Suspension rates vary: Is it racism, poverty or ... ?

Adopting sensible discipline policies -- attacking a teacher and making a bomb threat are serious offenses -- may lead to more suspensions of black male students, some fear in Montgomery County, Maryland. Blacks are much more likely to be suspended than Hispanics, whites and Asians, according to a district report, though it's not clear why these students are suspended.

Success Academy charter students are known for good behavior and high test scores.

Under pre-Trumpian federal policy, schools could get in trouble if discipline policies -- however race neutral they seem -- affect a minority group more than the majority, writes Fordham's Michael Petrilli. But two recent executive orders on discipline and “disparate impact will change the ballgame.

One example of the need for "disparate impact" rules was given by Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat, who said that a rule banning dreadlocks in school would affect blacks more than whites, notes Petrilli. If a policy affects one group more than others and isn't "defensible," it should go.

But the fact that black students are more likely to be suspended or expelled is not evidence of unfair or racist treatment, writes Petrilli. It shouldn't automatically trigger civil rights investigations or demands for laxer discipline.

"Black students might misbehave at higher rates than White children — not because they are Black, but because they are much more likely to grow up in poverty, with all the risk factors that entails," he writes. After all, black students’ much higher rates of childhood poverty explain much of the achievement gap.  

If discipline disparities really are driven primarily by bias and systemic racism, we would expect to see the largest disparities in the states with the most regressive racial attitudes," Petrilli argues. He analyzed the data, and found a "mishmash." There's no correlation.

Comparing states’ discipline disparities with their “poverty disparities” — how many Black children are living in poverty for every one White child living in poverty -- shows more of a match, Petrilli writes. He counts "nine states that score high for both discipline disparities and poverty disparities, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Utah, and Nevada." The difference in socioeconomic status "largely explains" both discipline disparities and racial achievement gaps, he concludes.

A Louisiana study of fights that featured both white and black students found slightly longer suspensions for blacks than whites, "even after accounting for students’ prior discipline records, background characteristics, and school attended," Petrilli writes. That looks like racial bias.

But the difference was slight, researchers found. At the same time, they found that the huge difference in suspension rates -- blacks were suspended at twice the rate of whites -- was explained by the fact that blacks were three times more likely to get into fights at school.

It's very hard for teachers to teach and students to learn if an out-of-control minority is allowed to disrupt classrooms and stage fights in the halls. It's not fair to the students who want to learn. It's not fair for the kids who might improve their behavior in a structured, orderly environment.