GateHouse Media
April 6, 2018
Black students are disciplined at school more often and more
harshly than white students according to a report, issued this week by the
Government Accountability Office (GAO).
In 2014, President Barack Obama released guidance on school
discipline in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S.
Department of Justice.
According to the guidance, public schools are prohibited, by
federal law, from discriminating in the administration of student discipline
based on protected characteristics — race, gender, disability and sexual
orientation.
When the guidance was released, incidents of school violence
had already begun to decrease overall, but schools were still struggling to
create positive, safe environments. The guidance was in response to the
significant numbers of students who miss class due to suspensions and expulsions
— even for minor infractions of school rules. Students of color and students
with disabilities were disproportionately impacted.
This week’s report is the first government-sponsored
analysis of discipline policies since the Obama administration urged schools to
examine the disproportionate rates of student punishment.
GOP members of Congress have argued that the Obama-inspired
guidance has led to more school violence because students who may have
otherwise been removed from school have continued to cause mayhem. Republicans
have even tried to link the guidance to the recent mass shooting at Marjory
Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The GAO report appears to
support Obama’s concerns.
According to the report, the issue of who gets disciplined
and why is complex. The GAO suggests that studies they reviewed demonstrate
that implicit bias — stereotypes or unconscious associations about people — on
the part of teachers and staff may cause them to judge students’ behaviors
differently based on the students’ race and sex.
Studies show that discipline decisions can result in certain
groups of students being more harshly disciplined than others.
According to the GAO, one study found that black girls were
disproportionately disciplined for subjective interpretations of behaviors,
such as disobedience and disruptive behavior. A separate study used
eye-tracking technology to show that, among other things, teachers gazed longer
at black boys than other children when asked to look for challenging behavior based
on video clips.
The GAO found that during the 2013-14 school year, black
students accounted for 15.5 percent of all public school students, but
represented about 39 percent of students suspended from school.
Removing students who misbehave from school is
counterintuitive. In “From the School Yard to the Squad Car: School Discipline,
Truancy, and Arrest,” published in The Journal of Youth and Adolescence in
2014, a connection was found between mandated leaves of absence from school and
the likelihood of arrest for juveniles.
The researchers found that youth are more likely to be
arrested on days they are suspended from school. The increased likelihood of
arrest is strongest among youth who do not have a history of criminal behavior.
According to the Journal of Counseling and Development a
suspension is more likely to cause a child to drop out of high school than any
other factor, including low socioeconomic status, not living with both
biological parents, a high number of school changes, and having sex before age
15. Students who are expelled from school are even less likely to graduate from
high school.
The consequences of not graduating from high school are
severe, according to the American Bar Association. Children who do not finish
high school are 3.5 times more likely to be arrested as adults. Additionally,
approximately 82 percent of the adult prison population is composed of high
school dropouts.
The GAO report is a step in the right direction and should
vindicate the concerns of the Obama administration, while quelling the
rumblings that federal discipline guidance for school districts is unwarranted
or overreaching.
Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett,
Kelly & George P.C. His book The Executioner’s Toll, 2010 was released by McFarland
Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and
follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino.
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