Dropout Nation

The Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education has recently released data from the 2013 school year, including reported numbers of discipline of students by disability status, race, ethnicity, and gender for districts and schools. This isn’t information many want to see — and others (including the incoming administration and its allies) would rather not ever be collected. But the information is there for everyone to see — and it isn’t pretty.

Just as crime statistics measure not crime, but police activity, so school discipline statistics measure the actions—and thus the attitudes—of school personnel rather than simply recording the actions of ill-behaved students. School discipline categories are those of the actions of school officials: Corporal punishment, suspension, expulsions, referral to law enforcement and school-related arrests.  Corporal punishment is only used in a few isolated places, such as one or two in Louisiana, by White school personnel on Black students, and therefore can be placed in another category, perhaps that of residual Jim Crow.

Suspensions are either in-school or out-of-school and are counted as those inflicted only once during the school year or once or more often.  Expulsions can be with or without educational services and those under zero-tolerance policies.  There are also school-related arrests and referrals to law enforcement.

We can, then, examine the discipline activities of school personnel in rather fine detail in, for example, three large urban districts: Chicago, New York and Philadelphia.

Chicago’s student enrollment is 46 percent Latino, 40 percent Black, 10 percent White and 4 percent Asian.  School personnel rarely inflict school discipline actions on Asian students.  Many of Chicago’s discipline categories record no Asian students and in none of the others does the percentage of Asian students punished rise to that of the percentage of Asian students in the district.  Only four White students, all male, were expelled—that out of 19,000 male White students.  As with the Asian students, the only discipline category in which school personnel saw fit to place White students at a rate equal to their enrollment was that involving a single out-of-school suspension.  The number of Hispanic students, also, does not exceed their enrollment representation in any category and in the matter of expulsions varies from 17 percent to 2 percent of those expelled under any heading, as compared to the Latino enrollment of 46 percent.

Chicago’s school personnel, in contrast, are particularly active in inflicting disciplinary measures on Black students.  Sixty-five percent of students receiving one or more in-school suspensions are Black, as are 60 percent of those receiving only one out-of-school suspension.  Seventy-six percent of those receiving more than one-out of–school suspensions are Black; as are 79 percent of those expelled with and 88 percent of those expelled without educational services.  Eighty-three percent of those expelled under zero tolerance policies are Black as are 62 percent of those referred to law enforcement.

A number equal to 44 percent of all male Black students in the Chicago schools was recorded as subjected to one category or another of disciplinary punishment in the 2013 school year.  Of course some of those students were double-counted: suspended then expelled and the like.  And some would have been disciplined even by the most fair-minded adult.  And all are likely to leave school before graduating from high school, likely to be incarcerated, likely to never earn anything above a poverty wage, likely, perhaps, to murder someone or be murdered themselves.

New York’s student enrollment is 41 percent Latino, 26 percent Black, 15 percent White and 16 percent Asian.  As in Chicago, school personnel rarely inflict school discipline actions on Asian students.  Some of the discipline categories record no Asian students and in none of the others does the percentage of Asian students punished rise to that of the percentage of Asian students in the district.  Only six White students, all male, were expelled—that out of 78,000 male White students.  There was no discipline category in which school personnel saw fit to place White students at a rate equal to their enrollment.  The number of Hispanic students exceeded their enrollment representation in only one sub-category (male students receiving one or more in-school suspensions) and in only 14 male Hispanic students were expelled, out of 206,300.

New York’s school personnel, like those in Chicago, are particularly active in inflicting disciplinary measures on Black students.  Forty-nine percent of students receiving one or more in-school suspensions are Black, as are 54 percent of those receiving only one out-of-school suspension.  Sixty-three percent of those receiving more than one-out of–school suspensions are Black; as are 66 percent of those expelled with educational services.  Forty percent of those expelled under zero tolerance policies are Black as are 53 percent of those referred to law enforcement.

The school discipline activities of New York City’s school personnel are not as frequent as those of their colleagues in Chicago; they are similarly disproportionately inflicted on Black students.

Philadelphia’s student enrollment is 19 percent Latino, 53 percent Black, 15 percent White and 8 percent Asian.  As with Chicago and New York, Philadelphia school personnel rarely inflict school discipline actions on Asian students. No Asian students were expelled or referred to law enforcement and in none of the other categories does the percentage of Asian students punished rise to that of the percentage of Asian students in the district.  None of the 21,000 White students were expelled.  Sixteen percent of students suspended one or more times were White, as compared with the 15 percent share of the district enrollment composed of White students. Hardly any Latino students were recorded in discipline matters—eight in all categories other than school-related arrest, where 15 percent of those in the district were Latino, compared to the 19 percent share of Latino students in the district.  It does seem a bit odd that Philadelphia’s school personnel take so few actions regarding discipline matters involving Latino, other than the very serious items requiring police action, but that is what the district reported to the U.S. Department of Education.

Philadelphia’s school personnel, in contrast, decree 71 percent of one or more in-school suspensions to Black students, 84 percent of only one out-of-school suspensions, and 87 percent of more than one out-of-school suspensions.  Seventy-three percent of students subjected to school related arrests in Philadelphia are Black.

A number equal to nearly a quarter of all male Black students in the Philadelphia schools were subjected to one category or another of disciplinary punishment in the 2013 school year.  The school discipline activities of Philadelphia’s school personnel are more frequent than those in New York, although not as frequent as those of their colleagues in Chicago.  However, they are similarly disproportionately inflicted on Black students.

These disproportionalities hold for both male and female students.

Five years ago the Justice Center of the council of State Governments issued a report entitled “Breaking Schools’ Rules: A Statewide Study on How School Discipline Related to Students’ Success and Juvenile Justice Involvement.”  The study established that racial and ethnic disproportionality in school discipline is a function of school personnel actions and attitudes, rather than student behavior. It also established that those attitudes, and hence attitudes, can be changed by in-service professional development.

In districts as large as those of Chicago, New York and Philadelphia this might be costly.  On the other hand, maintaining the status quo destroys the life-chances, and in many cases the lives, of thousands of Black children.

Featured cartoon courtesy of Rachel Marie-Crane Williams.