California Seeks to Legislatively Cut Suspensions

In the 2009-10 academic year there were over 750,000 suspensions in California schools, Kathryn Baron wrote in a piece for Topics in Education last week. Meanwhile, Suspended Education in California, a recent analysis of federal data by The Civil Rights Project at UCLA, found that 20% of all African American students were suspended at least once in 2009-10, compared to one of every 14 Latino students and one of every 17 white students.

In the wake of such revelations, the California Legislature’s education committees recently approved six new bills to cut down expulsions and suspension. SB 1235, sponsored by Darryl Steinberg, would require schools with suspension rates above 25% for any ethnic group to implement an alternative consequence that still holds the student accountable while keeping them in school. (A list of the other bills can be seen here).

While it is certainly desirable to reduce inequities in the education system and to reduce suspension rates in general, it is also important to understand why suspension rates have climbed so high and why there are such large racial disparities, rather than cobbling together a few knee jerk laws that avoid the actual causes and do little to make schools safer or equitable.

Steinberg notes that kids who get suspended and miss school fall further behind and thus have a greater chance of dropping out. However, this is a correlation, not necessarily a cause. It may be true that students who have been suspended are less likely to graduate, but one or two suspensions are unlikely to cause a student to flunk out. A more likely scenario is that the student is already behind in credits and is struggling in his current classes. He may be reading well below grade level and have other problems that make it difficult to focus during class time, contributing both to behavior problems and poor academic success.

There are many alternatives to suspension and expulsion, the most effective of which is probably prevention. A lot can be done to create academic cultures in which students want to learn and understand and internalize the behaviors necessary for their academic success. Sadly, this does not exist at many of schools, particularly low income schools.

While there are many reasons for this, the Apartheid nature of our schools is a major influence. Some school are filled predominantly with middle class students who read at grade level, do their homework and study, and who tend not to get in very much trouble. Then there are the low income schools which are often filled with students who are reading far below grade level, who are behind academically, and who have trouble sitting still and focusing for extended periods. Not surprisingly, these students tend to have more trouble following the rules and get in trouble more often.

While there seems to be no political will to break up these segregated schools or to reassign students in a more equitable manner, there are a lot of things that administrators could do to create and support a more academic culture without relying on suspensions. For example, supporting teachers promptly and effectively when informed of a disciplinary problem can help maintain a positive classroom environment and prevent disruptions from growing out of control. Being visible on campus during passing periods, lunch and recess can help them to identify and stop bullying or other inappropriate behavior before they get out of hand. School rules and policies can be reinforced through assemblies, classroom visits and school media.

Unfortunately, these things often do not occur at schools. I have seen administrators ignore drugs and fights (or allow students back in class the same or next day). In one school I was at, after a homophobic assault and melee, the gay students were suspended and the only administrative or school wide response was an email by the principal recommending that teachers send their students to a voluntary debriefing by the student government. (For other examples of administrators behaving badly, click here or here).

Baron points to the Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports (PBIS) program as a model for changing student behavior and improving the school climate. She describes a principal who spent time calming an out-of-control student who wouldn’t stop cursing and then listening to her, learning that her mother had just abandoned the family.  This is what schools should be doing all along, but often can’t because they don’t have the human resources. It takes time to listen. More importantly, the girl should have been identified and referred to her counselor or a school safety advocate (if either were available) before she lost control, something that is also difficult with all the budget and staffing cuts of the past few years.

Nevertheless, this sort of response by the adults at a school is far more likely to prevent school violence than zero tolerance policies and it is more likely to lead to solutions that can help students who are struggling with difficult situations before they blow up go postal.

Parsing the Black-White School Suspension Gap

Discipline is Victory or Arbeit Mach du Frei? (Image from Flickr, by Adam Jones)

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights recently released data on suspension rates in the U.S. After surveying 72,000 schools that served roughly 85% of the nation’s students they found that black children represent 35% of all suspensions and 39% of all expulsions, though they comprise only 18% of the student population.

Many are calling this proof that the education system discriminates against children of color (Latino suspension and expulsion rates were also high). Considering how much prejudice and discrimination occur in our society at large, it would be surprising if some of it didn’t trickle down to our schools, as well. One would expect some outright racism to be at play, as well as some less overt racial profiling. Indeed, there are studies indicating that black students are disciplined more severely than white students for similar or lesser infractions.

Yet the problem is more complex and pervasive than simple racism or prejudice by some teachers. For example, if suspension and expulsion rates were broken down by socioeconomic status, one would likely find much higher rates of suspensions, expulsions and other disciplinary actions against lower income children than affluent children. Since higher percentages of black and Latino children are poor, it might be that poverty plays a role in discipline, too, possibly even the primary role.

The Wealth-Behavior Connection

Schools are essentially middle class institutions, run by people who either have middle class backgrounds or who have learned to thrive in a middle class environment through their educational and professional experiences. The expectations, norms and mores of the classroom are consequently the product of middle class culture. Students who come from affluent backgrounds, therefore, generally have these expectations, norms and mores internalized and are more likely to behave in the way expected by their teachers, while working class and poor children sometimes have to learn a disciplinary system and expectations that are substantially different from what they are used to.

Children who grow up in a more authoritarian disciplinary culture, for example, might respond more positively to the demand that they “clean up now!” than to the request, “Would you please clean up?” or the announcement that “it is clean up time.” These last two statements, like “Would you mind closing the door?” are actually middle class commands disguised as friendly requests. Someone who is not used to this roundabout way of speaking might believe they actually have a choice. Noncompliance would therefore not only be reasonable, but within the range of acceptable behaviors. Yet a teacher might see this as defiance or disrespect, leading to disciplinary action against the child.

There are also school policies that disproportionately target youth of color without any racist intent. Sagging pants, for example, is a typical dress code violation, yet it is more common among lower income youth of color than among middle class white boys. The question is, are black boys busted for this while white girls with exposed midriffs and white boys with inappropriate t-shirts are allowed to walk?

It is not just that lower income children have different cultural backgrounds than their teachers. They are also more likely to be behind their affluent peers in academic skills, which makes it harder for them to do the classwork and increases the likelihood of off-task or disruptive behavior. Imagine having to sit still for 30-45 minutes with a book or lecture you cannot comprehend.

While the CRDC data indicates that black children are more likely to be labeled as special needs, it is not clear that this is due to the racism of schools and teachers. It might be due to their socioeconomic status. Poverty increases the chances of that a child will have a learning disability. Poor children, for example, are more likely to suffer low birth weights and malnutrition, which can lead to disabilities. Iron-deficiency anemia, which impairs cognitive ability, is twice as common among poor children. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 10% of poor students have dangerous levels of lead in their blood, which can lead to decreased intelligence. Smoking, which is also significantly higher among poor and working class people, can lead to premature births and low birth weights, which both contribute to poor long-term health, cognitive impairment and learning disabilities.

Schools and teachers should obviously look at their policies and how they are enforced to reduce any institutionalized, deliberate or unintended racist inequities. They also need to do a better job of understanding the cultural backgrounds of their students so that they can better support them. However, as long as our society continues to have large socioeconomic disparities, we will continue to see not only a class-based learning gap, but a class-based discipline gap, as well.

Use A Test, Go to Jail

Thanks to Robert Skeels, from the Solidaridad Blog for posting this report from Fairtest: NCLB Fuels School-to-Prison Pipeline: New Report.

According to the report, NCLB’s emphasis on test scores and its consequences for failing to meet them, puts phenomenal pressure on schools to raise test scores by any means necessary. One of the ways schools are trying to boost their scores is by removing “problem” students who are not performing well on the tests. This has resulted in increasing expulsion rates and greater reliance on the criminal justice system to deal with disciplinary matters. The report says that expulsion rates are now at an all-time high and much higher than they were in 2002, when NCLB first started. Furthermore, NCLB funds can be used to hire school-based law enforcement personnel, thus encouraging the use of the juvenile justice system to solve disciplinary problems that would have traditionally been resolved by the school.

There are also much less sinister and more prevalent ways in which NCLB funnels children into the criminal justice system. The heavy emphasis on testing has taken away much of the creativity and inquiry from learning, while also putting considerable pressure on teachers to move more quickly through their curriculum. This can contribute to disciplinary problems for students and provide the rationale for implementing zero-tolerance and other heavy handed disciplinary policies that push kids out of the schools more easily and for minor offenses. NCLB has also lowered graduation rates. Young people who lack high school diplomas have higher rates of incarceration than those who complete high school.

To read the full report, click here.

To visit Fair Test, click here.