A new study shows that teachers are more likely to suspend Black students, regardless of gender
One of the reasons that this country is so divided is that people tend to use data and studies to confirm their pre-existing beliefs while instinctively rejecting data and studies that challenge those beliefs. This has been an especially big problem concerning race. Progressives refuse to acknowledge, for example, that it is far from clear that police disproportionately use lethal force against African Americans.
Nonetheless, it is becoming increasingly clear that there significant racial prejudice against African American students, especially boys, when it comes to school discipline. A new study by The Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the UCLA Civil Rights Project and the Learning Policy Institute examined U.S. Department of Education data from the 2015-2016 school year. The data covered nearly every school district in the country.
The results were stark. The study found that, as a result of disciplinary suspension, Black boys lost 132 days of school per 100 students enrolled, compared with white boys who lost only 21 days of school per 100 students. Black girls had the second-highest rate, at 77 days per 100 students enrolled, which was seven times the rate of lost instruction experienced by White girls at the secondary level.
Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the disparity is the result of racial prejudice. Conservatives such as Heather McDonald argue that the disparities can be explained by worse behavior by Black students. It is easy to measure correlation, but much harder to show causation. Conservatives and progressives have very different opinions about what drives racially disproportionate results, whether they be police shootings or school discipline.
But in the case of school discipline, there is good reason to believe that racial prejudice by teachers is a major driver of the racial disparities. A clever study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, found a way to compare apples to apples when it comes to school discipline. Conservatives like McDonald argue that there is more bad behavior by Black students, which accounts for the fact that Black students are punished more often. The University of Illinois study looked only at students who had been punished by teachers. So 100% of both the Black students and the white students committed infractions. But the study found that the white students were far more likely to receive warnings from the teachers before being suspended or being referred to the principal’s office.
This was not a small disparity. The study found that “Black males were 95% less likely than white males to receive verbal warnings directly from teachers, and black students of either sex were 84% less likely to have multiple warnings directed to their parents, according to the study.”
Further, the study compensated for the frequency of bad behavior by the student. “Regardless of the number or frequency of their infractions, black students were less likely than their white peers to be warned about their behaviors in the classroom or in messages to their parents, the researchers found. Even among those students who reported three or more incidents of misbehavior, black males were less likely than white males to be warned by their teachers about misconduct.”
Importantly, this racial disparity in warnings held true regardless of the type of bad behavior exhibited by students. Whether it was tardiness, arguing with the teacher, or skipping class, Black students were significantly less likely to receive warnings before punishment.
These studies point the way to achieving greater racial equity in school discipline. Concepts such as implicit bias are controversial and are tough to overcome. The better way might be to have clearer and more uniform rules about warning students prior to suspensions. While violent behavior may require a suspension without a warning, many suspensions result from milder, repeated behaviors such as tardiness. The racial disparities in warnings before suspensions appear to be enormous. Fixing that would be a good place to start.
