Disparity in school discipline

Kentucky schools can reverse the national trend

Reggie was on the school playground acting out a game of cops and robbers when it happened.  He pointed his index finger, thumb up, at a classmate and said “pow.”  The next thing you know he was in the principal’s office looking at a three-day suspension.  Reggie is black, male, and is a 4-year old preschooler with a mild disability. The same thing happened at another school in the district the month before. Only it involved Rory who is white, female and a 5-year old kindergartener.  Her mother was called and that was the end of it.  

Reggie’s and Rory’s stories, while fictitious examples, easily could have been part of data collected by the Office of Civil Rights and released last week by the U. S. Department of Education. The report was a snapshot of discipline data for 2011-12 school year and included the following highlights.

Suspension of preschool children, by race/ethnicity and gender (new for 2011-12 collection): Black children represent 18 percent of preschool enrollment, but 48 percent of preschool children receiving more than one out-of-school suspension; in comparison, white students represent 43 percent of preschool enrollment but 26 percent of preschool children receiving more than one out of school suspension. Boys represent 79 percent of preschool children suspended once and 82 percent of preschool children suspended multiple times, although boys represent 54 percent of preschool enrollment. 

Disproportionately high suspension/expulsion rates for students of color: Black students are suspended and expelled at a rate three times greater than white students. On average, 5 percent of white students are suspended, compared to 16 percent of black students. American Indian and Native-Alaskan students are also disproportionately suspended and expelled, representing less than 1 percent of the student population but 2 percent of out-of-school suspensions and 3 percent of expulsions. 

Disproportionate suspensions of girls of color: While boys receive more than two out of three suspensions, black girls are suspended at higher rates (12 percent) than girls of any other race or ethnicity and most boys; American Indian and Native-Alaskan girls (7 percent) are suspended at higher rates than white boys (6 percent) or girls (2 percent). 

Suspension of students with disabilities and English learners: Students with disabilities are more than twice as likely to receive an out-of-school suspension (13 percent) than students without disabilities (6 percent). In contrast, English learners do not receive out-of-school suspensions at disproportionately high rates (7 percent suspension rate, compared to 10 percent of student enrollment). 

Suspension rates, by race, sex, and disability status combined: With the exception of Latino and Asian-American students, more than one out of four boys of color with disabilities, served by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) — and nearly one in five girls of color with disabilities — receives an out-of-school suspension. 

Arrests and referrals to law enforcement, by race and disability status: While black students represent 16 percent of student enrollment, they represent 27 percent of students referred to law enforcement and 31 percent of students subjected to a school-related arrest. In comparison, white students represent 51 percent of enrollment, 41 percent of students referred to law enforcement, and 39 percent of those arrested. Students with disabilities (served by IDEA) represent a quarter of students arrested and referred to law enforcement, even though they are only 12 percent of the overall student population. 

Restraint and seclusion, by disability status and race: Students with disabilities (served by IDEA) represent 12 percent of the student population, but 58 percent of those placed in seclusion or involuntary confinement, and 75 percent of those physically restrained at school to immobilize them or reduce their ability to move freely. Black students represent 19 percent of students with disabilities served by IDEA, but 36 percent of these students who are restrained at school through the use of a mechanical device or equipment designed to restrict their freedom of movement.

Of particular concern to me was the restraint and seclusion data. Kentucky worked on this issue during the 2013 legislative session and regulations were enacted requiring training for all school employees. We will be able to determine the impact of our state regulation and training by tracking the restraint and seclusion data from the Office of Civil Rights. Based on the OCR report for the 2011-12 school year, 12 percent of the national student population is students with disabilities, however, these students represent 58 percent of students placed in seclusion and 75 percent of those physically restrained. In Kentucky, students with special needs represents 14 percent of the student population, however, these students represent 58 percent of those students physically restrained. 

The bottom line is that there is much work to do in not only restraint and seclusion but the overrepresentation of minority and special needs students in suspensions and expulsions data. An online database is searchable by school and district provides a starting point. Kentucky has an excellent school safety program and significant resources are available for Positive Behavior Intervention programs. I hope schools and districts will review their data and make appropriate plans for 2014-15 to address these issues. 

Let’s make sure that Reggie and students like him have access to an excellent education and the opportunity for a good life.

Rethinking school discipline

Last month, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan released a “Dear Colleague” letter to state chiefs regarding new discipline guidelines. The overarching purpose of the new discipline guidelines is to address apparent disparities in discipline data. 

In Kentucky, we have very safe schools and teachers feel strongly that school discipline policies are working. (See the TELL Kentucky Survey at www.tellkentucky.org). Also, Kentucky has been working for a number of years to implement programs such as Positive Behavior Intervention Support throughout our schools. However, it is critical that local school districts review the guidance from the U.S. Department of Education and review some of Secretary Duncan’s remarks. Here are highlights from Secretary Duncan’s address announcing the new guidelines.

We’re gathered here today to talk about school discipline—which, far too often, is not applied equitably or as effectively as it could be in our nation’s schools.

So today, the Departments of Education and Justice are joining together to release a guidance package on school discipline for a broad range of stakeholders--educators, principals, district administrators, school board members, charter school heads, school resource officers, counselors, social workers, parents, community leaders--and, importantly, students themselves.

Our school discipline package has several elements, but I’ll just highlight two important ones.

 The first is a Dear Colleague Letter from Catherine Lhamon and Jocelyn Samuels, who head the civil rights offices, respectively, at ED and DOJ. Their joint letter provides information on how schools and districts can meet their legal obligations to administer student discipline without discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin.

Racial discrimination in school discipline is a real problem today, and not just an issue from 40 to 50 years ago. I want to thank Catherine and Jocelyn and their staffs for their tremendous leadership and commitment in addressing inequities in discipline that have been much discussed but rarely addressed. We must tackle these brutal truths head on—that is the only way to change the reality that our children face every day.

This is the first Administration to provide guidance to the public on discrimination in school discipline. And we want to continue to provide leadership on this critical problem going forward to ensure equal opportunity for all students.

The second part of the guidance package that I want to highlight is a Guiding Principles document that provides voluntary action steps for local leaders and educators. It lays out three core principles and related action steps to guide efforts to improve school climate and school discipline.

There is no single formula, no silver bullet for ensuring school discipline is equitable and effective. This work is too complex and too important to try to simplify it in that way.

Our Guiding Principles document highlights the need for locally-developed approaches to promote positive school climates and equitable discipline practices. Yet at the same time, we think those locally-tailored approaches should be grounded in research and promising practices--instead of being based on indiscriminate zero tolerance policies, or, at the other extreme, ad-hoc approaches to discipline.

The need to rethink and redesign school discipline practices is long overdue. Too many schools resort too quickly to exclusionary discipline, even for minor misbehaviors.

Exclusionary discipline is so common that in some cases, pre-K students as young as three- and four-years old are getting suspended. Here in Maryland, 91 pre-K students were suspended or expelled during the 2011-12 school year.

Schools should remove students from the classroom as a last resort, and only for appropriately serious infractions, like endangering the safety of other students, teachers, or themselves. 

Unfortunately today, suspensions and expulsions are not primarily used as a last resort for serious infractions.

A landmark study in Texas found nearly six in ten public school students—a majority of students--were suspended or expelled at least once between 7th and 12th grade.

Nationwide, as many as 95 percent of out-of-school suspensions are for nonviolent misbehavior--like being disruptive, acting disrespectfully, tardiness, profanity, and dress code violations.

Let me be clear—these are all issues that must be dealt with clearly, effectively, and with a sense of urgency when they arise. But I would just ask, is putting children out of school the best remedy, the best solution to the problem? In California, nearly half of the more than 700,000 suspensions statewide in the 2011-12 school year were for, quote, “willful defiance.”

Over time, the overreliance on exclusionary discipline has gotten much worse. The number of secondary school students suspended or expelled over the course of a school year has increased by roughly 40 percent in the last four decades.

In recent years, secondary schools have suspended or expelled an estimated two million students a year. That is a staggering amount of lost learning time--and lost opportunity to provide support.

Making matters worse, exclusionary discipline is applied disproportionately to children of color and students with disabilities. Educationally, and morally, that status quo is simply unacceptable.

Our department’s Civil Rights Data Collection shows that African-American students without disabilities are more than three times as likely as their white peers to be expelled or suspended.

And we know that discipline policy and practices matter tremendously—there is nothing inevitable about high rates of suspension and expulsion. We can, and must, do much better.

According to CRDC data, schools in South Carolina suspended 12.7 percent of students—about one in eight students during the 2009-10 school year. By contrast, schools in North Dakota suspended 2.2 percent of students—about one out of every 50 students.

I am absolutely confident that students in South Carolina are not six times more likely than their peers in North Dakota to pose serious discipline problems worthy of an out-of-school suspension. That huge disparity is not caused by differences in children; it’s caused by differences in training, professional development, and discipline policies. It is adult behavior that needs to change.

The same gaping disparities show up at the district level. Across the country, more than 300 districts suspend over 25 percent of students with disabilities. Yet more than 600 districts suspend less than 3 percent of students with disabilities.

So, state and local policies and practices are both enormously variable and have a huge impact on exclusionary discipline. Those are just two reasons why this guidance package--spelling out three guiding principles for equitable school discipline—is so important.

USED offers several resources to schools and districts on the supportive school discipline 
initiative. You can access them on USED’s school climate and discipline webpage.

Terry Holliday, Ph.D.
Education Commissioner

Student Suspensions and Expulsions

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan held a news conference this past week to highlight civil rights issues related to student suspensions and expulsions. Duncan released new data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights that reveal unfortunate truths about our nation’s schools. You can see a summary of his presentation here.

In a New York Times article, reporter Tamar Lewin highlighted some of the data.

Black Students Face More Discipline, Data Suggests

By TAMAR LEWIN

Published: March 6, 2012

Although black students made up only 18 percent of those enrolled in the schools sampled, they accounted for 35 percent of those suspended once, 46 percent of those suspended more than once and 39 percent of all expulsions, according to the Civil Rights Data Collection’s 2009-10 statistics from 72,000 schools in 7,000 districts, serving about 85 percent of the nation’s students. The data covered students from kindergarten age through high school.

One in five black boys and more than one in 10 black girls received an out-of-school suspension. Over all, black students were three and a half times as likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers.

And in districts that reported expulsions under zero-tolerance policies, Hispanic and black students represent 45 percent of the student body, but 56 percent of those expelled under such policies.

I would encourage readers to visit the U.S. Department of Education’s Web page http://ocrdata.ed.gov/ to find data for your local schools and districts. State comparison data are also available.

We have been working for over a year with several partners to address these issues in Kentucky. The Kentucky Center for School Safety has developed annual data reports that provide information about student disciplinary actions, including data broken out by race/ethnicity.