Disciplinary victim selection practices
Very interesting editorial in the NY Times:
Nearly six in 10 public school students in Texas were suspended or expelled at least once between seventh and 12th grade. That was the astounding finding of an analysis tracking nearly one million students in 3,900 Texas schools.
Schools are right to expel students who pose a threat to others. But suspensions for less serious, nonthreatening behavior have become routine in recent decades, with disastrous consequences. Children who are removed from school are at far greater risk of being held back, dropping out or ending up in the juvenile justice system.
The Texas study, conducted by the Council of State Governments Justice Center, raises alarms that should prompt every state to re-examine disciplinary policies.
For starters, schools should be required to deal with minor infractions at school, reserving suspension for serious offenses. Only 3 percent of the disciplinary actions taken in Texas were for serious criminal conduct that requires mandatory suspension or expulsion under state law. The remaining 97 percent were made at the discretion of school officials for misbehavior like fighting, misdemeanor drug or alcohol use, or disruptive classroom behavior.
The breakdown of who was punished is also chilling. African-American students and those with some disabilities were disproportionately likely to be removed from the classroom. A staggering 83 percent of black males had at least one discretionary violation, compared with 74 percent of Hispanic males and 59 percent of white male students. Minority students were more commonly given harsher out-of-school suspensions, rather than in-school suspensions, for their first disciplinary violation. . .
