Presentation - NC Partnership for Educational Opportunity
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Transcript Presentation - NC Partnership for Educational Opportunity
The School –To- Prison
Pipeline
Daniel J. Losen
Senior Education Law and Policy Associate
The Civil Rights Project at UCLA
©2010
Patterns of Racial Disparity in North
Carolina 2000 (U.S. Dept of Ed.)
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Racial Impact of The Rising Use Of
Suspension
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 3
Race with Gender in Middle
Schools in U.S. (2006)
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 4
Robeson County, North Carolina
(estimate based on 2006 OCR Data)
• 10 of 11 middle schools suspended over
33% of Black males (6 over 50%)
• 6 out of 11 middle schools suspended over
33% white males (5 over 50%)
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 5
Black/White Risk for Suspension in NC Schools in (200809) for Minor Offenses
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 6
Black First Time Offenders Suspended at Higher Rates
than Whites for Same Minor Offenses (NC 2008-09)
Percent of Offenders Receiving Suspension for First Offense
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 7
Same Offense: Harsher Treatment
• 4,838 Whites versus 2,242 Blacks
disciplined for first offense of cell phone
rules.
• 32.7% (732) of the offending Blacks were
suspended out of school.
• 14.5% (704) of the offending Whites were
suspended out of school.
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 8
Implicit and Institutional Bias
•
•
•
•
Bush’s “Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations”
Legacy of Inequity in Resource Distribution
Bias Against Students With Disabilities
Class bias
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 9
Low Achievement
• Contributes to likelihood of
misbehavior.
• Inequality of educational opportunity,
beginning in pre-school, shows up in
outcome data, including discipline data.
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 10
The Impact of Inadequate
Education
• If students need greater support today, to
what extent do we devote more resources
toward meeting academic and behavioral
needs early and consistently from preschool through secondary school?
• Kids who have experienced trauma are
more likely to act out in school, how do
we support them? (i.e. witnessed
domestic abuse or violence)
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 11
Suspension a Deterrent?
• Truancy and tardiness?
• Dress codes and gangs?
• Removing adult supervision to what
end?Generate respect? Safety?
• Schools can make a large difference… starting
with eliminating policies that do not work or
that are counter-productive.
• Law enforcement agencies are complaining
about the frequent use of suspension. (See Fight
Crime: Invest in Kids)
(The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 12
Pinellas County’s Cohort’s Suspension
Rate As Students Advanced in Grade
Percentage of cohort’s enrollment suspended
at least once: (Mendez 2003)
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5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
4.2
4.9
10.6
13.1
14.
8
18.5
20.2
18.4
18.7
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 13
Rates and Reasons for Suspension:
Impact of incomplete or unused data:
Incomplete reports fuel assumptions that
most suspended children posed a serious
threat to safety.
PBIS is data driven, but most districts need
support and many have data problems.
Lack of awareness, even among principals.
Poses problems for evaluating practice and
constructing remedies.
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No Accountability For Over-use of
Suspension
No regular reporting of suspension data
required.
School discipline data are not a regular part
of school evaluation.
Perverse incentives to raise test scores.
Students not in attendance for a full academic
year are excluded from accountability
calculus.
Invisible children: We only count those whom
we care about….
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Suspension and Blaming the Parents
• What should the school do when the parents lack the skills
and/or resources to provide good care and guidance? Will
suspension from school work?
• Should we send students away for school for their low
academic performance?
DRAFT - 16
The Attitudes of Principals
• After controlling for race and poverty, the
attitudes of principals on the use of
suspension were predictive of:
• Suspension rates…
• And test scores….
• Lower suspending principals across all
demographics had higher achievement.
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 17
Step One: Acknowledge Ways in Which
Schools Do Make a Difference
• Individually and systemically.
• Teachers can learn more effective
classroom management skills, including
how to handle very disruptive behavior.
• Teachers can improve their content
instruction in ways that also results in fewer
discipline problems.
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 18
The Difference Training Can
Make
• My inexperience and frequent referrals.
• Typical mistakes easily corrected:
– Focusing on wrongs rather than rights.
– Assuming bad motives and taking things personally.
– Poor preparation.
– Deferring to higher authorities.
– Group punishments.
– Classroom confrontation.
– Ignoring special needs….
I received training that was required of all first and second year
teachers.
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 19
Racial and Disability Disparities in
Discipline: District Level
Step Two: Ensure that Schools Meet Their Obligations
to All Students, Including those with Disabilities
• Racial differences raise questions about possible
difference in quality of special education by race.
• Manifestation determination:
– Behavior caused by disability, or
– Resulted from failure to properly implement the
student’s individualized educational plan (IEP).
• Study of districts in Delaware:
• About 50% of the principals knew that students
with disabilities had additional due-process rights.
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 21
Are Schools Skirting Their Responsibility to
Educate All Children?
• Data suggests systemic inequalities:
• Who pays the price?
• What are the costs?
– Financial?
– Crime?
– The fabric of our democracy?
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 22
Suspension’s Impact
• Loss of instructional time.
• Lower achievement.
• Three fold increase in risk of dropping
out.
• A leading indicator of future incarceration.
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 23
Balfanz Study of Incarcerated Youth
• According to Balfanz’s research, the typical
ninth grader who went to prison attended
school only 58% of the time, …2/3 had
been suspended at least once in eighth
grade.
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 24
Comparison of Percentage of All Students
with IEPs in Public Schools and in JJ
System (U.S.)
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Police in Our Schools
• How well trained?
• Cost benefit analysis compared with support for
students and teachers?
• How evaluated? Arrests or lack thereof?
• Increase in police presence, without education
protocol resulted in dramatic rise in misdemeanor
offenses and minor rise in felonies.
• Costs associated with over-use by educators…
DRAFT - 27
Step Three: Use data by race, gender and
disability, to inform, evaluate and modify the
remedy.
• Use data, broken down by race, gender and
disability, to understand the root of the
problem.
• Use data to raise awareness of the
disparities on a regular basis.
• Use data to find remedies already at work
within the district.
• Use data to evaluate the intervention.
• Use data to encourage replication of
success. (i.e.ThePBIS).
DRAFT - 28
Civil Rights Project
The End
Daniel J. Losen
New Report: Losen and Skiba, Suspended
Education: Urban Middle Schools in Crisis
New Book: Kim, Losen and Hewitt, The School
to Prison Pipeline: Structuring Legal Reform,
NYU Press. Call 800-996-6987
http://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/
[email protected]
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