(NAME-MCE) Tougher discipline on African-Americans

[esther]

I have been very concerned about out of control discipline on our school children, so I was glad to read the above article. I would like to bring up the "school to prison pipeline" mentality that prevails in some schools. I would like to submit the following article:  Bob Herbert: School to Prison Pipeline


(Maybe Bob's reading me, too. Herbert here makes an important point that I'd made just yesterday: While wastes of trace elements like Paris Hilton are given preferential treatment for driving while drunk and endangering people, we're swinging to the other side of the pendulum and arresting children as young as five for merely acting out and sometimes not even that. Tellingly, they tend to be African American. Unfortunately, as this article from a Florida newspaper that lauds this disturbing practice demonstrates, this isn't a new trend.)

The latest news-as-entertainment spectacular is the Paris Hilton criminal justice fiasco. She’s in! She’s out! She’s — whatever.

Far more disturbing (and much less entertaining) is the way school officials and the criminal justice system are criminalizing children and teenagers all over the country, arresting them and throwing them in jail for behavior that in years past would never have led to the intervention of law enforcement.

This is an aspect of the justice system that is seldom seen. But the consequences of ushering young people into the bowels of police precincts and jail cells without a good reason for doing so are profound.

Two months ago I wrote about a 6-year-old girl in Florida who was handcuffed by the police and taken off to the county jail after she threw a tantrum in her kindergarten class.

Police in Brooklyn recently arrested more than 30 young people, ages 13 to 22, as they walked toward a subway station, on their way to a wake for a teenage friend who had been murdered. No evidence has been presented that the grieving young people had misbehaved. No drugs or weapons were found. But they were accused by the police of gathering unlawfully and of disorderly conduct.

In March, police in Baltimore handcuffed a 7-year-old boy and took him into custody for riding a dirt bike on the sidewalk. The boy tearfully told The Baltimore Examiner, “They scared me.” Mayor Sheila Dixon later apologized for the arrest.

Children, including some who are emotionally disturbed, are often arrested for acting out. Some are arrested for carrying sharp instruments that they had planned to use in art classes, and for mouthing off.

This is a problem that has gotten out of control. Behavior that was once considered a normal part of growing up is now resulting in arrest and incarceration.

Kids who find themselves caught in this unnecessary tour of the criminal justice system very quickly develop malignant attitudes toward law enforcement. Many drop out — or are forced out — of school. In the worst cases, the experience serves as an introductory course in behavior that is, in fact, criminal.

There is a big difference between a child or teenager who brings a gun to school or commits some other serious offense and someone who swears at another student or gets into a wrestling match or a fistfight in the playground. Increasingly, especially as zero-tolerance policies proliferate, children are being treated like criminals for the most minor offenses.

There should be no obligation to call the police if a couple of kids get into a fight and teachers are able to bring it under control. But now, in many cases, youngsters caught fighting are arrested and charged with assault.

A 2006 report on disciplinary practices in Florida schools showed that a middle school student in Palm Beach County who was caught throwing rocks at a soda can was arrested and charged with a felony — hurling a “deadly missile.”

We need to get a grip.

The Racial Justice Program at the American Civil Liberties Union has been studying this issue. “What we see routinely,” said Dennis Parker, the program’s director, “is that behavior that in my time would have resulted in a trip to the principal’s office is now resulting in a trip to the police station.”

He added that the evidence seems to show that white kids are significantly less likely to be arrested for minor infractions than black or Latino kids. The 6-year-old arrested in Florida was black. The 7-year-old arrested in Baltimore was black.

Shaquanda Cotton was black. She was the 14-year-old high school freshman in Paris, Tex., who was arrested for shoving a hall monitor. She was convicted in March 2006 of “assault on a public servant” and sentenced to a prison term of — hold your breath — up to seven years!

Shaquanda’s outraged family noted that the judge who sentenced her had, just three months earlier, sentenced a 14-year-old white girl who was convicted of arson for burning down her family’s home. The white girl was given probation.

Shaquanda was recently released after a public outcry over her case and the eruption of a scandal involving allegations of widespread sexual abuse of incarcerated juveniles in Texas.

This issue deserves much more attention. Sending young people into the criminal justice system unnecessarily is a brutal form of abuse with consequences, for the child and for society as a whole, that can last a lifetime.

posted by jurassicpork @ 6/08/2007 11:51:00 PM   4 comments 

-----Original Message-----
>From: name-mce-request at nameorg.org
>Sent: Sep 26, 2007 6:49 AM
>To: name-mce at nameorg.org
>Subject: Name-mce Digest, Vol 621, Issue 1
>
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>Today's Topics:
>
>   1.  Article (taduest at aol.com)
>   2.  "Writing Our Hope" project (Paul C. Gorski)
>   3.  New Grants from Youth Service America
>      (Christina Wessell Batcheler)
>   4.  Mapping Communities - GIS Workshop for Beginners (Gina Clemmer)
>   5.  NAME conference: stay w/ us (Tasha Lebow)
>   6.  School discipline tougher on African Americans
>      (Anselmo Villanueva)
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Message: 1
>Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 10:18:42 -0400
>From: taduest at aol.com
>Subject: (NAME-MCE) Article
>To: name-mce at nameorg.org
>Message-ID: <8C9CD961C7365FF-7C8-45B0 at FWM-M14.sysops.aol.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
>
>This story was sent to you by: Tracey DuEst
>
>
>
>--------------------
>School discipline harder on blacks 
>--------------------
>
>Analysis of federal data shows racial inequality in suspensions and expulsions 
>nationwide; locally, the gap is widest in Lake and DuPage
>
>By Howard Witt
>Tribune senior correspondent
>
>September 25 2007
>
>AUSTIN, Texas -- In the average New Jersey public school, African-American 
>students are almost 60 times as likely as white students to be expelled for 
>serious disciplinary infractions. 
>
>The complete article can be viewed at:
>http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-discipline_wittsep25,1,3040335.story 
>
>
>Visit chicagotribune.com at http://www.chicagotribune.com
>
>
>________________________________________________________________________
>Email and AIM finally together. You've gotta check out free AOL Mail! - http://mail.aol.com
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 2
>Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 10:56:30 -0400
>From: "Paul C. Gorski" <gorski at edchange.org>
>Subject: (NAME-MCE) "Writing Our Hope" project
>To: mcp at edchange.org
>Cc: name-mce at nameorg.org
>Message-ID: <20070925105630.e68j1b81csk8wkoc at www.edchange.org>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>FYI.
>
>For more information contact Foster Dickson at Foster.Dickson at mps.k12.al.us.
>
>Paul
>
>>>> "Dickson, Foster" <Foster.Dickson at mps.k12.al.us> 9/25/2007 7:57 AM >>>
>
>Dr. Gorski,
>
>I am writing to you about a new project that we are doing at Booker T.
>Washington Magnet High School in Montgomery, Alabama. "Writing Our Hope" is a
>new student-edited e-zine that is currently accepting submissions (for issue
>#1) from high school students anywhere in North America on the themes of
>hope, tolerance, and equality. The web project is a follow-up to "Our Hope,"
>our recently released book on the same themes. For more information, the web
>address is www.writingourhope.org.
>
>Thanks,
>Foster Dickson
>
>
>
>-------------- next part --------------
>
>*******************************
>Paul C. Gorski
>Hamline University
>EdChange Workshops & Consulting: http://www.EdChange.org ( http://www.edchange.org/ )
>Multicultural Pavilion: http://www.EdChange.org/multicultural 
>Social Justice Store: http://www.cafepress.com/edchange 
>Multicultural Poster Store: http://www.EdChange.org/posters 
>SoJust.net: http://www.SoJust.net ( http://www.sojust.net/ )
>Social Justice Bookstore: http://www.EdChange.org/transformations 
>Personal Page: http://www.paulgorski.efoliomn2.com/ 
> 
>>>> "Dickson, Foster" <Foster.Dickson at mps.k12.al.us> 9/25/2007 7:57 AM >>>
>
>Dr. Gorski,
>
>I am writing to you about a new project that we are doing at Booker T.
>Washington Magnet High School in Montgomery, Alabama. "Writing Our Hope" is a
>new student-edited e-zine that is currently accepting submissions (for issue
>#1) from high school students anywhere in North America on the themes of
>hope, tolerance, and equality. The web project is a follow-up to "Our Hope,"
>our recently released book on the same themes. For more information, the web
>address is www.writingourhope.org.
>
>Thanks,
>Foster Dickson
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 3
>Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 11:09:54 -0400
>From: "Christina Wessell Batcheler" <cwessell at ysa.org>
>Subject: (NAME-MCE) New Grants from Youth Service America
>To: <name-mce at nameorg.org>
>Message-ID:
>	<7614416899B7784A89B95D7F7F517E5168A3AC at PROJECTSRVR.ysa.lan>
>Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"
>
>Please see the below 4 new opportunities from Youth Service America for
>youth, schools, organizations, etc. Thanks!
> 
>1. STATE FARM GOOD NEIGHBOR SERVICE-LEARNING GRANTS
>With the generous support of the State Farm Companies Foundation, Youth
>Service America is offering the annual State Farm Good Neighbor
>Service-Learning Grant for youth across the United States and Canada
>(select provinces). These grants of up to $1,000 support youth (ages
>5-25), teachers, or school-based service-learning coordinators in
>implementing service-learning projects for Global Youth Service Day
>2008.  To learn more, download an application and grant guidelines at
>http://www.YSA.org/awards  or email Goodneighbor at ysa.org. The deadline
>to apply is October 16.
> 
> 
>2. YouthPower Grants (US applicants only)
>The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and
>Youth Service America <http://www.ysa.org/>  (YSA) are pleased to
>announce YouthPower grants of up to $1,000 to support youth-led service
>projects.  These grants support youth in foster care (ages 5-18) and
>youth who have recently transitioned out of foster care (ages 19-25) in
>planning and implementing service projects in their community.
>Youth-serving organizations that have prior experience in working with
>youth in the foster care system are eligible to apply, provided that
>they that engage foster youth in planning and implementing a service
>project. Service projects will take place as part of Global Youth
>Service Day on April 25-27, 2008. Projects can address themes such as
>the environment, disaster relief, public health and awareness, community
>education, hunger, literacy, or any issue that youth identify as a
>community need.  Applications are welcome from organizations in the US
>only.  Please download application materials at www.YSA.org/awards.
>Questions? Email YouthPower at ysa.org. 
>Receipt deadline: October 1, 2007.
> 
> 
>3. APPLY FOR THE YSA YOUTH VENTURE PROGRAM
>Hey YOUth! Have an idea that could help your community? Want to be
>connected to other young changemakers? Need the funding and resources to
>get your idea started? YSA Youth Venture can help! The YSA Youth Venture
>Program is a partnership between Youth Service America and Youth Venture
>that is helping build the movement of young social entrepreneurs by
>investing in and encouraging the ideas of young people. The YSA Youth
>Venture Program provides funding and support to young people (ages
>12-20) who want to create new, sustainable, civic-minded organizations,
>clubs or businesses, called Ventures. By helping youth engage in
>community service, YSA Youth Venture is making every day Global Youth
>Service Day (GYSD).
> 
>Ventures MUST be youth-led and designed to be a lasting asset to the
>community. YSA Youth Venture teams are required to plan a GYSD project
>every year that their Venture is operational. The YSA Youth Venture
>Program provides a variety of resources including: a national network of
>like-minded young people, media opportunities, technical support,
>helpful toolkits and workshops as well as seed funding of up to $1,000
>for start-up expenses. For application tools and more information about
>the YSA Youth Venture Partnership Program, please visit our web page at
>http://www.genv.net/en-us/region/ysa. To apply, download and complete
>the Action Plan and email ysayvprogram at youthventure.org to submit.
>Applicants are required to read the submission guidelines; any
>application not formatted according to these guidelines will not be
>considered. Don't forget to create a team profile on the web site in
>order to access all Youth Venture's resources and tools! Application
>Submission Deadline: October 1st, 2007 5:00pmEST. U.S. Applicants ONLY.
> 
>4. RECOGNIZE OUTSTANDING YOUTH AND YOUTH-SERVING ORGANIZATIONS WITH THE
>2008 HARRIS WOFFORD AWARD
> 
>Youth Service America is pleased to announce a call for nominations for
>the prestigious 2008 Harris Wofford Awards, sponsored by State Farm
>Companies Foundation. The Awards recognize extraordinary achievements in
>three categories: Youth (ages 12-25), Organization (nonprofit,
>corporate, foundation), and Media (organization or individual) for
>actively contributing towards, "making service and service-learning the
>common expectation and common experience of every young person." Award
>winners will be honored and presented with an award of recognition at
>the 19th Annual National Service-Learning Conference in Minneapolis, MN.
>The recipient in the Youth category will receive a $500 award for
>him/herself and a $500 award for the non-profit organization of his/her
>choice. Travel arrangements, including airfare and accommodation, will
>be provided for each award recipient. The deadline to apply is October
>19. To learn more, visit http://www.YSA.org/awards. 
> 
> 
>--Christina Wessell Batcheler
> 
>Christina Wessell Batcheler  -  Director of Communications 
>Youth Service America (YSA) 
>Phone: 202-296-2992  x  128  |  Fax: 202-296-4030  |  Cell: 240-483-6288
>| cwessell at ysa.org | 1101 15th Street, NW, Suite 200  |  Washington, DC
>|  20005 
>http://www.YSA.org  |  http://www.servenet.org |
> 
> 
>*For the Media Room: www.YSA.org\news.  
> 
> 
>Join Us: 
>20th annual Global Youth Service Day in the United States events take
>place April 25-27, 2008 - www.YSA.org/NYSD
> 
>Internationally, Global Youth Service Day events take place in more than
>100 countries April 25-27, 2008 - www.GYSD.org 
> 
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 4
>Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 09:18:56 -0700
>From: "Gina Clemmer" <gclemmer at urban-research.info>
>Subject: (NAME-MCE) Mapping Communities - GIS Workshop for Beginners
>To: <name-mce at nameorg.org>
>Message-ID:
>	<KKELLDLKEKBGICDCOPFJMEMJFEAA.gclemmer at urban-research.info>
>Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>New Urban Research offers mapping and Census workshops which is great for
>anyone that would like to map out demographics and service areas.
>
>Hands-on workshops focus on teaching the fundamentals of using a Geographic
>Information System (GIS) for community analysis. Participants will learn to
>create thematic maps with Census data, Geocoding (Address mapping) and
>Spatial Queries. Other features of the workshop are learning to extract
>Census data and good map layout and design.
>
>Upcoming workshops:
>
>Des Moines: http://www.urban-research.info/workshops/iowa-gis.htm
>NYC: http://www.urban-research.info/workshops/newyork-gis.htm
>Portland, OR: http://www.urban-research.info/workshops/oregon-gis.htm
>Seattle & Olympia:
>http://www.urban-research.info/workshops/washington-gis.htm
>Phoenix: http://www.urban-research.info/workshops/arizona-gis.htm
>Texas (various cities):
>http://www.urban-research.info/workshops/texas-gis.htm
>Baltimore: http://www.urban-research.info/workshops/maryland-gis.htm
>Boston: http://www.urban-research.info/workshops/massachusetts-gis.htm
>Chicago: http://www.urban-research.info/workshops/illinois-gis.htm
>
>
>Gina Clemmer
>New Urban Research, Inc.
>877.241.6576 | www.urban-research.info
>
>
>
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 5
>Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 14:34:46 -0400
>From: Tasha Lebow <tlebow at umich.edu>
>Subject: (NAME-MCE) NAME conference: stay w/ us
>To: NAME-MCE - National Association for Multicultural Education Email
>	Discussion Group <name-mce at nameorg.org>
>Message-ID: <20070925143446.xka20ft18gsk0wsw at web.mail.umich.edu>
>Content-Type: text/plain;	charset=ISO-8859-1;	format="flowed"
>
>
>It seems there was some confusion at the hotel reservations desk last 
>week. The CONFERENCE RATE IS STILL AVAILABLE ($159, as opposed to the 
>full $400+ rate). The deadline for reservations at this rate is October 
>1.
>
>If you were told the rate was sold out, we regret the confusion and 
>misinformation. Corrections have been made at the hotel end. If you 
>have any problems or questions booking your reservation at the NAME 
>conference rate, please contact Anna Brown at the Hyatt directly: 
>410.605.2846
>
>Thank you for your support of NAME.
>
>See you at the 2007 Conference!
>
>Tasha
>
>-- 
>Tasha Lebow
>
>University of Michigan
>Programs for Educational Opportunity
>1005 School of Education
>Ann Arbor MI  48109
>PH: 734.763.9910   FAX: 734.763.2137
>
>President, 2005-2007
>NAME: National Association for Multicultural Education
>www.nameorg.org
>
>MARK YOUR CALENDAR: NAME's 17th Annual Conference, Oct. 31-Nov. 4, 2007
>Baltimore, MD: "Charting the Course for Excellence and Equity with 
>Multicultural
>Learning Communities". Check the web site for details: www.nameorg.org
>
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 6
>Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 15:33:09 -0700
>From: "Anselmo Villanueva" <anselmo.villanueva at gmail.com>
>Subject: (NAME-MCE) School discipline tougher on African Americans
>To: name-mce at nameorg.org
>Message-ID:
>	<88024d6b0709251533k43c486e9o3ce936fd4276a01d at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=WINDOWS-1252
>
>Analysis: Black students disciplined more than whites
>
>In every state but Idaho, black students are being disproportionately
>suspended, according to a Chicago Tribune analysis of 2004-05 U.S.
>Department of Education data. "...[T]he data indicate that
>African-American students are punished more severely for the same
>offense," said Russell Skiba, an educational-psychology professor at
>Indiana University.
>
>Complete story below.  For related stories, go to:
>
>http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-070924discipline,0,5043223,full.story?coll=chi_tab01_layout
>
>School discipline tougher on African Americans
>By Howard Witt | Tribune senior correspondent
>September 25, 2007
>
>In the average New Jersey public school, African-American students are
>almost 60 times as likely as white students to be expelled for serious
>disciplinary infractions.
>
>In Minnesota, black students are suspended 6 times as often as whites.
>
>In Iowa, blacks make up just 5 percent of the statewide public school
>enrollment but account for 22 percent of the students who get
>suspended.
>
>Fifty years after federal troops escorted nine black students through
>the doors of an all-white high school in Little Rock, Ark., in a
>landmark school integration struggle, America's public schools remain
>as unequal as they have ever been when measured in terms of
>disciplinary sanctions such as suspensions and expulsions, according
>to little-noticed data collected by the U.S. Department of Education
>for the 2004-2005 school year.
>
>In every state but Idaho, a Tribune analysis of the data shows, black
>students are being suspended in numbers greater than would be expected
>from their proportion of the student population. In 21 states?Illinois
>among them?that disproportionality is so pronounced that the
>percentage of black suspensions is more than double their percentage
>of the student body. And on average across the nation, black students
>are suspended and expelled at nearly three times the rate of white
>students.
>
>No other ethnic group is disciplined at such a high rate, the federal
>data show. Hispanic students are suspended and expelled in almost
>direct proportion to their populations, while white and Asian students
>are disciplined far less.
>
>Yet black students are no more likely to misbehave than other students
>from the same social and economic environments, research studies have
>found. Some impoverished black children grow up in troubled
>neighborhoods and come from broken families, leaving them less
>equipped to conform to behavioral expectations in school. While such
>socioeconomic factors contribute to the disproportionate discipline
>rates, researchers say that poverty alone cannot explain the
>disparities. "There simply isn't any support for the notion that,
>given the same set of circumstances, African-American kids act out to
>a greater degree than other kids," said Russell Skiba, a professor of
>educational psychology at Indiana University whose research focuses on
>race and discipline issues in public schools. "In fact, the data
>indicate that African-American students are punished more severely for
>the same offense, so clearly something else is going on. We can call
>it structural inequity or we can call it institutional racism."
>
>Academic researchers have been quietly collecting evidence of such
>race-based disciplinary disparities for more than 25 years. Yet the
>phenomenon remains largely obscured from public view by the popular
>emphasis on "zero tolerance" crackdowns, which are supposed to deliver
>equally harsh punishments based on a student's infraction, not skin
>color.
>
>That's not what the data say is happening. Yet the federal Education
>Department's Office of Civil Rights, which is charged with
>investigating allegations of discriminatory discipline policies in the
>nation's public schools, has opened just one such probe in the past
>three years. Officials declined requests to explain why.
>
>There's more at stake than just a few bad marks in a student's school
>record. Studies show that a history of school suspensions or
>expulsions is a strong predictor of future trouble with the law?and
>the first step on what civil rights leaders have described as a
>"school-to-prison pipeline" for black youths, who represent 16 percent
>of U.S. adolescents but 38 percent of those incarcerated in youth
>prisons.
>
>Relatively few school districts scattered across the country have
>begun to acknowledge the issue of racial disparities in discipline and
>tried to do something about it.
>
>In Austin, after administrators discovered that black youths accounted
>for 14 percent of the school district's population but 37 percent of
>the students sent to punitive alternative schools, they introduced a
>program in some schools based on encouraging positive student
>behaviors rather than punishing negative ones.
>
>At one school, Pickle Elementary, which serves mostly Hispanic and
>black students, the results were dramatic?disciplinary referrals
>dropped from 520 in 2001-2002 to just 20 last year.
>
>"I am not going to give up on a child and suspend him or send him to
>an alternative school," said Julie Pryor, who was the principal of the
>school when the behavioral program was implemented and is now a
>district administrator. "Washing our hands of a child will never
>change his behavior, it just makes it worse. These are children. It's
>up to us to be creative to find ways to help them behave."
>
>But academic experts say many more school administrators, when
>confronted with data showing disparate rates of discipline for
>minority students, react like officials in the small east Texas town
>of Paris and strenuously deny accusations of racial discrimination.
>
>Paris is the sole school district in the nation currently under
>investigation by the federal Education Department to determine whether
>higher discipline rates for black students there constitute
>institutionalized discrimination. The probe has been under way for
>more than a year.
>
>"The school district has been a leader and very progressive when it
>comes to race relations," Dennis Eichelbaum, the attorney for the
>Paris Independent School District, said in an interview earlier this
>year.
>
>That perspective is not shared by the families of many of Paris' black
>students, who make up 40 percent of the school district's nearly 4,000
>students.
>
>"They say there's no racism here, but if you go inside a school and
>look in the room where they send the kids for detention, almost all
>the faces are black," said Brenda Cherry, a Paris civil rights
>activist who assembled some of the complaints that sparked the federal
>investigation. "Unless black people are just a bad race of people,
>something is wrong here."
>
>Exactly why black students across the nation are suspended and
>expelled more frequently than children of other races is a question
>that continues to perplex sociologists.
>
>Socioeconomic factors are certainly at play, researchers believe.
>
>"Studies of school suspension have consistently documented
>disproportionality by socioeconomic status. Students who receive free
>school lunch are at increased risk for school suspension," according
>to "The Color of Discipline," a 2000 study by Skiba and other
>researchers in Indiana and Nebraska. Another study concluded that
>"students whose fathers did not have a full-time job were
>significantly more likely to be suspended than students whose fathers
>were employed full time."
>
>But those studies and others have repeatedly found that racial factors
>are even more important.
>
>"Poor home environment does carry over into the school environment,"
>said Skiba, who is widely regarded as the nation's foremost authority
>on school discipline and race. "But middle-class and upper-class black
>students are also being disciplined more often than their white peers.
>Skin color in itself is a part of this function."
>
>Some experts point to cultural miscommunications between black
>students and white teachers, who fill 83 percent of the nation's
>teaching ranks. In fact, the Tribune analysis found, some of the
>highest rates of racially disproportionate discipline are found in
>states with the lowest minority populations, where the disconnect
>between white teachers and black students is potentially the greatest.
>
>"White teachers feel more threatened by boys of color," said Isela
>Gutierrez, a juvenile justice expert at the Texas Criminal Justice
>Coalition, a watchdog and policy group. "They are viewed as
>disruptive. What might be their more assertive way of asking a
>question, for example, is viewed as popping off at the mouth."
>
>Nor has the decline of court-ordered integration across the nation and
>the gradual resegregation of urban schools in recent decades made much
>difference in disciplinary rates. Even in urban schools where most of
>the students are black, black youths are still disciplined out of
>proportion to their population, the data show. In Washington, D.C.,
>for example, black students are 84 percent of the public school
>population but 97 percent of the students who are suspended. Other
>researchers believe that zero-tolerance policies, which encourage
>teachers and administrators to crack down on even minor, non-violent
>misbehavior, are exacerbating racial disparities. Some states, such as
>Texas, are so zealous that they have criminalized many school
>infractions, saddling tens of thousands of students with misdemeanor
>criminal records for offenses such as swearing or disrupting class.
>
>The school security climate, in turn, can reinforce race-based
>expectations about which students are most likely to require
>discipline.
>
>"Most suburban schools, where the students are more likely to be
>white, purchase security equipment that is meant to protect
>children?for example, hand scanners that make sure that the
>parent/guardian picking up the child is legitimate," said Ronnie
>Casella, an expert on the criminalization of student behavior at
>Central Connecticut State University. "In contrast, urban schools
>choose equipment such as metal detectors and surveillance cameras that
>are meant to catch youths committing crimes."
>
>The new behavioral program being tried in Austin, and some 6,500
>schools nationwide, seeks to turn zero tolerance on its head in a bid
>to slash the number of suspensions, expulsions and other punishments
>meted out by teachers.
>
>Called "Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports," the intensive
>regimen requires a commitment from an entire school, including
>training of students in the behaviors that are expected of them and
>re-education of teachers and administrators in the use of positive
>motivational techniques.
>
>The interactions of individual teachers with their students are
>minutely scrutinized by a team of experts to pinpoint communication
>breakdowns, and specialized counseling teams are deployed to work with
>students who present the most serious discipline issues so that
>classroom teachers are not left to deal with the problems on their
>own.
>
>"Most schools use a get-tough, punish-the-kids kind of perspective,
>which results in the kinds of racial disciplinary disparities we see
>across the country," said George Sugai, a professor of education at
>the University of Connecticut who helped create the positive
>behavioral program. "We come at it from the other perspective: If you
>teach kids the behaviors that are expected, you have a greater
>likelihood of success. It's really more about changing how adults
>interact with kids than it is about changing the kids."
>
>Schools like Pickle Elementary in Austin that are using the positive
>behavioral program often report sharp reductions in their disciplinary
>referrals. But Skiba, who is currently studying the effectiveness of
>the program, cautions that it does not always eliminate racial
>disparities.
>
>"They've been very successful at reducing rates of suspension and
>expulsion while making schools function more effectively," Skiba said
>of the schools using the program. "But if you look at the data by
>race, what you find is that some discrepancies still exist. It's not
>enough to put this program in place and say, 'We are happy to reduce
>our rates of suspension,' because what we might have done is reduce
>our white suspensions and increase our African-American suspensions.
>There's just no silver bullet for this problem."
>
>hwitt at tribune.com
>
>
>
>------------------------------
>
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>End of Name-mce Digest, Vol 621, Issue 1
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