Why New State Discipline Statutes will NOT
Solve the Minority/Special Education Disproportionality Problem in Our Schools.
. . Connections with Ferguson,
Baltimore, and now Charleston, SC
Dear
Colleagues,
This has been quite a
week. . .
From Tuesday through
Thursday, I had the great honor of presenting at the annual Maryland School
Psychologists’ Association Summer Institute.
On Wednesday, my entire presentation focused on explicit and
field-tested solutions to address the fact that, across our country and in
states like Maryland, minority (especially African-American) students and
students with disabilities have been disproportionately sent to the
“Principal’s Office” as “discipline problems,” and have been disproportionately
suspended and expelled from school.
In fact, studies have
determined that many of the precipitating “discipline offenses” are minor in
nature, and that white students are not sent out of class for these same
offenses- - even though the minority and students with disabilities are.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
Maryland Schools
are a Prototype of Schools across the Country
In Maryland, the most-recent
“disproportionality journey” began with a March, 2014 report by the U.S.
Department of Education: Disproportionality
in School Discipline: An Assessment of
Trends in Maryland, 2009-2012 [CLICK HERE to see this report]. This Report documented the disproportionality
noted above by analyzing data from every county school district across
the state during three consecutive school years. The study found that:
* Disproportionalities
between African-American and White students increased during the 2011-2012
school year despite an overall decrease in the number of out-of-school
suspensions and expulsions.
* African-American
students received out-of-school suspensions or expulsions at more than twice
the rate of White students.
* Students with
disabilities were removed from school at more than twice the rate of students
who were not in special education.
These results parallel
those found over at least the past five years in other states and large cities
across the country- - with the most recent reports coming from, for example, California
[CLICK HERE], New York City [CLICK HERE], and Chicago [CLICK HERE].
_ _ _ _ _
Somewhat in response to
this Report and as part of a Maryland law that directs the Maryland State Board
of Education to establish “guidelines defining a state code of discipline for
all public schools with standards of conduct and consequences for violation of
the standards,” the Maryland State Department of Education published (on July
22, 2014) The Maryland Guidelines for a State Code of Discipline.
According to the Report’s
Introduction:
“The purpose of these
guidelines is to provide a framework for Maryland local school systems to use
in establishing local codes of conduct and in development new
discipline-related policies. These
guidelines include behavioral expectations for all members of the school
community who have a direct impact on creating healthy teaching and learning
environments for promoting student success.
They also provide suggested prevention, intervention, restorative, and
incentive-based strategies to respond to student misconduct, detailed
explanations of specific student behaviors that are not permitted, and other
factors for local districts to consider in revising their policies.”
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The Problem with
Statutory “Solutions” to Disproportionality
While taking some
positive steps by (a) conceptualizing students’ behavioral problems along a
continuum of frequency and intensity, and (b) listing (albeit without any
logical organization- - see below) a number of responding services, supports,
strategies, and interventions, the Maryland Guidelines have a number of
flaws that WILL NOT change the core nature of disproportionality in that state’s
schools.
This is because the Guidelines
document:
* Focuses specifically on
deficit student behaviors, and never describes/defines the specific prosocial
or expected behaviors that help students to be successful in a school or
classroom.
* Does not differentiate early elementary
versus late elementary versus middle school versus high school differences in
student behavior.
* Organizes misbehavior across five levels of
intensity, but does not provide objective criteria to differentiate the
intensity levels for some behaviors and, thus, leaves a suspension or expulsion
as administrative options for some behaviors that may not warrant these
actions.
* Does not logically organize
its different responses to inappropriate student behavior in categories like “Services
or Supports,” “Strategies or Interventions,” “Consequences or Punishments,” “Problem-solving
Actions,” and “Administrative Actions.”
Instead, the document somewhat randomly lists a number of possible
responses without providing any guidance to administrators or others as to
which approaches will work best for what student problems.
* Does not explicitly
emphasize the importance of determining the underlying reasons for a student’s
ongoing, significant, or unresponsive misbehavior so that strategic
interventions can be implemented to decrease or eliminate the misbehavior,
while replacing the behavior with appropriate, prosocial behavior.
* Does not discuss the expertise
or a specific ratio of personnel (e.g., behavioral intervention
specialists and mental health staff) that districts and schools need at the
prevention, strategic intervention, and intensive support levels in the areas
of school discipline, classroom management, and student self-management.
_ _ _ _ _
Beyond this, while
Maryland’s disproportionality numbers may change because of this document,
a broader and more functional perspective is needed.
My point here is that, in
states and districts around the country (see those cited above), while the
number of suspensions and expulsions have decreased due to state and
district statutory changes, the disproportionality ratios have persisted or
increased. Moreover, in some
districts, while out-of-school suspensions have decreased, disproportionate
in-school suspensions have increased.
And nationally, requests to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for
Civil Rights to investigate cases involving students with disabilities and
school discipline actions have surged.
And so, in all states,
districts, and schools nationwide, it is not simply about the disproportionality
data- - it is also about a functional
perspective that ensures that:
* Students (and staff)
are taught and use the interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict
prevention and resolution, and emotional coping skills needed to successfully
function individually, in small groups, and in large groups;
* The different peer
groups (and staff) that exist in schools expect, encourage, and reinforce these
prosocial skills; and
* There is a consistently
positive climate across the school and in the classrooms that is supported by
positive student-student, student-staff, and staff-staff interactions and
relationships.
These are the outcomes that
need to be measured alongside the disproportionality data because (a) these
characteristics will decrease student misbehavior, office referrals, and
suspensions/expulsions for ALL students on the front-end; and (b) they are the
REAL and TRUE indicators of student (and staff) success when students return
from a “disciplinary event and action” on the back-end.
Indeed,
while some states (like Maryland) are recommending district changes to their
student discipline codes, other states (e.g., Connecticut, California) and districts
(e.g., the District of Columbia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis) are simply
prohibiting suspensions for students at specific age levels or who display
certain inappropriate behaviors.
While
this will change the disproportionality numbers, it will not improve
how students are behaving and interacting in their classrooms- - nor will
it impact their academic engagement or, ultimately, their academic success.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_
The Charleston Connection
This
past Wednesday night, in between my Summer Institute session on
disproportionality and my Thursday morning session on “Social, Emotional, and
Behavioral Interventions for Disobedient, Disrespectful, Disruptive, Defiant,
and Disturbed Students,” nine parishioners from the Emanuel African Methodist
Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC were murdered as they attended their weekly
Bible study class.
The assassin, a high school drop-out, had a
Facebook page with pictures and symbols that have been adopted as emblems by
modern-day white supremacists. The crime
is being treated as a hate crime.
Significantly, this atrocity follows a
spring-time (in fact, three or more years) filled with racial controversy,
injustice, and death. From Trayvon
Martin (over three years ago now) to (most recently) Michael Brown in Ferguson
to Freddie Gray in Baltimore to others, the racial divide that has always
existed in this country has been tragically and traumatically exposed.
And while the Charleston murders were
committed by one individual allegedly due to racial hate, and the Ferguson and
Baltimore losses occurred due to racial profiling and pre-judgement, we have
still not confronted the fact that the disproportionate suspensions and
expulsions of African-Americans (for many decades) in our schools has many
common racial roots.
Indeed, when I asked the Maryland school
psychologists this past Wednesday to identify some of the reasons for
disproportionality in schools, one of my good colleagues (who happens to be
African-American) said immediately, “I’m just going to say it- - racial
prejudice.”
And
so, this is not simply about state statutes and school numbers. This is not simply about training the police
to be racially sensitive while ensuring accountability. This is not simply about securing our
churches, synagogues, and mosques- - or about gun control- - or about our lack
of mental health staff or a sound community mental health system.
This is also about systemic and
institutional change that involves our homes, schools, communities, and
society. It is about beliefs, attitudes,
discussion, debate, commitment, collaboration, and our ability to heal the past
while establishing a new present.
This is about confronting reality, beginning
to have uncomfortable conversations, and dealing directly with the issues. And yet, my Sunday paper today described
Charleston as “genteel and- - because of the abundance of churches- - as ‘the
Holy City.’” But strikingly, it went on
to note that “(p)eople there say it’s awkward, if not impolite, to talk about
race” there.
In many ways, the same is true of
schools. Discussions about race and
students with disabilities still are awkward in most schools. Educators would rather avoid, rather than
embrace, the discussion. And even when
the conversations occur across educators, they rarely involve students and
families.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_
Some Systemic Causes of School Disproportionality: Starting the Conversation
I respectfully suggest that minority (especially African-American)
students and students with disabilities have been disproportionately sent to
the principal’s office for discipline problems, and disproportionately suspended
and expelled from school for the following reasons:
* School, district,
family, and community gaps in cultural competence; and the absence of ongoing
and effective conversations about multi-cultural, racial, socioeconomic,
gender, sexual orientation, and disability-related similarities and differences
in our schools- - from preschool through high school
* Flawed and
short-sighted zero tolerance policies, perspectives, and related practices
advocated for many years across the country by some legislatures, state
departments of education, and national professional education associations (and
others)
* Teachers, administrators,
and other educators not effectively trained in school discipline, classroom
management, and student self-management approaches in their pre-service university
training programs, or within their pre-tenure or post-certification
professional development, supervision, or evaluation experiences in the field
* The lack of a school
and classroom focus on teaching and reinforcing students’ social, emotional,
and behavioral development, growth, and learning; and the absence of an
articulated, scaffolded preschool through high school “Health, Mental Health,
and Wellness” curriculum
* District codes of
conduct that (a) focus (almost) exclusively on deficit or inappropriate student
behaviors and exclusionary practices (rather than determining the underlying
reasons for students’ inappropriate behaviors that are then linked with
strategic services, supports, strategies, and interventions); (b) do not
specifically define and operationalize inappropriate student behavior along a
continuum that discusses the frequency and/or intensity of the behavior; and
(c) do not emphasize the specific expected individual, small group, and large
group behaviors that all students need to learn, along with approaches to
motivate and positively reinforce their occurrence
* Teachers who are
evaluated solely on students’ academic proficiency, rather than also being
evaluated on establishing and sustaining positive relationships and classroom
climate, positive classroom management systems and supports, and teaching and
reinforcing students’ academic and behavioral self-management skills
_ _ _ _ _
In saying this, I am
advocating a number of conversations that need to result in definitive actions
with demonstrable results. Clearly,
these conversations need to involve many community partners, educational
institutions, and district and school stakeholders. Some of these conversations will need to be
facilitated by trusted leaders. But all
of these conversations are critical if we are going to address the root cause
of our longstanding disproportionality problem.
But beyond these
conversations, there are many strategies already available to address virtually
all of the gaps noted above.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Summary
It is hard- - and maybe
unfair or inappropriate- - to compare a suspended student with the loss of life
in Ferguson, Baltimore, and now Charleston.
But, a predominant common denominator across these situations is historical
and institutional prejudice.
If we do not address and
begin to solve this denominator, the numerator will continue to proliferate.
There is no “silver
bullet” here. . . but I hope that there IS a “silver lining” in the midst of
these tragedies and injustices.
_ _ _ _ _
I hope that some of the ideas above resonate with
you. Please accept my best wishes as many of you are now “on vacation.” As always, if I can help your school(s) or
district in any of the areas related to these discussions, please do not
hesitate to contact me. Your comments
are always welcome. Thanks for all that
you do.
Best,
