Caregivers ' Moral Narratives Of Their African American Children 's Out Of School Suspensions

(a) This study examines out-of-school suspensions in the 9th grade and their effect on high school and post-secondary outcomes. This analyses also examines demographic disparities in school suspensions, their relationship to poverty and their contribution to high school graduation and post-secondary attainment gaps.

Racial disparities in school discipline have garnered recent attention in national reports issued by the U.S. Department of Education and Justice (U.S. Department of Education, 2014; Gregory, Hafen, Ruzek, Mikami, Allen, & Pianta, 2016). Suspension rates Black students are two to three times higher than those from other racial and ethnic groups. Various research has documented that Black students remain overrepresented in school discipline sanctions after accounting for their achievement, socioeconomic status, and teacher- and self-reported behavior (Gregory et al, 2016). There is a difference as to the reasons why White students are sent to the office versus Black students. Black students are sent to the office for subjective reasons such as “disrespect” and “perceived threat”, while White students are more than likely to be referred for more objective reasons including, smoking, vandalism, and leaving school without permission. (Gregory, et al, 2016). African Americans and especially African American boys, are more likely to be disciplined and often receive more out-of-school suspensions and expulsions than white students (Todd Rudd, 2014). Suspending students is taking away time from them being in the classroom. Students who receive suspensions, lose instructional time, fall behind on course work, become discouraged, and ultimately drop out…recent research has shown each suspension a student receives can decrease their odds for high graduation by any

Out of school suspensions (OSS) are often enforced with the assumption that students receiving the suspension are less likely to repeat the problem behavior in the future. However, this has been proven to be false. Suspending a student for engaging in a certain behavior does not in fact serve as a deterrent from the behavior but as a deterrent from attending school instead. In actuality, receiving just a single suspension can increase the probability of a student experiencing academic failure, school dropout, and involvement in the juvenile justice system. Knowing this, some educators still believe that for many students, suspension can serve as an effective lesson. One of the greatest concerns that educators and administrators face is the matter of classroom management. It is part of their job to ensure a safe, productive and supportive classroom allowing students to learn and grow to their greatest potential. Though there are several strategies gauged towards managing a classroom, the most severe offences often lead to either in or out of school suspension. Some of the largest concerns faced with out of school suspensions is that they are often ineptly applied, used unfairly against students of color and seemingly ineffective at producing better behavior. Also known as exclusionary discipline, the majority of offenses that led to OSS have not been centered around violence but instead emphasised issues of classroom insubordination and defiance. In some rather extreme cases

In the case study Appropriate Punishment Versus Political Expediency, nine African American male teenagers were severely punished for their involvement in a violent altercation at a high school football game. Some people in the local community; especially the African American population became outraged by the school board’s ruling. Other community members, including many white residents, and school board officials thought the punishment was just. This situation exposes many controversial issues occurring within the educational system. Topics such as race relations and appropriateness in student discipline were prominent. With strong political and social context associated with these subject matters, there are complexities in addressing these types of situations. In any event, educational leaders and district representatives should aim to handle matters by considering the child’s best interest. They should also use the principle of subsidiarity to deal with challenges that may arise. School executives ought to implement effective solutions

The school-to-prison pipeline in the United States is a figure of speech used to describe the increasing patterns of interaction students have with the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems as a consequence of procedures used by many school systems. A specific procedure would be the zero tolerance policies and the use of officers in schools. Currently in today’s American schools many children of color are being unfairly judged and treated by the public school systems zero tolerance policies. Zero tolerance policies have been implemented in schools in the last 20 years that include inserting school resource officers in schools and cracking down on all behavior that any authority figure may deem as a form of bad behavior. The policy is based upon deterring future misbehavior and is central to the philosophy of zero tolerance, and the effect of any punishment on future behavior is what defines effective punishment (Skinner, 1953). Zero tolerance policies causes the school environment to feel more like a prison and ultimately leads to black and Latinos being judged and guided to the prison system. A zero-tolerance policy orders predetermined penalties or punishments for specific wrongdoings.

Over the past decade disciplinary issues in the schools have increased. Children are no longer showing respect to those in authority. This problem has caused students to not only decrease in their academic achievement but also decrease in their real world social development. African Americans are amongst one ethnicity group to experience bias. In the context of school discipline, race and gender stereotypes particularly function to criminalize African American youth and to reinforce cultural beliefs about perceived inherent behavioral deficiencies and African American cultural norms in need of “social correction” (George, 2014). African Americans are placed in the stereotypical norm of having discipline problems in the schools. Especially African American girls. In a 2014 national data report, African American girls accounted for 12% of all suspensions (George, 2014). With that being said, African American girls are suspended at least “six times the rate of white girls and more than any other group of girls and several groups of boys.” (George, 2014) This is a huge problem in our schools that needs to be addressed.

School data suggests that the decision to suspend or excel a student depends on several factors including prior history of the student, particulars of the situation, and the teacher’s ability to manager classroom behavior (Skiba, 2003). However observations of classroom behavior show that the majority of students removed from urban classrooms were not primarily due to dangerous or major infractions of disciplinary policies and usually they weren’t even the worst offenders.

Schools that are low performing have the highest rates of suspension and expulsion and the lowest graduation rates. According to Mississippi Today, “the dropout rate for students fell slightly to 11.8 percent in 2016, the lowest in five years.” If I were to eliminate funding as a barrier, zero tolerance policies would still exist- especially in public school systems in the South, amidst people of color. Zero tolerance policies are obstacles put in place for small infractions performed by students, which can lead to disciplinary actions such as: corporal punishment, detention, and suspension. These small infractions may be in the form of getting up without permission, excessive talking, etc. Schools should offer more alternative measures, which counsel students on their misbehavior and give the student an opportunity to amend his or her actions. These methods fall under a restorative justice model. Community organizations, like Nollie Jenkins Family Center, have proposed alternatives such as peer mediation and conflict resolution to help keep youth in a learning environment, off the streets, and away from a life of crime. A case study performed by Philadelphia Police School Diversion Program, discovered that after counseling students for infraction their number of juvenile arrests and suspension “dropped by 54%.” This could potentially be a catalyst in bending the moral arc in the direction of justice,

The Ontario school system’s obsession with punishing what it considers to be deviance has resulted in punishments that are often too severe and ultimately ineffective. During the 2014-2015 school year, 85,557 suspensions were issued in Ontario schools. The 2015-2016 school year saw 85,931 suspensions, and increase of nearly 400 suspensions. These statistics make it clear that the punishments administered by the Ontario school system are ineffective. Punishment in Ontario schools mirrors that of fascist regimes through its often inappropriate severity in the name of maintaining

The social category “children” defines a group of individuals who are perceived to be distinct, with essential characteristics including innocence and the need for protection (Haslam, Rothschild, & Ernst, 2000). However, not every child is given the protections of childhood equal to their peers. On average, children who are members of dehumanized groups such as African Americans receive fewer basic social considerations (Haslam, Rothschild, & Ernst, 2000). The lack of perceived innocence for Black children causes individuals to view them as more “adult-like” or overestimate their age. These false perceptions portray Black children as less innocent and more vulnerable to harsh, adult-like treatment (Phillip Atiba, 2014). In the context of the criminal justice system, dehumanization of this kind could explain the racial disparities in sentencing and use of force by officers (Phillip Atiba, 2014). Black children are 18 times more likely than White children to be sentenced as adults and represent 58% of children sentenced to adult facilities (Poe-Yamagata & Jones, 2007).

The intent of this research project is to identify the causal effects of incarceration on African American families.

This report is, by no means, intended to be a comprehensive study but an indication of one part of a problem. Understanding the dimension and quality of African American overrepresentation is a first step toward resolving the problem. So, to better understand the problem and its roots, more research should be conducted which more critically explores a greater range of possible causes and subsequent outcomes and which utilizes individual student records as the primary unit of analysis. Researchers should examine more closely the decisions made by the school personnel referring the students for corporal punishment, in different districts, because it appears that race may be as much a factor in the classroom as it is in the administrator’s

Out-of-school suspensions also increase a child’s chance for incarceration in the future. These suspensions effect all students, but often times certain racial groups are more likely to be both suspended and incarcerated (Losen and Gillespie). At a national level, 1 out of 6 (17%) Black students were suspended at least once, 1 in 13 (8%) for Native Americans, 1 in 14 (7%) for Latinos, 1 in 20 (5%) for Whites, and 1 in 50 (2%) for Asian Americans (Losen and Gillespie). This data shows large variation in suspension status between races, particularly for black students. At the state level, the highest suspension rate for any racial group in the country is Illinois, with 25% of black students being suspended. Compare this to the black state prison population in 2011, which is 38%, you can see the correlation between the two. This information suggests that the unequal treatment of children in school directly relates to the prison population, showing the racial bias in much of the country.

Black students begin receiving far more suspensions than white children beginning as early as preschool. Compared to white children, black preschool children were 3.6 times to receive an out-of-school suspension... Schools that have a predominantly black and Hispanic student population tend to have higher rates of discipline against students of

This study examines the effect zero-tolerance policies have on minority girls in public and private school districts. The zero-tolerance policies intended to protect students, faculty, and staff have unintended negative consequences due to overuse or abuse of the policies. According to the literature, some schools use the policy as social control over minor incidents as a reason to expel or suspend students unnecessarily. Many causes of the overuse stem from federal funding needed for things such as academic performances. The purpose of this research is to bridge the gap in knowledge and show how strict zero-tolerance policies can have unintentional life-changing consequences. This is important because some incidents can be handled at the school