Race gap in school discipline persists in Seattle

Nearly two decades after it began tracking student discipline, Seattle Public Schools continues to struggle with a chronic problem: African American students are still far more likely than their white peers to be suspended or expelled.

The "discipline gap" persists even as the district drastically lowered the overall number of students who were expelled last year, new statistics show.

Compared with white students, African Americans were nearly twice as likely last year to receive short-term suspensions, lasting 10 or fewer days. Long-term suspensions were imposed on black students more than twice the time.

"We're still seeing a lot of disproportionality," said School Board member Darlene Flynn, chairwoman of Student Learning Committee. "That hasn't improved at all."

The disparity was investigated by the Seattle P-I in 2002 in a special report, "An Uneven Hand," which found that black students were being disciplined at much higher rates than students of other races -- and had been for at least two decades.

The district has made an effort in recent years to provide better training to teachers and administrators and focus on alternatives to suspending or expelling students. But short- and long-term suspension rates are virtually unchanged since 2000, and in some cases are higher.

Flynn said the district needs to do a better job of lowering discipline rates, especially for black and Hispanic students.

The Seattle Public Schools discipline report is available online at www.seattleschools.org/area/siso/disprof/2005/disprof_2005.xml, then click "Student Outcome Measures." The section on discipline rates begins on Page 41.

I think in general boys are happier and more motivated if they have one or more adult male parents or relatives closely involved in their lives. And I think women, deaf people, white people, black people, and just about any other distinct group benefit from having one or more "same type" role models handy on a long term basis. But the absence of a father is the least of the problems of these (mostly black) kids who are completely out of control in public middle schools and high schools. Their relatives are usually all very uneducated, have irregular and very low-level low-responsibility jobs (if they're not just permanently on welfare), and are in many cases using drugs and alcohol heavily. There are no limits whatsoever on TV, junk food, where the kids go, be home by X time, etc. Their technical fathers are usually the sort of people who'd be nothing but a bad influence if they were living in the home with the kids -- they're gang members, drug dealers, petty criminals, etc. And by high school, many of these boys are already technical fathers themselves.

Dig up the research on children raised by early-widowed mothers. They have no fathers, and yet they in no way resemble the animal-like creatures that are causing complete chaos in inner-city schools. The boys may wish they had a dad, but they nonetheless refrain from mayhem, graduate from high school, go to college if their parents went to college, get decent jobs and support themselves as adults, at the same rate that boys raised in 2 parent homes do.

I will say it is not just black kids. The black kids where I live are prodominantly middle class, and have stable families.

At my kids elementary school, the behavior problems come from hispanics and poor white trash.

I was at the school the other day and some woman was cussing (F word, sh word) out her son in front of my kids. I called her on it, and she just looked at me and started trying to justify it. I told her there was no justification.

My son's middle school is much better behaved than the new elementary school my daughters are going to. I don't know how they do it, but they have much better control.

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