African-American, Latino, and disabled students are
suspended from school at disproportionate rates compared to white students, a new report finds. In fact, except for the fact that high suspension rates emphatically should not be the norm, we might just say that straight white students without disabilities are suspended at disproportionately low rates:
Latino students, girls of color, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students also were disproportionately suspended—a punishment the report said increases dropout risks and helps push troubled students out of classrooms and into the justice system. [...]
The researchers found that black students were 1.78 times as likely to be suspended out of school as white students. Latino students' suspension odds were 2.23 times greater than those of white students. Students with disabilities were suspended at twice the rate of their non-disabled peers, and for longer durations. Worse, 25 percent of black students with disabilities received at least one out-of-school suspension in the 2009-2010 school year.
Research shows that removing so-called "bad kids" from the classroom doesn't help non-disruptive kids learn, according to the collaborative. The group found that some restorative justice programs and prevention programs that call for more student-teacher engagement can help lower suspension rates and minimize disruptions. The researchers also found that school police often make arrests for “what might otherwise be considered adolescent misbehaviors.”
That's how you get a school-to-prison pipeline: When behaviors that, coming from a white, middle-class student, would look like kids being kids, something to educate them not to do but not anything to freak out over, are instead treated as Major Problems. Even in cases that don't involve police, it's not exactly conducive to learning if kids are learning that school is a punitive place where everything they do will be viewed with suspicion and anger because of who they are. And when you look at the list of groups targeted for punishment, it's clear that it is because of who they are. These are the wrong lessons for schools to be teaching, even if they are lessons these kids will eventually be taught by our criminal justice system and our economy.