Growing up black, I have always felt and noticed that blacks kids got into trouble for the smallest infractions. Yes, we cut up sometimes as all kids do. But it was as if we were being watched all of the time. And so other kids that did the same things were getting away with it. And to me, it just felt as if the punishments were harsher. When I was in school, our school was probably 30% to 40% black…..but I swear the black kids were getting into most of the trouble. So that was my unscientific and probably biased observation.
And when my son was in elementary school, I had that same feeling. He attended majority white elementary schools. When I picked him up from the after school program I thought, why are all of the black kids (mostly males) in time out? Are black kids more unruly than the other kids? Are they being watched more? Are they being punished more?
Tell me, I am not the only Black person/parent that has ever felt this way.
Well I came across this study that was released by The Civil Rights Project (CRP) that shows that disparities in school discipline are harming black students. The report was taken from 2009-2010 data from K-12 students from 7,000 school districts representing every state in the USA.
The report shows that African American students and students with disabilities are at a greater risk for being given out of school suspensions as punishments.
National suspension rates show that 17%, or 1 out of every 6 Black schoolchildren enrolled in K-12, were suspended at least once. That is much higher than the 1 in 13 (8%) risk for Native Americans; 1 in 14 (7%) for Latinos; 1 in 20 (5%) for Whites; or the 1 in 50 (2%) for Asian Americans.
Is out of school suspension really the key…
Read more: Ronnie Tyler, Black and Married with Kids
