Posted on 12/13/2012 3:24:45 PM PST by Altura Ct.
“Students of color, students with disabilities and male students” are suspended at a disproportionate rate to their peers, in “potential violation of civil rights laws,” an official from the U.S. Department of Education said at a congressional hearing Wednesday on the so-called school-to-prison pipeline.
“We are alarmed by the disparities in disciplinary sanctions, particularly for students of color, students with disabilities, and male students,” said Deborah Delisle, assistant secretary for the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education at the Education Department.
In written testimony, Delisle said such disparities are a “potential violation of civil rights laws.”
“When African-American students are more than 3 ½ times as likely to be suspended or expelled as their white peers, or students with disabilities are more than twice as likely to receive out-of-school suspensions as their non-disabled peers, as they are today--it raises substantial concerns,” Delisle told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“These concerns are reflected in our department’s enforcement efforts and in the stories we’ve heard from the field, which demonstrate too often that students face disciplinary actions on the basis of their race,” she said.
For example, Delisle noted that an African-American student in kindergarten was suspended for five days for setting off a fire alarm while a white student in 9th grade in the same district was suspended for one day for doing the same thing.
Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.), a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said at the hearing that he and the CBC have “advocated vigorously for over a decade that the federal government should lead the effort to address the over-disciplining of youth--a key factor involved in the educational crisis of African-Americans and especially African-American men.”
“I am much more likely to be suspended, not just because I am male or just because I am African-American, but because I am an African-American male,” said Davis.
“We must focus on the early years as well. It is unacceptable that African-American male preschoolers are expelled at almost nine times the rate of African-American girls with white preschool boys being expelled at almost four times the rate of their female peers,” Davis added.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Mich.) also cited statistics on the disparities in discipline in the nation’s schools. He said African-Americans are three times more likely to be suspended and four times more likely to be expelled than their white peers. Also, more than 70 percent of students arrested in schools are African-American or Latino.
He said disparities also exist with students identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
“What’s more, the disparities extend beyond race," said Durbin. "Nationally, students with disabilities are suspended at more than twice the rate of students without disabilities, and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth are more likely to be disciplined and arrested than their peers."
“Suspensions, expulsions, and in-school arrests lead to kids being out of the classroom and a troubling increase in the number of people in the juvenile justice system,” Durbin said.
“This school-to-prison pipeline has moved scores of young people from classrooms to courtroom. A schoolyard fight that used to warrant a trip to the principal’s office can now lead to a trip to the booking station and a judge,” Durbin said.
“Sadly, there are schools that look more like prison than places for children to learn and grow. Students pass through metal detectors, and police roam the halls. Suspensions, expulsions, and in-school arrests lead to kids being out of the classroom and a troubling increase in the number of people in the juvenile justice system,” Durbin added.
To make sure all students are “treated equitably as a nation,” Delisle called for “a multi-prong strategy that encourages educators to pro-actively monitor their discipline practices for disproportionality, assess for root causes where disproportionality exists, and engage in a broad-based community effort to develop an action plan to root out discrimination in the administration of discipline.”
Gangstas are a protected class now?
Accountability is as “last century” as the Law,
justice, and the US Constitution.
Maybe we should ship them all back to Africa where this is no school and they can just hang with the tribe and do nothing all day.
Maybe we should ship them all back to Africa where this is no school and they can just hang with the tribe and do nothing all day.
Naaah.
Um, this IS sarcasm right? My world is upside down if it isn’t. Well, it’s been upside down for the last four years anyway. What’s new?
...at a congressional hearing Wednesday on the so-called school-to-prison pipeline.
That's a short segment of the fatherless birth to welfare to failed union school to gang to narcotics and alcohol addiction to juvenile justice system to abandoned school to prison system.
It's another Democratic [sic] party production.
Here's the clue ~ the schools should NOT be expelling the kids on a pre-approved 1, 2, 3, etc. day suspension for this or that infraction.
Rather, they should institute hard core study hall with batardes in charge!
You check in in the morning and you don't check out until afternoon ~ you need something here's a plastic bottle for you! Go in that room and put it in your bag ~ cap on.
They get to do anything they want but stand up or talk.
‘—it raises substantial concerns,”
Of course. In the demented liberal mind it MUST be due to racism and not to anti-social behavior. Of course. All White people are racist and the schools are racist and the states are racist and the country is racist and the world is racist.
And liberalism is a mental disorder.
hmmm, go to youtube and enter something like
“chuck e cheese brawl” or “walgreens riot” or “mcdonald’s fight” and you might get a clue.
That’d be a fate worse than death, or at least close to, if I remember my own mindset correctly.
For example . . . an African-American student in kindergarten was suspended for five days for setting off a fire alarm while a white student in 9th grade in the same district was suspended for one day for doing the same thing.
Without a discussion of many details, such as whether it was a first offense or repeat offense for either kid, how could an objective person evaluate whether this was appropriate?
“We must focus on the early years as well. It is unacceptable that African-American male preschoolers are expelled at almost nine times the rate of African-American girls with white preschool boys being expelled at almost four times the rate of their female peers,” Davis added.
Is it unacceptable that the expulsion rates differ, but not that the underlying rates of offenses also differ? An objective reporter would at least investigate the relative rates of offenses that lead to expulsion.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Mich.) . . . said African-Americans are three times more likely to be suspended and four times more likely to be expelled than their white peers. Also, more than 70 percent of students arrested in schools are African-American or Latino.
Again, what are the rates of commission for serious offenses in school, or does that detail conflict with the goals of this biased article?
He said disparities also exist with students identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender . . . "Nationally, students with disabilities are suspended at more than twice the rate of students without disabilities, and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth are more likely to be disciplined and arrested than their peers."
He seems to be saying that disturbed kids get suspended more often without considering whether they also act out more often.
Delisle called for “a multi-prong strategy that encourages educators to pro-actively monitor their discipline practices for disproportionality, assess for root causes where disproportionality exists, and engage in a broad-based community effort to develop an action plan to root out discrimination in the administration of discipline.”
I'd rather have educators educating children, with parents the responsibility to address the root causes of their own kids misbehaving in school. I remember when parents backed the schools, at least when the school was right, and kids turned out a whole lot better back then.
This is why we need Fedgov out of our schools. Send Education back to the states and respectively, the people. Parents and teachers can make the most intelligent decisions regarding consequences...not a bureaucrat.
“students with disabilities”. And what do they consider disabilities? I suspect they are not talking about deaf, blind, and wheelchair here.
You can commit a crime in public schools and never be prosecuted.
The stupid just won’t stop. More evidence (as if it were needed) to abolish the Department of Education.
So St. Treyvon would still be alive were it not for those racist school officials who suspended him?
Oh dear lord, here we go with the utter absurdity of claiming that disparate results are due to bias.
Here’s a radical concept: boys tend to break more rules, get into fights more often, and otherwise commit more deeds that warrant direct punishment than girls do.
It’s patently absurd to expect a demographic group known throughout history for a higher offense rate to have the same punishment rate as a group known throughout history to have a low rate of violence and a high rate of adherence to rules. Offense rate is justly tied to punishment rate - if you offend more you get punished more often and more severely.
Boys and girls are different, ladies and gentlemen. Thank god for this fact, otherwise our species wouldn’t have a future to speak of. You can’t go around expecting different behavior to produce the same results.
As far as the race issue goes, much the same could be said. Your higher arrest/suspension/punishment rate isn’t due to your dusky skin color and some violently racist police officers and/or judges, it’s due to the simple fact that you committed a goddamned crime in the first place! STOP COMMITTING CRIMES DUMBASS!
So, what would happen if we based our punishment systems on punishments meted out rather than offenses committed, be they school suspensions or criminal penalties (I bring up the criminal justice system angle because this same laughably fallacious reasoning is used by liberals trying to undermine our justice system)?
Well, in that event, you’d have to ensure that the high-rate offenders didn’t get punished more than the average person would. And, conversely, you’d have to ensure that the average person gets punished even when he or she didn’t do anything to warrant such.
If schools were penalized for suspending violent, problem youths, and were closely monitored to ensure that no group or individual faces more punishment than their demographic representation would warrant, that would mean that school administrators would either have to turn a blind eye to career-offenders in the student body, utterly ignoring behavior that deserves an escalating response, or alternatively they would have to harshly punish the well-behaving children for the slightest infraction just to ensure that they could claim they’re applying harsh penalties equally to all demographics. Most administrators would opt for a middle-ground, turning a blind eye to minor-to-moderate infractions from frequent offenders while crucifying the occasional good-little-lamb as a sacrificial offering on the altar of political correctness.
This fallacious logic, this laughable farce, is just the same old game. Liberals want a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card for their favorite minorities. Bonus points if they can figure out a way to stick-it to whitey while doing so.
There is an even higher disproportionate difference in the felony arrest and conviction rate for all males between 18-35 compared to all females 18-35.
Must we arrest more females to even things up or simply let the young thugs go free or have lesser sentences compared to older lawbreakers.
Reductio ad absurdum
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