Beyond Race Neutrality: Challenges in
Developing Culturally Responsive PBIS
Russell Skiba, Ph.D.
The Equity Project at Indiana University
Wisconsin PBIS Network
2015 Leadership Conference
Wisconsin Dells, WI
August 18, 2015
2008: Post-Racial America?
PBIS Indiana and the Effective
Evaluation Resource Center
Yesterday’s NY Times:
• “Racial Wealth Gap Persists Despite
Degree, Study Says” (p. B1)
• “New Questions on Racial Gap in Filling
Juries: Blacks Barred at Triple White Rate in
Study” (p. A1)
• “displayed bad posture”
• “were sullen, disrespectful or talkative…”
• “lived in a poor part of town”
Is School Discipline Fair?:
35 Years of Study


CDF (1975): Black students suspended 2-3x as
frequently
Studies since find disproportionality in:



Office referrals
Suspension & Expulsion
Corporal Punishment
What is Race Neutrality?

The belief that we can fix issues of inequity
in schools and society without explicitly
addressing race and difference


Supported by Supreme Court decisions from
the 1970’s on
Advantages and disadvantages


Avoids the messy topic of race
But does it work?
Has Race Ever Been Neutral?

Thos. Jefferson: “...advance it as a suspicion”
I advance it
therefore as a
suspicion only,
that the blacks,
whether
originally a
distinct race, or
made distinct by
time and
circumstances,
are inferior to the
whites in the
endowments both
of body and mind.
Thomas Jefferson (1787)
Notes on the State of
Virginia
Has Race Ever Been Neutral?



Thos. Jefferson: “...advance it as a suspicion”
1853: Margaret Douglass jailed
1897: Plessy v. Ferguson


Jim Crowe included burning of schools
1900-1930: Development of mental testing
and eugenics
Discipline Disparities Research to
Practice Collaborative

Expanding research/practice/advocacy for
reducing disciplinary disparities




Quarterly Meetings: Publication of Findings,
Spring 2014
National Closing the Discipline Gap
Conference
Commissioning new research
Briefing Paper Series Released in March
What Do We Know About
Disciplinary Disparities

Enduring and expanding
Increasing Risk for Suspensions By Race: 1973 and 2012
Black
(Source: OCR Civil Rights Data Collection)
18
16
2.7
Hispanic
1.1
White
2.8
Asian/Pacific Islander
3.1
All
Hispanic
4
White
6
Asian/Pacific Islander
8
Native American
10
All
Native American
12
Black
Percent of Group Suspended
14
2
6
3.7
17
5
7
8
2
0
1973
Black
White
2012
Hispanic
Native American
Asian/Pacific Islander
All
7.5
Other Groups at Risk

Latino students



May increase in secondary school
Students with disabilities (Losen & Gillespie, 2012)
Gender: Both male & female (Toldson et al.,
2013; Wallace et al., 2008)

Emerging data that LGBT students also at risk
What Do We Know About
Disciplinary Disparities


Enduring and expanding
Ineffective, and yields increased risk
Is Disciplinary Removal Effective?

30-50% of students suspended are repeat
offenders



Students suspended in late elementary school are
more likely to be suspended in middle school
Is suspension a reinforcer rather than a punisher?
Schools with higher suspension rates have



Poorer school climate
More time spent on discipline
Higher school dropout rates
The Risks of School Exclusion
• School Climate: Schools w/ harsh discipline policies, higher
OSS rates ≈ perceived less safe
(Steinberg, et al., 2011)
• School Engagement/Ed. Opportunity: For African
American males, more suspensions predict lower achievement
and school engagement (Davis & Jordan, 1994)
• School Dropout: Suspended/expelled students 5 times as
likely to drop out (CSG, 2011)
• Black males 2x more likely to dropout for discipline (Stearns &
Glennie, 2006)
• Juvenile Delinquency/JJ Involvement
• OSS increases risk of antisocial behavior (Hemphill et al., 2006)
• Greater contact with Juv. Justice System (CSG, 2011)
The School-to-Prison Pipeline:
Pathways from Schools to Juvenile Justice
School
Climate
School
Exclusion
Dropout
Engagement
/ Lost educ.
opportunity
Juvenile
Justice/Delin
quency
What Do We Know About
Disciplinary Disparities



Enduring and expanding
Ineffective and
yields increased risk
Schools can make a
difference
Contributions of Schools



Principal perspective contributes to racial
disparities (Skiba et al, 2013)
Schools w/ high structure/high support have fewer
suspensions/disparities (Gregory et al. 2011)
Chicago: Among schools with similar
demographics, more suspensions = lower feelings
of safety (Steinberg, Allen & Johnson, 2013)
 Relationships more important than crime,
poverty in predicting safety
The Big Question:
How Can PBIS Address
Disparities in Discipline?
Prerequisites: Moving from Deficit
Thinking to Actionable Variables

Why would we not take immediate action to
reduce disparities?


If disproportionality was due to poverty
If disproportionality was due to different rates
of behavior
What Do We Believe to Be the
Cause of Disproportionality?
“Is ethnicity the problem or is poverty the
problem?”
--School Principal
(Skiba et al., 2005)
It Comes from the
Home/Community…
“[I blame the parents] 100%. Not that it’s their
fault. But it’s the culture that they are living
in...we are playing catch up from preschool
on.”
“We can only mold the clay as the clay comes
to us.”
(McKenzie & Sheurich, 2004)
Can Poverty Explain Disproportionality?

Discipline is related to poverty


Poverty makes a significant, but small and
inconsistent contribution, but...
Effects of race remain after taking poverty
into account
Are Black boys worse?
“Whenever we are having chronic behavior
problems, it is a little black boy—every
time. We call them the Duwan’s....” (Skiba et
al., 2005)
Do Black Students Misbehave
More?
Of 32 infractions, only 8 significant differences:

White students
referred more for:
Smoking
Vandalism
Leaving w/o
permission
Obscene Language

Black students
referred more for:
Disrespect
Excessive Noise
Threat
Loitering
Skiba, R.J., Michael, R.S., Nardo, A.C. & Peterson, R. (2002). The color of
discipline: Sources of racial and gender disproportionality in school punishment.
Urban Review, 34, 317-342.
What Does Predict
Disproportionality in Discipline?


Higher rates of students of color
Diversity of staff




More teachers of color = lower susp. rates
Doesn’t hold for administrators
Classroom management/cultural mismatch
Administrator perspectives
How Do We Create Change?

Problem Identification


Problem Analysis:


What does the data mean?
Plan Implementation:


What does the data say?
How shall we intervene?
Plan Evaluation:

How well did it work?
How Do We Create Change Using
PBIS?

Problem Identification


What does the data say?
Does it say the same thing for all groups?
A National Database for Exploring
Disproportionality (Skiba et al. 2011)


2005-06 Academic Year
436 Elementary and Middle Schools in 17 States



Implementing PBS at least 1 year
180,670 students
372,642 Office Discipline Referrals
General Conclusions & Implications




Disproportionality begins at referral
Administrative consequences appear to be
distributed rationally in general
But when disaggregated, see significant
disproportionality
African American and Latino students more likely
to receive harsher punishment for same ODR

Esp. for minor misbehavior
Implications: The Big 5 for
Disaggregated Data





For which groups do disparities occur?
In what infractions do we see disparities?
In what consequences do we see
disparities?
Do different infractions receive different
consequences for different groups?
Are there locations or specific classrooms
with greater disparities?
How Do We Create Change?

What does the data say?



Who are the groups with disparities?
In what infractions? In what consequences?
Problem Analysis: What does the data
mean?
The Difficulty of Talking About Race
“When you say minorities, are you, what are you
speaking of?...[INTERVIEWER: Ethnic and racial
minorities]...Oh....OK...Alright...We have like...I
guess we have about half and half. I don’t know
that I’ve ever really paid attention to it .”
--Classroom Teacher
“You Can’t Fix What you Don’t Look At:
Acknowledging Race in Addressing Racial Disicipline
Disparities” (12/17/14)
•
How We Get Here: History and Stereotypes
•
Failure to Communicate: How Segregration and Social
Boundaries Perpetuate Stereotypes
•
Race Still Matters: How Old Patterns Continue
•
What Should We Do: Bringing Race into Conversations on
Disparities
How Old Patterns Continue:
Implicit Bias

Social preferences that exist outside of
conscious awareness.
Implicit Bias

Social preferences that exist outside of
conscious awareness.

Most often measured by the Implicit
Association Test
Implicit Bias

Social preferences that exist outside of
conscious awareness.

Most often measured by the Implicit
Association Test
Implicit racial bias found consistently, even
among individuals of color

Why Black Girls are Loud…
Their home environment, they’re very verbal,
their parents are verbal. It’s just kind of how
their were raised, so they’re used to talking,
they’re used to talking to other people and like,
you know, maybe their parents are constantly
yelling at them, so they’re used to yelling too.
--Classroom Teacher
It’s a Cultural Thing…
You don’t want your child sitting next to
somebody who’s going to completely distract
them and say all kinds of profane words in the
middle of class. And that’s a cultural thing.
--Classroom Teacher
Sports-crazy…
They all think like that. We had a dad in here
that played college ball and I remember him
saying to his son, ‘I’m not afraid to take you out
of sports if you can’t behave in school’. Never
happened. African American fathers care too
much about sports.
--Classroom Teacher
I think it’s just learning how to adapt to this
environment, especially if you’re coming from
an all-Black environment to this environment,
it’s totally different. It’s totally different.
--Classroom Teacher
Is There Such a Thing as Color
Blindness?
I don’t see the color as being the issue. I
think that a lot of the issues that they come
with perhaps come from the fact that they
are in a Black situation over here, where
these kinds of attitudes are constant all the
time.
--McKenzie & Scheurich, 2004
Microaggressions Today
“I play football, so you know they expect you to be good
in sports. But when you are on the ASB (Associated
Student Body) council, like I am, and being a school
leader, have good grades, and talking about going to
college on an academic scholarship, then they look at
you like Whoa!! I didn’t think that they (Black males)
were into those kind of things. One teacher even told me
once, ‘You’re not like the rest of them.’ I didn’t ask her
what that meant, but believe me, I knew what that
meant.”
--(Howard, 2007, p. 907)
The Boundaries Between Us
What is Our Theory?
•
•
•
•
•
•
Poverty?
Deficits in classroom management?
Negative community influences?
Lack of cultural competence?
Negative peer culture?
Historical discrimination?
Technical vs. Adaptive Problems
(Heifetz & Laurie)
“We talked about it at lunch the other day and
one of the black teachers said, ‘You know,
sometimes I think some teachers are afraid of
the little black boys.’”
--Classroom Teacher
“Not everything that is faced can be
changed, but nothing can be changed
until it is faced.”
--James A. Baldwin
Implications


Diverse teams in terms of membership and
perspective
Unfreezing race talk resistance




Text based discussion
Presentation of the data
Courageous conversations
Strong facilitation and frank discussion

Creating a context for reflection
How Do We Create Change?

What does the data say?



What does the data mean?


How great are racial/ethnic disparities?
In what infractions? In what consequences?
Diverse teams, unfreezing resistance,
facilitation of frank discussion
Plan Implementation: What should we do?
What are Promising Interventions:
New and Emerging Research

Build Relationships



Restructuring Disciplinary Practices




Codes of Conduct
Va. Threat Assessment
SWPBIS
Building Emotional Literacy


Restorative Practices
My Teaching Partner
Cleveland Metro School District: SEL, student support
teams, and student-centered approach
Culturally Responsive Classroom Management
PBIS Implementation and
Disproportionality: Mixed Results

Case study successes




Canadian study (Greflund, MacIntosh, et al, 2013)
Case studies in literature (e.g., Jones et al, Chee-Dodge
Elem.)
Garfield High School
But little overall effect on disproportionality (Vincent et al.
2011, Vincent & Tobin, 2012; Vincent, Sprague & Gau (2013)


Suspensions decreased in higher implementing schools, but
even there, no reductions in disparities for Afr. Amer.
students
Some reduction in OSS rates for Hispanic, AI/AN students,
but not for African American students
CR-PBIS Challenges: Tier 1

Establishing (and rewarding) schoolwide
expectations


But…



Respect, responsibility, safe, excellence…
Is respect culturally neutral?
Why is defiance the main source of disproportality?
Solutions?


Self-reflection
Mentoring?
CR-PBIS Challenges: Tier 2

Re-connect at-risk youth, reduce current
misbehavior


But…


Check-in, check-out
“Why are all the kids in Tier 2 & 3 Black or
Brown?”
Solutions?


Disaggregate our data by classroom
Why are some teachers more successful?
CR-PBIS Challenges: Tier 3

Address students with challenging behavior


But…


Expand resources (e.g. school-based
wraparound), trauma-informed care
Does Tier 3 “hijack” the conversation?
Solutions?


Examine historical conditioning
As in all PBIS implementation,
disproportionality starts with Tier 1
PBIS Indiana:
Elements of CR-PBIS

Awareness Building:



Data Disaggregation:



Not sufficient to measure overall ODRs and suspension/expulsion.
Disaggregate data by race, SES, disability, or any other group showing
disparities.
Data Interpretation:



Discussions about race and culture are avoided
Begin with activities to increase comfort in addressing disparities.
Deficit explanations (e.g., family poverty) are common in explaining
disparities.
Teams are encouraged to think reflectively about possible school
contributions.
Culturally responsive practices:

Examination of data leads to examination of practices and the
development of new programs to address disparities.
Implications



“These are our kids”
What can we do differently?
Engage in Root Cause Analysis
Root Cause Analysis
Implications




“These are our kids”
What can we do differently?
Engage in Root Cause Analysis
Does our policy support our practice?
Changing Codes of Conduct:

Maryland State Board of Education


LAUSD Discipline Foundation Policy




“School Discipline and Academic Success: Related Parts of
Maryland’s Education Reform”
PBIS as the centerpiece
Ethics of Discipline: Suspension Alternatives
Graduated Discipline Policy
Denver Public Schools


Restorative practices
MOU’s regarding school police
How Do We Create Change?

What does the data say?



What does the data mean?


Diverse teams, unfreezing resistance,
facilitation of frank discussion
Plan Implementation: What should we do?


How great are racial/ethnic disparities?
In what infractions? In what consequences?
Root Cause Analysis and Self Reflection
How Did we Do?
Discipline Rates
Discipline Rates
45
4 0 .4 7
Incident Rat e Per 1 0 0 St udent s
40
35
30
25
1 8 .3 5
2 0 .2 5
20
15
10
5
0
Overall Rat e
Disaggregat ed Rat e
BLACK
WHITE
OVERALL
Discipline Rates Disaggregated
Mixed Results in Practice
Total
ODRs
ODRs
per 100
students
Risk
Index
AA
Risk
Index
White
RR
AA
Middle School #1
2004-05
2006-07
1738
1080
204.47
124.00
75.90
71.43
41.18
31.51
1.84
2.27
Middle School #2
2004-05
2006-07
2150
805
318.52
115.83
85.88
54.93
32.39
26.88
2.65
2.04
Data Source: SWIS Ethnicity Reports
Intersections of PBIS and CR




What does the data say?

Who is at risk for disproportionality?

In what infractions? In what consequences?
What does the data mean?

Diverse teams, unfreezing resistance, facilitation of
frank discussion
What should we do?

Root cause analysis: Why is this happening?

From deficit thinking to internal reflection
Evaluation: How did we do?

Look at disaggregated results
Some thoughts…

Race is not neutral


There is no single cure


Avoiding “train and hope”
Shifting our priority from a program to equity
outcomes
PBIS is about changing adult behavior

For CR-PBIS: Changing adult behavior with
respect to race, culture, and difference
Overcoming Our History




State sponsored discrimination: 355 years
Since its end: 40 years
Why would we assume there would not be
culturally influenced practices in our
educational systems?
How can we use PBIS not to reinforce, but
to reflect on and change culturally
influenced practices?
Resources

Equity Project at Indiana University


Discipline Disparities Research to Practice
Collaborative


http://rtpcollaborative.indiana.edu/
Understanding Prejudice.Org


ceep.indiana.edu/equity/
http://www.understandingprejudice.org/readroom/reducing.htm
Safe and Supportive Discipline Initiative: Root Cause
Analysis

http://safesupportivelearning.ed.gov/addressing-root-causesdisparities-school-discipline
Russ Skiba
Director, Equity Project
Center for Evaluation and
Education Policy
1900 E. 10th St.
Bloomington, IN 47406
812-855-4438
skiba@indiana.edu
Website:
www.indiana.edu/~pbisin