Shock! Blacks are suspended from middle schools more than whites!

Actually, this New York Times article is moderately written. It and the study it cites do not charge that the higher black suspension rates are due to racial discrimination. The study’s only complaint is that since suspension from middle school is correlated with lack of success in one’s later educational career and with incarceration in one’s later life, it is desirable to find ways to change students’ bad behavior without recourse to suspension. The underlying liberal premise of that complaint is that institutions are responsible for inequality in individual and group outcome, rather than that differences between individual and groups are responsible for inequality in individual and group outcome. The Times reporter never once makes the commonsensical statement that the reason a person is incarcerated as an adult is not that he was suspended from middle school, but that he is a badly behaved individual, and that it was his bad behavior that got him suspended from middle school and later got him incarcerated.

To suggest what a non-liberal treatment of the issue would be like, I have provided a second version of the Times article, in which I have changed phrases such as “suspension” and “suspension rates” (which make society responsible for individuals’ bad outcomes) to “engaged in illegal, violent, and disruptive behavior,” and “rate of behaviors which resulted in suspension.” My altered language expresses the reality hidden by the Times’s euphemisms, and makes individuals responsible for individuals’ bad outcomes.

First, here is the original Times article in all its liberal glory:

September 13, 2010
Racial Disparity in School Suspensions
By SAM DILLON

In many of the nation’s middle schools, black boys were nearly three times as likely to be suspended as white boys, according to a new study, which also found that black girls were suspended at four times the rate of white girls.

School authorities also suspended Hispanic and American Indian middle school students at higher rates than white students, though not at such disproportionate rates as for black children, the study found. Asian students were less likely to be suspended than whites.

The study analyzed four decades of federal Department of Education data on suspensions, with a special focus on figures from 2002 and 2006, that were drawn from 9,220 of the nation’s 16,000 public middle schools.

The study, “Suspended Education: Urban Middle Schools in Crisis,” was published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization.

The co-authors, Daniel J. Losen, a senior associate at the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Russell Skiba, a professor at Indiana University, said they focused on suspensions from middle schools because recent research had shown that students’ middle school experience was crucial for determining future academic success.

One recent study of 400 incarcerated high school freshmen in Baltimore found that two-thirds had been suspended at least once in middle school.

Federal law requires schools to expel students for weapons possession and incidents involving the most serious safety issues. The authors said they focused on suspensions, which often result from fighting, abusive language and classroom disruptions, because they were a measure that school administrators can apply at their discretion.

Throughout America’s public schools, in kindergarten through high school, the percent of students suspended each year nearly doubled from the early 1970s through 2006, the authors said, an increase that they associate, in part, with the rise of so-called zero-tolerance school discipline policies.

In 1973, on average, 3.7 percent of public school students of all races were suspended at least once. By 2006, that percentage had risen to 6.9 percent.

Both in 1973 and in 2006, black students were suspended at higher rates than whites, but over that period, the gap increased. In 1973, 6 percent of all black students were suspended. In 2006, 15 percent of all blacks were suspended.

Among the students attending one of the 9,220 middle schools in the study sample, 28 percent of black boys and 18 percent of black girls, compared with 10 percent of white boys and 4 percent of white girls, were suspended in 2006, the study found.

The researchers found wide disparities in suspension rates among different city school systems and even among middle schools in the same district.

Using the federal data, they calculated suspension rates for middle school students, broken down by race, in 18 large urban districts.

Two districts showed especially high rates. In Palm Beach County, Fla., and Milwaukee, more than 50 percent of black male middle school students were suspended at least once in 2006, the study showed.

Jennie Dorsey, director of family services in the Milwaukee district, said the district had recognized that its suspension rate was too high and had begun a program aimed at changing students’ behavior without suspensions.

The program has brought only modest reductions in the suspension rate so far, but Ms. Dorsey predicted sharper reductions over several years.

Nat Harrington, a spokesman for the Palm Beach County district, disputed the study’s statistics, but acknowledged that “all the data show an unacceptably high number of black students being suspended.” He said the district was using several strategies to reduce suspensions.

[end of Times article]

And now here is my de-liberalized, euphemism-free, truthful version of the same article. I have bolded the phrases that I have changed.

September 13, 2010
Racial Disparity in School Suspensions
By SAM DILLON

In many of the nation’s middle schools, black boys are nearly three times as likely as white boys to be involved in fighting, use of abusive language, classroom disruption, and other behaviors which warrant suspension, according to a new study, which also found that black girls engage in such illegal, dangerous, and disruptive behaviors at four times the rate of white girls.

Hispanic and American Indian middle school students also engage in illegal, dangerous, and disruptive behaviors at higher rates than white students, though not at such disproportionate rates as for black children, the study found. Asian students are less likely to be involved in illegal, disruptive, and dangerous conduct than whites.

The study analyzed four decades of federal Department of Education data on gun possession, violence, classroom disruption and other behaviors resulting in suspension, with a special focus on figures from 2002 and 2006, that were drawn from 9,220 of the nation’s 16,000 public middle schools.

The study, “Gun Possession, Violence, and Classroom Disruption by Blacks: Urban Middle Schools in Crisis,” was published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization [fat chance!].

The co-authors, Daniel J. Losen, a senior associate at the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Russell Skiba, a professor at Indiana University, said they focused on behavior resulting in suspensions from middle schools because recent research had shown that students’ illegal, violent, and disruptive conduct in middle school was highly correlated with future academic failure and incarceration.

One recent study of 400 incarcerated high school freshmen in Baltimore found that two-thirds had been engaged in illegal, violent, or disruptive behavior at least once in middle school.

Federal law requires schools to expel students for weapons possession and incidents involving the most serious safety issues. The authors said they focused on suspensions, which often result from fighting, abusive language and classroom disruptions, because they were a measure that school administrators can apply at their discretion.

Throughout America’s public schools, in kindergarten through high school, the percent of students suspended each year nearly doubled from the early 1970s through 2006, the authors said, an increase that they associate, in part, with the rise of so-called zero-tolerance school discipline policies.

In 1973, on average, 3.7 percent of public school students of all races were suspended at least once. By 2006, that percentage had risen to 6.9 percent.

Both in 1973 and in 2006, black students committed acts resulting in suspension at higher rates than whites, but over that period, the gap increased. In 1973, 6 percent of all black students engaged in suspension-worthy behavior. In 2006, 15 percent of all blacks were involved in suspension-worthy behavior.

Among the students attending one of the 9,220 middle schools in the study sample, 28 percent of black boys and 18 percent of black girls, compared with 10 percent of white boys and 4 percent of white girls, engaged in suspension-worthy behavior in 2006, the study found.

The researchers found wide disparities in the rate of suspension-worthy conduct among different city school systems and even among middle schools in the same district.

Using the federal data, they calculated the rates of illegal, violent and disruptive behavior for middle school students, broken down by race, in 18 large urban districts.

Two districts showed especially high rates. In Palm Beach County, Fla., and Milwaukee, more than 50 percent of black male middle school students committed illegal, violent, or disruptive acts for which they were suspended at least once in 2006, the study showed.

Jennie Dorsey, director of family services in the Milwaukee district, said the district had recognized that the rate of illegal, violent, and disruptive conduct by its black students was too high and had begun a program aimed at changing students’ behavior without suspensions.

The program has brought only modest reductions in the suspension rate so far, but Ms. Dorsey predicted sharper reductions over several years.

Nat Harrington, a spokesman for the Palm Beach County district, disputed the study’s statistics, but acknowledged that “all the data show an unacceptably high number of black students committing illegal, violent, and disruptive acts.” He said the district was using several strategies to reduce such behavior by blacks.

[end of revised article]

My version of the Times article offers a glimpse of what it would be like to live in a world where issues pertaining to racial group differences in outcome were discussed in truthful language rather than liberal lies.

- end of initial entry -

Leonard D. writes:

Although your larger point stands, your list of behaviors which are deemed to warrant suspension is not entirely correct. You write: “weapons possession, fighting, abusive language, classroom disruption, and other behaviors which warrant suspension”. But weapons possession is not a suspension offense; as the NYT piece says, it is an expulsion offense: “Federal law requires schools to expel students for weapons possession and incidents involving the most serious safety issues.” (Wikipedia has an article on suspension, and although it is not very good, it does list causes of expulsion in California.) [LA replies: Thanks for catching my error; I’ve fixed it.]

Also, let me point out that the rate that black or white students actually engage in suspensionable activity is unknown. What is known is that (a) a student was expelled, and (b) it was for bad behavior. So it is not really fair to write “black boys are nearly three times as likely as white boys to be involved in … behaviors which warrant suspension.” What you can say is that “black boys are nearly three times as likely as white boys to be suspended for bad behaviors, including…. “

BTW, the report itself is at SPLC’s site: “Suspended Education: Urban Middle Schools in Crisis.” I certainly do not recommend reading it as a source of truth; it is as leftward slanting, tendentious and misleading as about anything you’ll read. Nonetheless, it is worth linking because people need to be able to check it against the NYT, and to read its claims (and see its stark bias) without mediation.

LA replies:

You wrote:

So it is not really fair to write “black boys are nearly three times as likely as white boys to be involved in … behaviors which warrant suspension.” What you can say is that “black boys are nearly three times as likely as white boys to be suspended for bad behaviors, including…. “

You’re implying that it is not fair to blacks to say that blacks are three times more likely than whites to commit bad behavior of the type that leads to suspension, when we only know that blacks are three times more likely than whites to be suspended for bad behavior. On the narrow logical point, you are correct; your word choice would be more accurate. However, the fact is that black bad behavior is almost certainly more than three times more frequent than white bad behavior, and that school authorities let blacks off easier than whites in order to keep down the “racial suspension gap.” If the ratio between black and white misbehavior in middle school is proportional to the ratio between black and white violent crime in society, black misbehavior in school is probably at least five or six times that of whites. So the figure (from the Times) which I used, three times, is not unfair to blacks. To the contrary, it is vastly understating the relative frequency of black bad behavior in school.

James P. writes:

You wrote,

[T]he fact is that black bad behavior is almost certainly more than three times more frequent than white bad behavior, and that school authorities let blacks off easier than whites in order to keep down the “racial suspension gap.”

That was exactly my thought when I read the article—that blacks undoubtedly commit many more offenses than the ones for which they are actually suspended. We can be sure that one of the “strategies to reduce suspensions” that school districts will use to reduce “unacceptably high” black suspension rates is simply ignoring blacks who misbehave.

LA replies:

In fact they are under constant pressure to do exactly that. The article itself is an example. And the article is mild compared to most such pressure tactics.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 14, 2010 08:40 AM | Send