The US Department of Education is investigating Seattle schools for disciplining black children more than white children.
According to district data, in the 2011-2012 school year, nearly 13 percent of black high school students received at least one short-term suspension. The equivalent figure for white students was just under 4 percent. In middle schools, the rate was 7 percent of white students and 27 percent of blacks.
The district has long been aware of the disparity, and recently held community meetings that addressed its discipline rates.
This, coming in the wake of the DOJ investigation of Seattle Police, is troubling for Seattle. Of course I’d rather address these problems head on than to have them go unaddressed. Hopefully we’ll have some actual change in school policies.
Is that because black kids are more likely to be doing something that rises to the level of needing discipline
or teachers are less tolerant of the black kids?
Is that because white kids are passive sheep and do what authority tells them so by contrast, the perfectly normal black kids are seen as troublemakers?
Is it a factor of skin color or class? Do poor white kids get in as much trouble?
Do the teachers tend to watch the dark kids more?
Where are the stats for the mex and asian kids?
How often do they discipline the children from races other than black and white? Is there a problem there, too?
Not exactly unrelated:
Cleaver: ‘Concern’ on ethics probes of black lawmakers
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/s.....z2MmJgsHXE
These numbers taken by themselves don’t provide much real information, provocative though they may be. It might be worthwhile for someone to investigate correlation with other factors like family income and size and maybe staff turnover rates at the schools involved. This would then be one of those rare instances in which education might actually benefit from increased use of computers (as opposed to cluttering classrooms with them).
@ 4
correlation with other factors like family income and size
I was thinking the same thing – multivariate analysis with number of parents in the household.
“multivariate analysis with number of parents in the household”
Where does that one lead? More silly and unproductive wingnut condemnation of families that don’t mirror the Cleavers?
One good parent is better than two bad parents. When it comes to parenting, try thinking quality, not quantity.
“Multivariate analysis?” Sounds like BS to me.
@ 6
When it comes to parenting, try thinking quality, not quantity.
I’m thinking I got into a lot less trouble as a kid after my mother remarried.
“I’m thinking I got into a lot less trouble as a kid after my mother remarried.”
Interesting. Was it the quality of the step-father or do you think you’d still have had gotten into a lot less trouble as a kid if your mother had married, say, Snoop Dog?
@8 You had a mother? I never would have guessed! I would’ve sworn you came from nowhere like a virtual particle.
@ 9
I’m thinking it had to do with my mother being able to quit work and keep a closer eye on me as a stay-at-home mom.
Had she had a rap star’s money, I think I still would have been kept in check.
I know what you’re saying, Steve. And I agree with you as well. I think it’s both quality and quantity.
The social scientists can study the various socio-economic factors at play until the cows come home, but the Dept. of Justice will only be looking at one thing: is there evidence that a racial minority is being discriminated against on a system-wide basis?
The first sub-aspect to be investigated is whether school teachers and administrators are treating the children differently in assigning punishment, with stricter punishment being dolled out to minority students than to whites.
The second sub-aspect is whether the district’s policies and system of determining punishment has a disparate impact which di-proportionately punishes black children. Part of that analysis is whether offenses where blacks are punished more frequently than whites are really necessary, in terms of the offense itself or the severety of the punishment dictated by policy.
Had lunch Sunday with my family and a relative of my son’s wife. She had adopted a black boy, who at age four is energetic and inquisitive.
But she just pulled him out of his pre-school. She found out that he was eating lunch alone most days, as punishment for some offense or another which the teacher thought merited that form of punishment. I don’t know what misdeed he may or may not have committed, but delegating a four-year old black boy – the only one in the class – to eat lunch at a table alone, while the others enjoyed each other’s company, was profoundly disturbing to me. What’s more disturbing is that the staff didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong there.
@4, @5
That is what I was wondering. Black children might be more likely to do things that merit being suspended because they are poorer than whites and have much much much higher rates of single parent families.
A couple of comments.
1) Seems like an area that Darryl could dive into.
2) Kap’n Kornflake – Serial RENEGER provides too much and disturbing info @5.
3) My experience with the severity (e.g. suspension vs. tongue wagging) of disciplinary actions in schools is that teachers and their admin support are not very good in this subject area. Not that judges on the bench (or parents) are that much better, but over reaction based upon whatever stereotypes the authority figure has seems to be the rule.
How a school should discipline misbehavior is a very complicated subject and one which schools have never been nearly enough well prepared.
From 14,
There are a helluva lot more poor white families with single parents than there were, say, 30 years ago. It’s not that accurate to assume poor struggling families are, by definition, black families. Plenty of white girls produce out-of-wedlock children. It’s a disgrace, in my book!
Sure is amazing all the libtard whiteys trying to “determine” the cause. The only one Puddy excuses here is Steve, when he isn’t spouting off stupidity against Serial Conservative.
How about the “great society” that has failed? How about the glorification of the negative and damnification of the positive. Puddy has discussed this on this blog for years. Now we see libtards in action.
Seattle School leaders… libtards
HA pinheads discussing it… libtards
I remember that in the junior and senior high schools I attended, the troublemakers weren’t so much the poor kids (regardless of race) as the really rich white ones. They knew that whatever they did, Mommy and Daddy and their high-priced lawyers would get them off the hook.
The “Great Society” was a smashing success for what its primary intent probably was: to scare the green runny poop out of the Russians by demonstrating that the United States could afford “guns and butter” as the other side struggled to feed its population while holding up its own side of the Cold War.
From 19,
The big mistake made by the Soviets was the killing of the kulaks in the Thirties. They were middle class and “petty bougoisie” according to Stalin. The trouble was, the kulaks were the ones who knew how ro farm. Wiping them out killed millions through. The resulting food crop failures of collective farming.
We may have had some people starve to death during the Depression, but the former Soviet Union had Millions of people starve to death in the same period. It just goes to show you how far one crazy guy’s ideas can caus misery for an entire nation.