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> Residents Scream 'Racism' Over School Suspension Rates
> Report; Posted on: 2005-06-24
>                                    [ Printer friendly / Instant flyer ]
>
>
>  Unruly Black children upset over discipline.
>
>
> For parents such as John Jackson Jr., the discipline gap between white
> and black students in the Milwaukee area is so wide, you couldn't jump
> over it with rockets in your shoes.
>
> In 1999, black students constituted about 6.5% of enrollment in
> suburban schools but received nearly 22% of all suspensions. In 2004,
> they accounted for slightly more of the enrollment - 7% - but, at
> almost 25%, for an even greater share of suspensions.
>
> In Milwaukee Public Schools, where black students make up about 60% of
> the student body, they still accounted for 75% of the suspensions in
> 1999 and about 77% in 2004 - a similar disparity to the suburbs.
>
> "The knee-jerk fear of race is one of the core problems," said Tammy
> Johnson, director of the Race and Public Policy Program at the Applied
> Research Center, a think tank in California. "It's no use to say we
> see no color and that we treat each child equally."
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------
> http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jun05/335047.asp
>
>
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> Metro area schools show racial gap in suspensions
> By CHASE DAVIS
> Posted: June 19, 2005
>
>
> For parents such as John Jackson Jr., the discipline gap between white
> and black students in the Milwaukee area is so wide, you couldn't jump
> over it with rockets in your shoes.
>
>
>                             The question needs to be asked: Is there
>                             something about the way we're operating?
>                                    - Howard Fuller,
>                               Marquette University professor and
>                                 former superintendent of
>                                   Milwaukee Public Schools
>
>
>
>
> His two children, Janay and Jarred, just finished their sixth- and
> ninth-grade years in the Shorewood School District. Neither has been
> disciplined, but Jackson said that every day, chances are good that
> someone just like them - young, black and possibly innocent - is.
>
> "I think it's very unfair," he said. "It doesn't seem like it's changing."
>
> In schools in the five-county Milwaukee area, black students
> consistently have been suspended disproportionately more than their
> enrollment while white students have been suspended less, according to
> a Journal Sentinel analysis of state discipline data from the 1998-'99
> school year to the 2003-'04 school year, the most recent year
> available.
>
> In 1999, black students constituted about 6.5% of enrollment in
> suburban schools but received nearly 22% of all suspensions. In 2004,
> they accounted for slightly more of the enrollment - 7% - but, at
> almost 25%, for an even greater share of suspensions.
>
> White students, by comparison, made up about 87% of enrollment in the
> suburbs in 1999 and accounted for relatively fewer suspensions - about
> 67%. That gap grew slightly in 2004, when white enrollment dropped to
> about 84% and white suspensions fell even further to almost 62%.
>
> In Milwaukee Public Schools, where black students make up about 60% of
> the student body, they still accounted for 75% of the suspensions in
> 1999 and about 77% in 2004 - a similar disparity to the suburbs.
>
> The Journal Sentinel used the same state data to measure MPS but
> examined it separately from the suburbs because of the size of the
> district.
>
>
> Reason for gap unclear
>
> The gap is hardly news to Milwaukee-area educators, who, like their
> peers across the country, have struggled to make sense of it. What's
> more difficult to understand, they said, is why the gap exists and how
> to cinch it up.
>
> "This isn't just a problem here; it's a problem everywhere," said
> Howard Fuller, a former MPS superintendent who is a professor at
> Marquette University. "The question needs to be asked: Is there
> something about the way we're operating?"
>
> Milwaukee is not alone in struggling with racially lopsided
> suspensions. A similar gap appears on the state level and in school
> districts across the United States. It has been documented meticulously
> for decades, with no single reason prevailing as the cause.
>
> Educators have suggested potential causes for the disparity: white
> teachers misunderstanding black students; poverty; different
> expectations and cultures at home and school; and even pure coincidence.
>
> In Brown Deer, which in 2004 had a black enrollment of 35% and a black
> suspension rate of 63%, district leaders have found that the longer
> students spend in the district, regardless of race or socioeconomic
> status, the less often they get into trouble.
>
> "It's not so much the color of your skin," Superintendent Bruce Connolly
> said. "Once kids get with the program, their discipline rates drop off."
>
> Others said the reason is cultural. Often, teachers are leery of the
> louder, more active styles of communication that characterize some
> black teens, experts and officials said. Teachers might interpret
> play-fighting as real fighting or yelling as disrespect. "Sometimes, a
> group of students making a lot of noise is just being noisy," said
> Whitefish Bay Superintendent James Rickabaugh. "Sometimes, we
> overreact to that."
>
> Statistically, there seems to be some link between several of the
> issues raised by administrators and the increasing gap in area school
> districts, the Journal Sentinel found.
>
> Enrollment in the Chapter 220 integration program, for instance,
> correlates with the size of the disparity gap. The more a district's
> enrollment includes Chapter 220 students, the more disproportionately
> black students tend to be suspended there. The same is true with a
> district's overall black enrollment: the more black students, the more
> disparity.
>
> That doesn't mean Chapter 220 or a large black enrollment causes
> disproportionate discipline. Rather, the numbers show that the gap
> exists, and often grows, even in some of the metro area's most diverse
> school districts.
>
> Other common explanations, such as poverty, seem to have little or
> nothing to do with the magnitude of the discipline gap. State data
> show a district could have a large or small disparity no matter how
> many students qualify for free and reduced-price lunches there.
>
>
> Parents say race is a factor
>
> Some parents have a more simple explanation: Black students are being
> suspended more often simply because they are black.
>
> "If there's a white kid, he'd just go to the principal's office," said
> Lionell Perry Jr., a Milwaukee parent who has sent four children to
> suburban schools through the Chapter 220 program. "If an
> African-American student does the same identical thing, he'd be sent
> home."
>
> Parents such as Perry describe the suburban school system as
> predominantly white and inflexible, unwilling to adapt to an
> increasingly diverse student body. Some said that the districts have
> been slow to deal with the issue and that their children sometimes
> feel isolated.
>
> "There's a certain sense of camaraderie at some of these schools, and
> African-American kids are sometimes outside that camaraderie," said
> Jackson, the Milwaukee parent whose two children attend Shorewood
> schools.
>
> Administrators said the challenge lies in striking a difficult balance
> between making students adjust to a system some call too rigid and
> adapting the system to a more diverse generation of students.
>
> But whereas many officials of the districts with the largest
> disparities said they recognize the problem, few have put any
> district-level policies in place to address it.
>
> Superintendents said they have made colorblind policy decisions
> designed to curtail suspensions for all students, but others said an
> unwillingness to consider race a factor stymies efforts to fix the gap.
>
> "The knee-jerk fear of race is one of the core problems," said Tammy
> Johnson, director of the Race and Public Policy Program at the Applied
> Research Center, a think tank in California. "It's no use to say we
> see no color and that we treat each child equally."
>
> One school cited as a model by the center was James Lick Middle School
> in San Francisco. In 1999, administrators there said that race skewed
> child discipline, Johnson said, then rigorously studied how and why.
> The result: The disparity began to diminish.
>
> Johnson said she advocates a race-based approach to leveling out
> minority disparities. Parents such as Jackson agree.
>
> "Usually, the first solution to a problem," he said, "is recognizing
> there is a problem."
>
Does anyone expect differant behavior from children with an average IQ
of 85?
These little negroes pollute the educational evironment for other kids.

John
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> 2005, Journal Sentinel Inc.