Discipline or Not?

If students from certain racial/ethnic/religious/gender/other groups are on the receiving end of disciplinary action more that students from other groups, is it evidence of racism? Or are they, for whatever reason, acting out more than other students so that they deserve that disciplinary action?

According to rules passed under the Obama administration, there was disparate impact, which equals racism because students from some ethnicities got in trouble more than students from other ethnicities.

Attorney Peter Kirsanow, a Republican member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, tells Breitbart News the Obama policy is “horribly flawed” and should be ended “without delay.”

“The Obama school discipline policy is based on a number of false assumptions, including the premise that racial disparities in disciplinary rates are due to racial discrimination as opposed to disparities in rates of offense,” asserts Kirsanow, who also chairs the board of directors of the Center for New Black Leadership.

“The consequences of keeping the policy in place are staggering,” he continues. “A number of schools have experienced serious spikes in violence. Classrooms are being disrupted by students who know they’ll suffer no real consequences.”

Katherine Kersten recently described at the Star Tribune the effects of the disparate impact policy in St. Paul, Minnesota:

In St. Paul schools — as virtually everywhere in the country — black students, as a group, are referred for discipline at higher rates than other students. Starting around 2012, the district’s leaders tried to narrow this gap by lowering behavior expectations and removing meaningful penalties for student misconduct. For example, they spent millions of dollars on “white privilege” training for teachers, and dropped “continual willful disobedience” as a suspendable offense.

Violence and disorder quickly escalated. In some schools, anarchic conditions made learning difficult, if not impossible, according to teachers.

According to its proponents, it doesn't matter what real world effects the Obama policy has, disparate impact must be investigated and schools must waste time, effort, and money in defending themselves against charges of racism. And the increased disorder, which robbed good students of parts of the education they were trying to get - who cares?

That's why I found this article by Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman and Fatima Gross Graves so interesting. They would like the Obama era rules to remain in place.

Both of us are black women in leadership positions: one a congresswoman, the other the president of a national non-profit organization. We are path breakers, and in our roles we successfully manage large staffs and fight for policies that will help others. We are smart, assertive and confident, and use those traits regularly to support others and guide decision-making. We speak up and expect others to listen. These are undisputed and highly prized qualities of a leader.

But when we were black girls in school, these same leadership qualities were rarely rewarded. Our assertiveness and confidence were labeled disruptive and rude. We were told to smile more, and our “aggressiveness” was noted. In our youth, teachers and administrators questioned the same strengths and skills that make us leaders today.

These "leadership qualities" they speak of, their "strengths and skills"; did they include crawling on the floor to sneak over to a friend's desk, screaming insults and threats at other students, physically attacking classmates, running out of the room slamming the door behind them, throwing pencils at others, stealing classmates' lunches, or indulging in temper tantrums?

I'm curious, because these are things that happened in my classroom over the years, and yes these episodes led to students going through our discipline process. I was more interested in my students, especially those who weren't bouncing off the wall, being able to get the education they were there for, than whether or not there was bias exhibited based on these students getting in trouble for their disruptive action.

Just for fun, here is a Thomas Sowell article, "The 'Disparate Impact' Racket."