Summer 2015
RESEARCH BRIEF Disciplinary Disproportionality in Urban School Settings & Potential Solutions
Aimy Steele
University of North Carolina at Charlotte Introduc)on Urban school settings are faced with surmounting challenges including the lack of culturally relevant pedagogy, a disappearing highly trained workforce, and the absence of appropriate classroom management strategies to address minorities and disproportionalities among African Americans and Latinos (Moore & Lewis, 2012). There are multiple classifications of disproportionality applicable in education. Disproportionality can occur in the over or under classification of certain groups (Vincent et al., 2012) in special education placement, office disciplinary referrals (ODR), suspension and expulsion (Skiba, 2005), or placement in advanced placement or honors level courses in high school for students (Moore & Lewis, 2010). The rate of disproportionality can affect students f r o m a v a r i e t y o f r a c e s , g e n d e r, a n d socioeconomic statuses. This research brief examines disciplinary disproportionality, particularly ODRs and suspensions of minority students with a special focus on African Americans and Latinos.
Background Social scientists and educational researchers alike have explored the reasons for disciplinary disproportionality between African American and Latino students in K-12 educational settings, and have concluded that African American and Latino students experience less favorable disciplinary consequences (Lewis, Butler, Bonner, & Joubert, 2010) and academic outcomes in the public school system than their White peers (Vincent et al., 2012). Vincent et al. (2012) further discovered that African American students are more likely to suffer higher ODRs (Bradshaw, Mitchell, O’Brennan, & Leaf, 2010; Kaufman et al., 2010; Skiba et al., 2011; Skiba, Peterson, & Williams, 1997; Vincent, Tobin, SwainBroadway, & May, 2011), increased odds of being suspended or expelled (KewelRamani, Gilbertson, Fox, & Provasnik, 2007; Krezmien, Leone, & Achilles, 2006; Wallace, Goodkind, Wallace & Bachman, 2008), and lower reading and math achievement academically (Lee, 2002; Lee, Grigg, & Donahue, 2007). According to Cartledge, Gibson, and Keyes APA style (2012), there are several predictors of disproportionality for African American students including poverty, teacher and school quality,
assessment practice for placement in special education, racial profiling and bias, and gender differences (pp. 78-81). They added that African Americans are disproportionately represented in special education programs regardless of income levels (Cartledge, Gibson, & Keynes, 2012). To examine why these disproportionalities occur, theorists have applied the Critical Race Theory (CRT). CRT is used to study disproportionality as a decision and attempt to maintain the structure of White privilege (Bell, 1995). CRT is often cited by researchers when attempting to develop responses to inequities within public education (Skiba, 2005) and is a movement that seeks to transform the relationship between race, racism, and power (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012). Since scholars have begun connecting the interactions with African American students and the public school system, they continue to find data to suggest higher rates of suspensions of African American students. According to the Children’s Defense Fund (2012), Blacks are more likely to be suspended from school than other racial groups. The Civil Rights Data Collection (2014) finds that Black males are sixteen times more likely than White females to be suspended from school. Lewis et al. (2010) provides data to support that although accused of similar offenses, both African Americans and their White counterparts receive different punishments with the more harsh consequence belonging to the African American students. There is evidence to support that while used frequently as a disciplinary punishment, suspensions do not correct behaviors of those suspended (Skiba, 2005). Suspensions from school lead to repeat offenders, elevated dropout rate, and juvenile incarceration (Skiba, 2005). Further studies find that there is a negative correlation between both suspensions and expulsions and state accountability scores suggesting that students who are suspended and expelled also have low academic achievement as measured on state accountability (Vincent et al., 2012). Per Lewis et al. (2010), students are
incapacitated when they are suspended thus leaving them with a negative impact on their academic performance. Support must be provided to assist suspended students with interventions that provide the opportunity to regain knowledge missed from being out of class and further promote academic achievement. Several solutions exist that could be implemented simultaneously to eliminate disproportionality among minority students and produce higher academic achievement among them to maximize success. The first step in addressing disproportionality involves the identification of students at various intervention levels. The model of sorting and organizing all of the intervention and enrichment methods and strategies is the Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) designed by The University of Kansas. MTSS is a “coherent continuum of evidence based, systemwide practices to support a rapid response to academic and behavioral needs, with frequent data-based monitoring for instructional decisionmaking to empower each student to achieve high standards” (The University of Kansas, 2014). Therefore, students can be organized on all three tiers indicating their varying levels of need.
Figure 1: Civil Rights Data Collec)on, Student suspensions and expulsions (2014)