The School –To- Prison
Pipeline
Daniel J. Losen
Senior Education Law and Policy Associate
The Civil Rights Project at UCLA
©2010
Patterns of Racial Disparity in North
Carolina 2000 (U.S. Dept of Ed.)
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Racial Impact of The Rising Use Of
Suspension
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 3
Race with Gender in Middle
Schools in U.S. (2006)
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 4
Robeson County, North Carolina
(estimate based on 2006 OCR Data)
• 10 of 11 middle schools suspended over
33% of Black males (6 over 50%)
• 6 out of 11 middle schools suspended over
33% white males (5 over 50%)
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 5
Black/White Risk for Suspension in NC Schools in (200809) for Minor Offenses
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 6
Black First Time Offenders Suspended at Higher Rates
than Whites for Same Minor Offenses (NC 2008-09)
Percent of Offenders Receiving Suspension for First Offense
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 7
Same Offense: Harsher Treatment
• 4,838 Whites versus 2,242 Blacks
disciplined for first offense of cell phone
rules.
• 32.7% (732) of the offending Blacks were
suspended out of school.
• 14.5% (704) of the offending Whites were
suspended out of school.
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 8
Implicit and Institutional Bias
•
•
•
•
Bush’s “Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations”
Legacy of Inequity in Resource Distribution
Bias Against Students With Disabilities
Class bias
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 9
Low Achievement
• Contributes to likelihood of
misbehavior.
• Inequality of educational opportunity,
beginning in pre-school, shows up in
outcome data, including discipline data.
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 10
The Impact of Inadequate
Education
• If students need greater support today, to
what extent do we devote more resources
toward meeting academic and behavioral
needs early and consistently from preschool through secondary school?
• Kids who have experienced trauma are
more likely to act out in school, how do
we support them? (i.e. witnessed
domestic abuse or violence)
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 11
Suspension a Deterrent?
• Truancy and tardiness?
• Dress codes and gangs?
• Removing adult supervision to what
end?Generate respect? Safety?
• Schools can make a large difference… starting
with eliminating policies that do not work or
that are counter-productive.
• Law enforcement agencies are complaining
about the frequent use of suspension. (See Fight
Crime: Invest in Kids)
(The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 12
Pinellas County’s Cohort’s Suspension
Rate As Students Advanced in Grade
Percentage of cohort’s enrollment suspended
at least once: (Mendez 2003)
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
4.2
4.9
10.6
13.1
14.
8
18.5
20.2
18.4
18.7
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 13
Rates and Reasons for Suspension:
Impact of incomplete or unused data:
Incomplete reports fuel assumptions that
most suspended children posed a serious
threat to safety.
PBIS is data driven, but most districts need
support and many have data problems.
Lack of awareness, even among principals.
Poses problems for evaluating practice and
constructing remedies.
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No Accountability For Over-use of
Suspension
 No regular reporting of suspension data
required.
 School discipline data are not a regular part
of school evaluation.
 Perverse incentives to raise test scores.
 Students not in attendance for a full academic
year are excluded from accountability
calculus.
 Invisible children: We only count those whom
we care about….
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Suspension and Blaming the Parents
• What should the school do when the parents lack the skills
and/or resources to provide good care and guidance? Will
suspension from school work?
• Should we send students away for school for their low
academic performance?
DRAFT - 16
The Attitudes of Principals
• After controlling for race and poverty, the
attitudes of principals on the use of
suspension were predictive of:
• Suspension rates…
• And test scores….
• Lower suspending principals across all
demographics had higher achievement.
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 17
Step One: Acknowledge Ways in Which
Schools Do Make a Difference
• Individually and systemically.
• Teachers can learn more effective
classroom management skills, including
how to handle very disruptive behavior.
• Teachers can improve their content
instruction in ways that also results in fewer
discipline problems.
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 18
The Difference Training Can
Make
• My inexperience and frequent referrals.
• Typical mistakes easily corrected:
– Focusing on wrongs rather than rights.
– Assuming bad motives and taking things personally.
– Poor preparation.
– Deferring to higher authorities.
– Group punishments.
– Classroom confrontation.
– Ignoring special needs….
I received training that was required of all first and second year
teachers.
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 19
Racial and Disability Disparities in
Discipline: District Level
Step Two: Ensure that Schools Meet Their Obligations
to All Students, Including those with Disabilities
• Racial differences raise questions about possible
difference in quality of special education by race.
• Manifestation determination:
– Behavior caused by disability, or
– Resulted from failure to properly implement the
student’s individualized educational plan (IEP).
• Study of districts in Delaware:
• About 50% of the principals knew that students
with disabilities had additional due-process rights.
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 21
Are Schools Skirting Their Responsibility to
Educate All Children?
• Data suggests systemic inequalities:
• Who pays the price?
• What are the costs?
– Financial?
– Crime?
– The fabric of our democracy?
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 22
Suspension’s Impact
• Loss of instructional time.
• Lower achievement.
• Three fold increase in risk of dropping
out.
• A leading indicator of future incarceration.
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 23
Balfanz Study of Incarcerated Youth
• According to Balfanz’s research, the typical
ninth grader who went to prison attended
school only 58% of the time, …2/3 had
been suspended at least once in eighth
grade.
The Civil Rights Project
DRAFT - 24
Comparison of Percentage of All Students
with IEPs in Public Schools and in JJ
System (U.S.)
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Police in Our Schools
• How well trained?
• Cost benefit analysis compared with support for
students and teachers?
• How evaluated? Arrests or lack thereof?
• Increase in police presence, without education
protocol resulted in dramatic rise in misdemeanor
offenses and minor rise in felonies.
• Costs associated with over-use by educators…
DRAFT - 27
Step Three: Use data by race, gender and
disability, to inform, evaluate and modify the
remedy.
• Use data, broken down by race, gender and
disability, to understand the root of the
problem.
• Use data to raise awareness of the
disparities on a regular basis.
• Use data to find remedies already at work
within the district.
• Use data to evaluate the intervention.
• Use data to encourage replication of
success. (i.e.ThePBIS).
DRAFT - 28
Civil Rights Project
The End
Daniel J. Losen
New Report: Losen and Skiba, Suspended
Education: Urban Middle Schools in Crisis
New Book: Kim, Losen and Hewitt, The School
to Prison Pipeline: Structuring Legal Reform,
NYU Press. Call 800-996-6987
http://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/
losendan@gmail.com
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