HOW TO:
Explore the OCR Website
Part 1:
A Look at District Data
Summaries
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1. What Is the Civil Rights Data Collection?
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Survey of school districts by the US Department of
Education, Office for Civil Rights (OCR)
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Conducted usually every two years
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Covers a number of school characteristics, like access to
Advanced Placement courses, percentage of first-year
teachers, and discipline
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Data is disaggregated by race and gender for students
with disabilities and students without disabilities
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Data on individual schools and districts
What schools are covered?
In the 2009 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC):
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Sampling of 7,000 school districts (over half the nation’s
districts)
Includes all districts with over 3,000 students
Includes state-run juvenile justice facilities
Requires schools to be identified by type (e.g., “charter,”
“disciplinary alternative school,” etc)
In the upcoming 2011-2012 CRDC:
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Expanded to all schools and districts!
What’s in the disciplinary data?
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In the past:
–
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–
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Out-of-school suspensions
Expulsions
Corporal punishment
Now includes the number of students receiving:
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In-school suspensions
Out-of-school suspensions:
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–
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–
–
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Students receiving one out-of-school suspension
Students receiving more than one out-of-school suspension
Expulsions under zero-tolerance policies
School-related arrests
Referrals to law enforcement
Information on bullying, harassment, restraint, and seclusion
HOW TO: Explore the District Data Summaries from Office for Civil Rights
Go to ocrdata.ed.gov.
Click on Find school- or
district- level summaries.
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HOW TO: Explore the District Data Summaries from Office for Civil Rights
On this page you can access information about
specific schools.
Click on Find District(s) to
search for data for your
district.
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HOW TO: Explore the District Data Summaries from Office for Civil Rights
Enter your district’s name.
Select your state.
Select the most recent
survey year (2009).
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HOW TO: Explore the District Data Summaries from Office for Civil Rights
Click on District Search.
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HOW TO: Explore the District Data Summaries from Office for Civil Rights
Your district’s name, state, and
enrollment statistics will appear
at the bottom of your screen.
Click on your district’s name.
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HOW TO: Explore the District Data Summaries from Office for Civil Rights
This page has the summary of key
data from your district.
You can access the
different types of data by
clicking the menu items
on the side….
…or scrolling down the
page.
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HOW TO: Explore the District Data Summaries from Office for Civil Rights
To see the summary of
your district’s discipline
data, click on Discipline,
Restraints/Seclusion
Harassment/Bullying.
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HOW TO: Explore the District Data Summaries from Office for Civil Rights
This page shows the summary of key
discipline data for your district.
This pie chart
shows the
break down
by race of
students
enrolled in
the district.
This pie chart shows
the break down by
race of students who
received in-school
suspensions, in the
district.
The Philadelphia City
School District did
not report on its inschool suspensions,
so the chart is blank.
Scroll down to see more data.
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HOW TO: Explore the District Data Summaries from Office for Civil Rights
This pie chart
shows break
down by race of
students who
received one or
more out-ofschool
suspensions.
These are the totals for the number of
students referred to law enforcement,
arrested and expelled under zerotolerance policies.
This pie chart
shows break
down by race of
students who
received an
expulsion.
This link takes you to the definitions
for the different data categories.
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HOW TO: Explore the District Data Summaries from Office for Civil Rights
You can find more detailed
summaries under “Additional
Discipline and Bullying Facts.”
For example, you can look at details
on out-of-school suspensions (OSS)
separated into two different
categories:
-students with one OSS
-students with more than one OSS
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HOW TO: Explore the District Data Summaries from Office for Civil Rights
As another example, click on
One Out-of-School Suspension.
Two additional options will appear:
- Data on students with disabilities
- Data on students without disabilities.
Now click on With Disabilities
to see detailed charts
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HOW TO: Explore the District Data Summaries from Office for Civil Rights
This page has the summary of key discipline
data for students with disabilities who received
one out-of-school suspension in your district.
This bar chart shows the breakdown by
race of students with disabilities who
received one out-of-school suspension.
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HOW TO: Explore the District Data Summaries from Office for Civil Rights
This bar chart shows the rate at which
students with disabilities of each race
received one out-of-school suspension
– a/k/a the risk of receiving one out-ofschool suspension for students with
disabilities of each race.
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HOW TO: Explore the District Data Summaries from Office for Civil Rights
You can scroll down for similar
information on the gender,
language and disability status of
students with disabilities who
received one out-of school
suspension…
…or you can use this menu to
find information about students
without disabilities and/or
students who received in-school
suspensions, more than one outof-school suspension,
expulsions, referrals to law
enforcement, arrests, etc.
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HOW TO: Explore the District Data Summaries from Office for Civil Rights
Click here to start over.
You can find summaries and
charts for specific schools, and
get more detailed data charts for
districts and schools.
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2. What’s Missing from the Data?
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Failure to report:
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Definition issues:
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A number of districts did not report data on new categories.
Where a district did not report, OCR included a “0.”
For example, there were “0” school based arrests reported in Los
Angeles, even though local data shows there were in fact many
school-based arrests.
Some districts did not accurately report particular disciplinary
categories because the way OCR defines a category does not
match the district’s definition.
For example, New York City reported a lower out-of-school
suspension rate in the federal data compared to what they report
locally because they define out-of-school suspension differently.
Some things to keep in mind….
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Separation by disability:
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Repeated out-of-school suspensions:
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In each category, the number of students suspended is reported separately
for students with disabilities and students without disabilities.
So, for example, to get the total number of in-school suspensions (ISS) in
a district, you have to add the ISS data for students with disabilities and the
ISS data for students without disabilities.
For the first time in 2009, districts reported both the number of students
receiving only one out of school suspension (OSS), and the number of
students receiving more than one OSS.
However, it does not include how many suspensions students received in
the category for more than one OSS.
To get the total number of students receiving out-of-school suspensions,
you have to add together the number of students receiving one OSS and
the number of students receiving more than one OSS for both students
with disabilities and those without. (See slide 41 for more.)
HOW TO:
Explore the OCR Website
Part 2:
Download and Analyze
Detailed Data Tables
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HOW TO: Download Detailed Data Tables from Office for Civil Rights
Go to ocrdata.ed.gov.
Click here on Custom Charts
& Detailed Data Tables.
When the dropdown
options appear, click on
Detailed Data Tables…
…or you can click here on
Detailed Data Tables
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HOW TO: Download Detailed Data Tables from Office for Civil Rights
On this page you can access information about
specific schools.
Click on search for districts to
search for data for your district.
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HOW TO: Download Detailed Data Tables from Office for Civil Rights
Enter your district’s name.
Select your state.
Select the most
recent survey year
(2009).
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HOW TO: Download Detailed Data Tables from Office for Civil Rights
Make sure the name of your
district appears here...
…then scroll down the page
under Choose Your Data to find
“Discipline and Disability 2009+”
in the left column
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HOW TO: Download Detailed Data Tables from Office for Civil Rights
After scrolling down, click on
“Discipline and Disability 2009+”
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HOW TO: Download Detailed Data Tables from Office for Civil Rights
Your table should look like the one shown below. You can either download the
table (we recommend Excel) or do calculations from the numbers on the screen.
To download the table in
an Excel file, first choose
“Excel 2003+” from the
dropdown menu here…
….then click Export
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Examples of Philadelphia analysis
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The Excel file on your district should look like this:
http://thenotebook.org/sites/default/files/Philly-discipline.xls
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You can look at the full analysis done by Harold Jordan
(described below) on Philadelphia at:
http://thenotebook.org/blog/124692/whate-federal-civil-rightsdata-says-about-philadelphia
A few simple calculations you can do
Percentage of Students Receiving Out of School Suspension
(OSS) by Racial Category
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There are 8 different rows of data that you need to add together
to get the total number of students who received OSS
(SWD=Students with Disabilities)
(SWOD=Students without Disabilities)
- SWD: One or more OSS, male
- SWD: One or more OSS, female
- SWD: Only one OSS, male
- SWD: Only one OSS, female
- SWOD: One or more OSS, male
- SWOD: One or more OSS, female
- SWOD: Only one OSS, male
- SWOD: Only one OSS, female
The same kind of calculation can be done for arrests, referrals
to law enforcement, etc.
A few simple calculations you can do
Comparing Racial Impact
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Here is what a table would look life for OSSs, arrests, and
referrals to law enforcement in Philadelphia.
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The Total Enrollment for each racial category are at the bottom
of the spreadsheet.
Native
TOTAL: OSS
TOTAL: Arrests
TOTAL: Referrals to Law
Enforcement
TOTAL Enrollment
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% OSS
% Arrests
% Referrals
Asian
Latino
Black
White
10
0
195
20
2520
380
13400
1990
1195
115
0
15
335
1845
100
260
10810
29130
105005
22505
3.85%
0.00%
0.00%
1.80%
0.19%
0.14%
8.65%
1.30%
1.15%
12.76%
1.90%
1.76%
5.31%
0.51%
0.44%
A few simple calculations you can do
Comparing Racial Impact (contd.)
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There are several ways to compare the likelihood of one racial
grouping receiving a certain kind of punishment vs. another.
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Using the data from the previous slide, here is one way to do it:
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For Black students, 13,400 out of 105,005 received OSS – 12.76%
For White students: 1,195 out of 22,505 received OSS – 5.31%
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Then divide 12.76% by 5.31% to show that Black students were
suspended at 2.4 times the rate of white students during the
2009-2010 school year.
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In his report, Dan Losen uses an approach designed to capture
both the volume and disparity of punishment as a more uniform
way to compare schools. Follow the links on slide 37 for more!
Uses and Limitations of the Data
– Case of Pennsylvania
Presentation from Harold Jordan, ACLU of Pennsylvania
 OCR data is self-reported, so quality depends on what the district
or state submits to OCR
 Analyzed data from 280 districts in Pennsylvania
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Data in Pennsylvania seems consistent with information available
from other sources
Because the State Department of Education in Pennsylvania has
required districts to submit discipline and incident data since 2000,
districts are used to reporting at least some of the data required
under OCR, but in a different format
Federal data gives you the number of students disciplined, while
most PA data reports the number of discipline actions taken, such
as suspensions - this allows you to view discipline rates in two ways
Most states are not in as good shape as Pennsylvania
Limitations of the data
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Limitations on Alternative Schools
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Data may not fully capture how many students in Pennsylvania are sent to
disciplinary Alternative Schools.
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Districts can place students in Alternative Schools without formally expelling them.
Yet some disciplinary transfers may meet the federal definition of expulsion. It is
not clear how districts reported this data or whether they did so consistently
across the state.
Different Definitions
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Your state may use different definitions than OCR. This may lead to some
confusion about how OCR data can be interpreted in the local/state context.
For example, in Pennsylvania an expulsion is a school removal of more than 10
consecutive days, and it requires a majority vote of the school board. The federal
definition of expulsion is different. As a result, the CRDC data reports a far greater
number of expulsions than approved by school boards. No doubt, some of these
"expulsions" are transfers to disciplinary alternative schools without students
being put into an expulsion process.
Limitations of the data
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Why is it important to explain the data in ways that are
consistent with local or state measures?
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For example:
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Districts may dispute specific conclusions drawn from federal data.
You might understate (or misstate) the degree of racial
disproportionality in discipline.
In Philadelphia, all expulsions were under the zero tolerance policies;
but CRDC reports expulsions in three different categories.
District profile (see slide 15) states that Black students make up 78.6%
of students expelled.
But Black students made up 86% of students expelled by vote of the
school board under zero tolerance policies.
Suggestion: It is always a good idea to take a look at the detailed data
table (slide 33)!
3. What Can We Do About It? (I of II)
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Dignity in Schools Campaign is advocating for
changes with Office for Civil Rights
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Highlighting inaccuracies in several districts where DSC
members are located (will also send letter to the districts)
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Calling for districts to properly report the 2011-2012 data in
all categories
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Urging OCR to address inaccuracies and ensure better
collection of the 2011-2012 data
What Can We Do About It? (II of II)
Dan Losen, Director, Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the
Civil Rights Project at UCLA
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No need to wait three years for the 2011-12 data:
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Upcoming national report on out-of-school suspensions
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OCR is collecting data on every U.S. public school for 2011-12
You can file open records requests for your district’s 2011-12 data
once it’s due for submission to OCR (Nov/Dec 2012).
Analyzes OCR data from districts and creates user friendly Excel
tables with out-of-school suspensions by race and disability
Excel tables will be available on-line for groups to download
Take a look at data tables on California already available at:
http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/schooldiscipline/suspended-education-in-california.
Examples from the CA report
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You can sort the spreadsheet by risk of suspension for each race!