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Suspensions in Chicago Schools Target Black Boys Most Often
Recently, Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman told school principals that the district plans to focus on data analysis as a first step toward improvement. There's one statistic that the district ought to immediately turn its attention to: suspensions and expulsions of African-American boys.
Our newly-released report on discipline in CPS found that black boys are clearly being punished far more harshly than their peers. The suspension rate for black males is up to five times higher than that for other student groups. Black boys make up over 60 percent of all students expelled from school--even though they're only one-fourth of the student population. The racial disparity is similar in suburban Chicago, and in other major cities. But Chicago is the worst: The city is now No. 1 on a list of 10 major urban districts when it comes to suspending students.
Catalyst couldn't obtain a major piece of the puzzle: data on why students have been suspended, which isn't reported by race or gender. Still, as the American Civil Liberties Union's Lori Turner put it, "the numbers alone are troubling." When punishment for one group of students is so clearly out of proportion to their enrollment, something's undoubtedly amiss.
Some of you reading this post might say "Well, so what? If kids are talking back to teachers or being disruptive, they should be kicked out of school." Others might blame poor parenting, saying schools can't be expected to make up for what children aren't getting at home. And certainly, serious offenses such as bringing guns or drugs to school or threatening teachers shouldn't be tolerated.
But kicking students out of school isn't the solution. Too many black boys are already out of school, walking the streets and getting lured into trouble. The strong correlation between school absences, course failures and dropping out makes suspensions even more problematic for African-American boys, who are already more likely to quit school than their peers in Chicago's public schools. As one principal put it, suspensions and expulsions are often "a straight path to jail" for black boys.
So what can be done to solve the problem? As our report found, a mix of factors is at play that give rise to the soaring suspension rate, including racial bias and stereotyping, cultural mismatches between teachers and students, and, in some elementary schools, a lack of tolerance for noisy, boy-type behavior.
Yet the story of three teenaged boys at Dyett High offers a ray of hope.
As freshmen four years ago, the boys fought often, were labeled troublemakers, got suspended time after time and failed course after course. They showed all the signs of being headed toward dropping out.
Instead, two of the boys have graduated and are headed to college. One hasn't yet earned his diploma, but plans to do so and has a job lined up.
They didn't beat the odds without help, though. And that help came from the school, proving that with sufficient resources, kids can become success stories instead of statistics of failure.
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Private School.
Mrs Forte, thank you for the article, I want to touch on something (some) should consider, as you know our boys start off doing well but at some point between the ages of ten and thirteen they get slumped, for example my friends son was failing and she pulled him out of one school and put him in an academy for boys and this child has excelled he went fom a d student to a b+ student, she asked him honey, why are you doing so well here and not at the other school. He stated, he liked that there were just as many male teachers as there were female teachers and that they were being challenged and they were (encourged) he felt like a winner at this new school also he liked that he had peers just like himself and he could compete with other boys, he has been on the honor roll every semester that he's been at this school. I don't condone bad behavior but I find that boys learn different from girls and it can be a distraction to them. I think we should consider this. What do you think?
I don't understand the problem, rules are rules, if the boys in question followed the rules there wouldn't be a problem. It's that simple. They problem is the boy's behavior, not that they were punished. If we examine the behavior and punishment without race, would anyone find fault? You're not doing these boys any favors excusing their bad behavior. By the time they reach HS they are almost in the real world, and if they don't learn how to operate in society then they are setting themselves up for a very difficult life. Employers don't need mouthy and disruptive troublemakers on the payroll, and problem people usually don't stay around long. You also need to show up for work, show up on time, and do what the boss tells you. All the doe eyed pie-in-the-sky you can be anything you want crap needs to stop by HS. Yes, there are always exceptional people who change after high school, but they are exceptional by definition because there aren't many of them. Students need to take responsibility for their learning, and parents need to parent their children. As a former good kid who followed the rules, I don't have any sympathy for the a**holes who ruin it for everyone else. I have rights too, and I have the right to learn in peace without some disruptive jerk acting out his "issues" during my class time. I followed the rules, and so should they.
See Lorraine Forte's Profile
Students who behave most certainly have the right to learn in peace. But students who have chaotic home lives are not always on their best behavior, and teachers and principals need to be aware of this and deserve the resources to deal with the situation properly. My post is in no way meant to imply that students who commit serious offenses should get a pass, but it is meant to shed additional light on a problem that can have drastic long-range consequences for some black male students.
Not only is it terrible that there is an obvious inequity in how punishment is handed out at CPS's, studies have repeatedly shown that suspension does not work. It also seems, that schools use suspension as a way to get rid of difficult students that they just don't want to deal with.
Studies also show that in many schools, there are specific teachers in each school that have the highest suspension rates for their classrooms. These teachers will turn a student over to the office instead of dealing with the infraction themselves. These teachers often have very poor classroom management skills and are simply too lazy to try and manage the student's needs on their own.
Many children are suspended for very minor infractions. Don't kid yourselves into thinking that all these suspensions were for dangerous behavior.
50 minute, 40 kids, continuous disruption from a few (or many) = no learning for anybody.
If you have never taught school, you have no idea of what goes on today in even the best neighborhood schools.
The students know that teachers have no authority to discipline them in any way. Those who are so inclined take advantage of this to the nth degree.
I have been threatened and cussed at by "boys" were were twice my size, punched in the belly (by a 17 year old sophomore girl) when I was pregnant, hit in the head with a book, and shoved against the concrete wall by a drug-addled kid who was just passing by in the hall. Some of my students had been to prison. None of these kids was expelled for good. (I'm talking all races here.)
Eventually I quit teaching in the high school and started teaching at a local junior college where, if that behavior had occurred, they would have been kicked out of the school, lost their tuition money, and for the assaults--arrested and prosecuted.
Not all kids can be saved. When they become dangerous, or even when they constantly disrupt the learning of the other students, they need to be removed from class. If there is an alternative school to send them to, that is where they need to go. I don't care what color they are.
This blog isn't even wrong. What are 'cultural mismatches?' This is defining down deviancy run amok. Disruptive students should be suspended to protect the educational rights of non disruptive students. It is clear, based on the percentages of turnover for teachers in marginal schools, that the disruptive students have won. Black, white, or purple shouldn't matter, behavior and wanting to be in school should. The apologists above seem more concerned by the percentage of young black men who are suspended than the percentage of young black me who drop out.
This is what I said, but my comment never showed up.
The only students being "targeted" are those who won't allow teaching and learning to take place in the classroom.
Target the parents of these students to tell them they must teach their children appropriate classroom behavior before they are allowed back into school.
See Lorraine Forte's Profile
'Cultural mismatch' is not "defining down deviancy." It is a statement that, really, has nothing to do with color or race. A middle-class black teacher can be just as likely to label black boys as a middle-class white teacher, perhaps even more so. As my blog post states, serious offenses should not be tolerated. But suspensions for, say, talking back to a teacher, are not the best solution to a problem. Read our story :"Three friends" at www.catalyst-chicago.org for a story on how more resources can make a difference for students labeled 'troublemakers.'
I organized a letter writing campaign, which included community representatives, clergymen and an alderman and sent those letters directly to Arne Duncan and all of the bureaucrats that were supposedly responsible for the CPS area and CPS, in general. For the next six months I received nothing but hostility and insults from CPS Reps. I received a form letter Mr. Duncan, which basically stated that because my daughter had used "hostile" language, her suspension was warranted. There is no policy against hate speech, especially hate speech regarding sexual orientation, at CPS.
The next year, the boy was suspended indefinitely from Pritzker because the harassment and threats violence against my daughter and other students continued, culminating with the boy standing up in an assemblage of 400 students and demanded that my daughter perform (oral sex) on him. The Principal informed me that the boy could not return until he received clearance from a mental health professional. Yet CPS pays the Social Worker assigned to Pritzker over $90K a year, and she never gave professional aid to this child, at-children.
CPS LITERALLY incubates and violent; taxpayers pay a pretty penny for the failings of the Public Schools system.
When my daughter matriculated to sixth grade, I pulled her out of CPS and put her in parochial school. We plan never to return to CPS - and that's saying a lot for me - I come from five generations of teachers and administrators.
I have a friend who teaches in a Chicago suburb and last year she had a boy in her 5th grade class that was reading and writing at barely a first grade level.
They had him tested and it turned out he was legally blind. They contacted the Chicago school he had previously attended and found out that he had not been given any educational assistance whatsoever. And yes, this was an African American boy. It was the saddest thing I had ever heard.
When Secretary of Education Duncan cuts the US Special Education budget like he cut the Chicago special education budget (26.5 million of it if you were curious) then we will see things like this happening across America... Someone want to remind me why Obama was such a good choice compared to the husband of a special education teacher and father of a special needs daughter. I really am confused here.
"As our report found, a mix of factors is at play that give rise to the soaring suspension rate, including racial bias and stereotyping, cultural mismatches between teachers and students, and, in some elementary schools, a lack of tolerance for noisy, boy-type behavior". So, let me get this straight: it's racial bias & stereotyping when they act up, eh? And if it's a white/hispanic/asian teacher & the kid is black, it's really the fault of the teacher for what -- not "understanding" him?? Or, in the case of black teachers dropping the hammer on a black boy, it's what then -- a "sellout" to their race??? As to the noisy, boy behavior, they should learn quickly, as we did, that that behavior is for the playground, and not in the classroom. Perhaps this writer should remember that Chicago led the nation with gangland deaths of those black boys from those aforementioned Chicago schools. They are not little angels, they are not misunderstood. Discipline is not a dirty word, only apparently it seems, a forgotten one.
This is a good point. In my experience black teachers (especcially females) are a lot harsher with black students then white teachers. White teachers generally seem to be of the mindset, "I better understand what is going along here before I do anything too harsh." On the other hand black teachers seem to be of the mindset, "You better behave right now before I call home and tell your mother to tan your hide", (maybe not quite but you get the jist). This leads me to believe that is mostly black teachers and black principals suspending these students.
Black boys are the most disposable members of this society. Every negative attribute can be attributed to them with malice and forethought. Unfortunately, what Black people have not learned is that you cannot entrust education to the enemy. Black people were never welcomed into any educational system in this nation. How do we continue to endorse a system that produces such negative effects so consistently against our own? Are young black boys so alien that all they encounter is wholesale incompetence in dealing with their educational needs.
America has sustained itself on this notion of the ineducable state of Black people. It allows for the indulgence of the its patronising as well as its murdering. "Death At an Early Age" is still the order of the day. It was once a felony offense to teach a Black person to read. America's institutions of education have history of shameless and unabated discrimination against Blacks. Educational values are nothing when you live in a community that is redlined. There is no property value to support education.
Is it easier to believe that Black boys are simply not capable?
Education begins at home. Students (of ANY race) need to come to school well-rested, fed, and with a willingness to learn. Students have to understand that education is the key to a decent life and that they have responsibilities to themselves and to their fellow students to behave in a manner that makes teaching and learning possible.
Students who constantly disrupt the learning or endanger other people should not be tolerated in the classroom.
Unfortunately, there are no provisions to deal with these students until the disruption has become dangerous or continuous.
ALL the students lose when these students are allowed to stay in the classroom.
I think the best way to prevent this sort of student behavior is intensive parent training beginning even before a child is born, and lots of support afterward. Sadly, the burden of raising children is falling more and more onto single mothers who also have to earn a living and have little time to spend with the children. And with government funding being cut for these sorts of programs, the problems are only going to get worse.
So, we are back to getting disruptive and dangerous kids out of the classroom. If we don't, we risk failing to be able to teach all the other kids in the class who actually want to learn.
What does this have to do with what I wrote?
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