying that this is part of that chain that puts black people in prison.

 

Being disciplined in preschool dis-proportionally more. Being arrested in high school, etc.

[LadySkinsFan]

That's horrible and sad.

[Fresh8686]

3 minutes ago, BenningRoadSkin said:

It is very easy to say it is just an older generation of people from one portion of the country.

 

I would love to see what "Teach for America" teachers numbers are in this.

I feel you. It's more than a single generation, because that generation passes the programming, behaviors, and negative connotations to their children and so on.

It's a culture of racism that sprawls across multiple generations.

[Springfield]

3 minutes ago, BenningRoadSkin said:

No one is saying its intentional (well except some private prison operators)

 

What I am saying is that this is what it leads too. The administering of punishment comes from expectations they have of students. 

 

Racism isnt just someone saying that n***er isn't going to read. Its Jamal is a trouble maker, so he needs to be in-school suspension. Jamal is 7, btw.

 

What is the faculty to do when Jamal comes to school, won’t stop talking during class and picks fights with random students?

 

There has to be some punishment.

[Bozo the kKklown]

1 minute ago, Fresh8686 said:

I feel you. It's more than a single generation, because that generation passes the programming, behaviors, and negative connotations to their children and so on.

It's a culture of racism that sprawls across multiple generations.

I would also say its cultural differences.

 

A white teacher, fresh out of college, who grew up in Orange County, CA is plopped into Crenshaw High School to teach black and latino kids. There will be clashes there too, imo.

1 minute ago, Springfield said:

What is the faculty to do when Jamal comes to school, won’t stop talking during class and picks fights with random students?

 

There has to be some punishment.

That is addressed in the Vox article.

[Springfield]

Dammit now I have to read it 

[Dont Taze Me Bro]

Suspensions in Pre-School?  Never heard of that before.  

[Destino]

For a broad argument on school discipline there seems to be a glaring omission in the data: level of disrespect.  How those students react to being called to account by their teachers and administrators plays a major role in how things play out, yet that seems missing from all of this.  For example:  If your teacher catches you passing notes in class, you might be given detention.  If you react to being caught by calling the teacher an asshole, the odds of being punished move from good to certain.  Likewise being sent to the principals office is bad, but what you say once you're inside that office plays a major role. 

 

The only thing I've found that addresses this in these studies so far is this:

Quote

Beginning to address this gap in the literature, a recent study of 19 middle schools in a large Midwestern public school district found that Black youth were referred to the office more often than White youth (Skiba et al., 2002). Interestingly, the reasons that Black and White youth were sent to the office were different, with Black students being sent to the office for more subjective reasons like “disrespect” and “perceived threat” while White students were more likely to be referred for more objective reasons that included smoking, vandalism, and leaving school without permission.

That feels a little bit like they're downplaying the gravity of disrespect in a school setting and this also opens the door for possible racial bias in the perception of disrespect.  Either way, it's worth closer examination.  I'd like to see level of disrespect reported by the teacher/administrator compared to eventual punishment.  I doubt anyone tracks that data, but if we're talking about disciplining children it's extremely relevant. 

 

Few other things: 

- What the heck are Asian parents doing that the rest of us should be?  Their kids outperform everyone.

- None of this is an argument that racism is not a significant factor in the disproportionate punishments shown in the Vice article or studies.  I'm convinced that racial bias definitely plays a significant role in this.  I'm just surprised that what I consider to be another significant factor seems to have been left out almost entirely.     

[Kilmer17]

I lived next to a Vietnamese family for about 10 years (crazy story of how he escaped, but better told over beers).  His two kids studied every hour after school, and all day every weekend.  They did nothing else.

 

One is in med school now and the younger is about to be.

[Dont Taze Me Bro]

If you want to see stats broken down by the county you live in, just google search  "[county name] county schools suspension by race statistics".  It might differ by state, but in NC it was sponsored by the Youth Justice Project.  Interesting seeing how different counties vary in the stats.  

[Zguy28]

48 minutes ago, Destino said:

For a broad argument on school discipline there seems to be a glaring omission in the data: level of disrespect.  How those students react to being called to account by their teachers and administrators plays a major role in how things play out, yet that seems missing from all of this.  For example:  If your teacher catches you passing notes in class, you might be given detention.  If you react to being caught by calling the teacher an asshole, the odds of being punished move from good to certain.  Likewise being sent to the principals office is bad, but what you say once you're inside that office plays a major role. 

 

The only thing I've found that addresses this in these studies so far is this:

That feels a little bit like they're downplaying the gravity of disrespect in a school setting and this also opens the door for possible racial bias in the perception of disrespect.  Either way, it's worth closer examination.  I'd like to see level of disrespect reported by the teacher/administrator compared to eventual punishment.  I doubt anyone tracks that data, but if we're talking about disciplining children it's extremely relevant. 

 

Few other things: 

- What the heck are Asian parents doing that the rest of us should be?  Their kids outperform everyone.

- None of this is an argument that racism is not a significant factor in the disproportionate punishments shown in the Vice article or studies.  I'm convinced that racial bias definitely plays a significant role in this.  I'm just surprised that what I consider to be another significant factor seems to have been left out almost entirely.     

Disrespect is a discretionary thing, which plays right into subconscious racial bias. Hard to overcome.

[grego]

2 hours ago, Gamebreaker said:

 

The purpose isn't just to imprison black people, but to keep the prisons full, and America as a whole has shown to not care when prisons are full of black people. There are plenty of companies who make a profit off the prison industry. It's cheaper to have a prisoner making 13 cents/hour manufacture your products than to send it overseas. Also, the way this is all setup is after they get out, they owe massive back taxes on their own imprisonment, can't get jobs, and often fall back into the same criminal behavior(whether they were involved in crime life prior to prison or not) and end up back in prison. 

 

do you know what prisons are doing this, or how long this has been going on?

[tshile]

When and where I went through school discipline was done relative to a persons history. 

 

Peolle who were or were not cut slack we’re done so based on history. So, yeah, you got different outcomes for different people.

 

lucy might get a stern call out for being disruptive but Johnny got sent to the principals office. Cause Johnny was disruptive every day for the last 4 years. 

[LadySkinsFan]

44 minutes ago, grego said:

 

do you know what prisons are doing this, or how long this has been going on?

 

You can probably look at the jurisdictions that have private corporations providing jail services. Plus, to keep those jails full and providing income to those jurisdictions, other jurisdictions are sending their prisoners to them. It's been in the news, you can Google the articles.