President Obama’s administration has advised educators to abandon overly zealous disciplinary policies, many of which send students to courts instead of the principals’ offices, reports The Associated Press.
Black children make up about 18 percent of the nation’s preschoolers but almost half of the students who were suspended more than once, the American Education Department’s (AED) civil rights arm reported earlier this year.
Highlighted in the report were racial disparities, lack of access to advanced classes and quality instruction, and discipline policies within the educational system. These lead to the argument that due to racial disparities associated with the handling of disciplinary issues, black children begin to gravitate toward criminal behavior.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said something must be done immediately.
“Every data point represents a life impacted and a future potentially diverted or derailed. This administration is moving aggressively to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline in order to ensure that all of our young people have equal educational opportunities,” Holder said.
The report drew this response of U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan: “It is clear that the United States has a great distance to go to meet our goal of providing opportunities for every student to succeed.”
The AED study on pre-school children suspension disparities was a first. However, it is widely recognized that get-tough suspension and arrest policies target minority students and contribute to the “school-to-prison” pipeline, according to the AP report.
“The racial disparities in American education, from access to high-level classes and experienced teachers to discipline” were highlighted in the AED report.
There is more training going on to ensure teachers are aware of the importance of keeping students in school, said Reggie Felton, associate director at the National School Boards Association.
National Education Association teachers’ union President Dennis Van Roekel said, “too many children don’t have equitable access to experienced and fully licensed teachers.”
Van Roekel said he believes that today’s policies, at least in part, disregard the professionalism of teaching, and there is a revolving door of under-prepared teachers, resulting in the inability to make a notable difference.
The report also gave statistics on Hispanic children who face similar disciplinary improprieties.
While Hispanics make up nearly one-third of the preschooler population, they made up 25 percent of the preschoolers suspended once and 20 percent of preschoolers suspended more than once.