Seven do's and don't's of school discipline reform | The Thomas B. Fordham Institute

from edexcellence.net
https://edexcellence.net/articles/seven-dos-and-donts-of-school-discipline-reform

It seems likely that the Trump administration will soon revise or rescind an Obama-era directive intended to address racial disparities in school disciplinary actions. The "Dear Colleague" letter in question, issued by the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice in 2014, has been the subject of much debate. It stated that school districts could be investigated and found guilty of violating students' civil rights when doling out punishments, even if the discipline policies were race-neutral and implemented in even-handed ways (in other words, even if there was no evidence of discriminatory treatment of students).

Yet the latest federal discipline data, released earlier this month, show that African American students continue to be disciplined at higher rates than white students. While U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos held roundtable meetings with lawmakers in April to hear debates about the guidance from both sides, there is no timeline for the administration's final decision.

But school discipline reform did not begin with President Obama, and it won't end with President Trump. Momentum for change has been gaining steam for years, which legislatures and school boards have increasingly codified into laws and practices at state and local levels.

If the Trump administration makes its move to revise or rescind, local education leaders will regain discretion over how to balance discipline with safety and order in the classroom. Regardless of what happens at the federal level, school discipline brings into play a number of important but often competing goals for school districts: eliminating discrimination, protecting the learning time of both disruptive students and their well-behaved peers, upholding high expectations for students, empathizing with traumatized students, and defending the authority of teachers.

---

With those competing values in mind, here are seven suggestions for superintendents and district-level administrators to consider for their discipline policies:

DO worry about racial discrimination and implicit bias when determining punishments for students who misbehave. Advocates for fair school discipline are right to be alarmed by the dramatic racial disparities. Schools nationwide suspended 2.7 million students in 2015–16—100,000 fewer students than 2013–14. But African American male students represented a quarter of all students who received an out-of-school suspension in 2015–16, despite making up only 8 percent of enrollment. Multiple studies have found that educator bias explains some of these disparities.

Furthermore, it is clearly against the law—and has been for half a century—for districts to treat students differently based on their race. Any differential treatment will remain illegal, even if the Trump administration does rescind federal guidance.

DON'T assume that racial bias alone explains disparities in discipline rates. The same studies that find evidence of racial bias in disciplinary actions also find that such bias only explains some of the disparities. Differences in student behavior are also a major factor. That's not because of the race of the students, but because, tragically, different racial groups face different kinds and degrees of trauma, abuse, and deprivation, many of them associated with poverty.

Students themselves even report such differences. On federal surveys, twice as many African American students report getting into fights at school as white students. It would be miraculous if children's vastly different life experiences didn't result in behavioral differences in school.

DO show empathy for kids whose misbehavior is due to difficult life circumstances. Educators need to understand the truly tough circumstances that some children face outside of school and do their best to help them cope. Identifying appropriate mental-health supports is particularly important. Addressing the underlying causes of student misbehavior can go a long way toward nipping it in the bud.

DON'T engage in the soft bigotry of low expectations. It's just as important for empathy not to turn into excuses for behavior that is out of line or compromises students' academic potential. All students need to learn how to control their impulses and behave in acceptable ways, as well as cultivate an attitude that reflects motivation and engagement.

DO find ways to address misbehavior that lead to positive changes and protect opportunities to learn. Long suspensions reduce learning time for those being punished and may not improve their behavior. It's worth trying in-school suspension for nonviolent offenses, with supports for students so they can behave better and continue learning the valuable skills and knowledge that schools exist to teach them.

DON'T just send disruptive kids back to their classrooms. Those who break rules can't be our exclusive concern; their classmates also have the right to learn. We must protect their learning environment to stay on track and close achievement gaps. Research also shows what common sense indicates: One or two disruptive students can erode the learning of an entire classroom. It should alarm us that in 2015–16, 43 percent of educators reported classroom misbehavior that affects their ability to teach students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

DO address "suspension factories." A 2013 report by researchers at The Civil Rights Project at UCLA found that thousands of public schools suspend more than a quarter of their students every year. And that is still the case for too many schools today—a sign that they are careening out of control on disciplinary measures. While it's bad to ignore schools with such high rates of suspensions, it's arguably worse to respond by simply commanding that they get their numbers down without providing massive amounts of support.

School discipline presents enormous challenges for education leaders. Getting it right takes balance, judgment, and wisdom. There's not much of that in Washington these days, but thankfully it still exists in abundance across our nation's schools. Let's make our decisions wisely.

As first appeared in Education Week as "7 Suggestions for Better School Discipline"on May 29, 2018. 

Sent from my iPhone

Genetic disorder knocks out prejudice | Psychology Today

This leaves us all with somewhat of a societal dilemma; to be prejudice free, but perhaps an over-abundance of faith/acceptance in total strangers.

That would be a tough sell for parents of children.

Sure kid, that person offering a lollipop if you get in his car probably has your best interests at heart. It's tough being a parent these days. I believe we refer to this in economics as a trade-off.

from Psychology Today:
Genetic disorder knocks out prejudice | Psychology Today:

Genetic disorder knocks out prejudice.

Posted Apr 28, 2010

To someone with Williams syndrome, every face looks like a friend - even snarling, angry faces that signal most people to steer clear. Williams is a rare genetic disorder, whose most striking feature is a deficit in social fear. New research suggests that Williams may also confer a strange "deficit" in prejudice.

Andreia Santos and colleagues tested 20 children with Williams between the ages of 7-16, and 20 children without Williams of the same age range (presumably they were all White, though the article does not specify). The test was simple, showing pairs of people side by side. Half of the pairs differed by gender, the other half by race. For the test of racial prejudice, the children were told simple stories that included good or bad traits, like kind, pretty, smart, and bad, ugly, and stupid. Then they were asked to pick which person in the pair the story was about. The children without Williams showed strong evidence of racial bias, selecting the White person most of the time for good traits, and the Black person most of the time for bad traits. But the children with Williams did not show any evidence of bias. They picked the White and Black characters at the same rate as chance.

If this were the only comparison the researchers made it would be tempting to think that the Williams children just didn't understand the test. After all, people with Williams syndrome typically have some cognitive disabilities. But the researchers also did a gender stereotyping version of the test. It worked the same as the race test, but included stereotypical sex roles instead of good and bad traits. Williams children had no trouble guessing that the house cleaner was probably the woman, and the mechanic was probably the man, and they did so at the same rate as the control children. They understood the test, and they showed the gender stereotypes that are typical of children their age.

So, what should we make of this lack of racial bias? First, the thing we should most definitely NOT conclude is that there is a "gene for racism," or that people are "hard wired" for anything of the sort. We know from other research that although very young infants can distinguish between men and women, it takes a few years of development before they can even tell the difference between people of different races. They might learn race biases early - some studies show racial bias as young as 3-5 years old - but they have to learn it. This study is a good reminder that genes don't code for specific behaviors or beliefs. Genes make people more or less sensitive to aspects of their environment.

Santos and colleagues argue that Williams syndrome makes kids insensitive to social fear. The interesting thing about Williams kids - and a scary thing for their parents - is that they will have complete trust in complete strangers. They are famously friendly, and love to talk. A story on NPR this week described a little girl with Williams, who charmed teachers and staff by ending all her conversations with "I love you." The girl's mother found it less charming, because she would have the same kind of "I love you" conversations with the salesman at Circuit city, the grocery store clerk, anybody.

Still, Williams children are not totally fearless. They are just as afraid of non-social threats like spiders and bees as other children. The fascinating thing about this disorder is how remarkably specific it is. It's this specificity that offers a new perspective on how racial prejudice works in America today. At bottom, this research is important because it suggests that social fear is at the root of racial prejudice.

This race-fear link is consistent with my own research showing that healthy White adults are more likely to mistake a harmless object like a cell phone or wallet for a gun if it belongs to a Black man. And research by Kurt Hugenberg showing that when people view facial expressions of emotion, the darker the skin color of the face, the more likely people are to think the face looks angry.

The most interesting unanswered question for me is what kind of fear makes the difference between developing or not developing racial prejudice? Is it a particular fear of Black people, based on stereotypes, as dangerous or criminal? Or is it the more general fear of uncertain and awkward interactions with people who look different? Join the conversation by commenting below.

 Link to original article: <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6VRT-4YV2KWV-9/2/076306a40...

'via Blog this'

'The racism treadmill' - AEI

Amen!

from aei.org
http://www.aei.org/publication/the-racism-treadmill/

'The racism treadmill'

That's the title of an excellent article in Quillette by Coleman Hughes, an undergraduate philosophy major at Columbia University. Some excerpts appear below (emphasis added), but reading the full article would be worth your time. Hat tip goes to Charles Murray, who remarked on Twitter:  "This is really good, period. That it was written by an undergraduate is extraordinary." Amen.

The disparity fallacy holds that unequal outcomes between two groups must be caused primarily by discrimination, whether overt or systemic. What's puzzling about believers in the disparity fallacy is not that they apply the belief too broadly, but that they apply it too narrowly. Any instance of whites outperforming blacks is adduced as evidence of discrimination. But when a disparity runs the other way—that is, blacks outperforming whites—discrimination is never invoked as a causal factor.
……
Intuitive examples of the importance of culture are all around us. Disparities in athletic achievement, for instance, are inexplicable without reference to culture. Although blacks make up 14 percent of the U.S. population, they account for only 8 percent of MLB baseball players. This relatively small disparity has been enough to prompt articles in US News, NPR, and Vox that blame the decline in black baseball representation on everything from mass incarceration to racial bias to a generic sense among white fans that "baseball culture should stay white," as the Vox piece summarized it.

Meanwhile, blacks account for a staggering three-fourths of all NBA basketball players, while whites account for a mere 18 percent. Curiously, progressives have not seen the under-representation of whites in basketball as requiring any explanation whatsoever. When whites are under-represented somewhere, it is assumed to be a choice or a cultural preference. But when blacks are under-represented somewhere, progressives descend on the issue like detectives to the scene of an unsolved murder, determined to consider every possible explanation except for the "lazy" one: that in black culture, basketball is more popular than baseball.
………..
The disparity fallacy and the denial of cultural factors conspire to create a dynamic that I call the Racism Treadmill: as long as cultural differences continue to cause disparities between racial groups, and as long as progressives imagine that systemic racism lies behind every disparity, then no amount of progress in reducing systemic racism, however large or concrete, will ever look like progress to progressives.
…..
Staying on the Racism Treadmill means denying progress and stoking ethnic tensions. It means, as Thomas Sowell once warned, moving towards a society in which "a new born baby enters the world supplied with prepackaged grievances against other babies born the same day." Worse still, it means shutting down the one conversation that stands the greatest chance of improving outcomes for blacks: the conversation about culture.

By contrast, getting off the Treadmill means recognizing that group outcomes will differ even in the absence of systemic bias; it means treating people as individuals rather than as members of a collective; it means restoring the naive conception of equal treatment over the skin-color morality of the far Left; and it means rejecting calls to burn this or that system to the ground in order to combat forms of racial oppression that grow ever more abstract by the day. At bottom, it means acknowledging the fact that racism has declined precipitously, and perhaps even being grateful that it has.

• Sent from my iPhone

Reporters should stop caricaturing conservatives on race | The Thomas B. Fordham Institute

This is probably good advice, however it's not likely to be taken. Liberals gain too much from their lap-dogs in the media by cultivating division. Those in academia have made their names and reputations on developing future pseudo-Social Justice Warriors and oxy-moronic "community organizers".

Thanks for the advice though, it's just a case of (way) too little, (way) too late.

from edexcellence.net
https://edexcellence.net/articles/reporters-should-stop-caricaturing-conservatives-on-race

Reporters should stop caricaturing conservatives on race | The Thomas B. Fordham Institute 

Editor's note: Last week, at the University of Southern California, the annual Education Writers Association conference kicked off with a speech by USC professor Shaun Harper on "Big Ideas on Equity, Race, and Inclusion in Education." That was followed by a panel on the same topic featuring Dr. Harper, Estela Bensimon, Pedro Noguera, and the Fordham Institute's Michael J. Petrilli, moderated by Inside Higher Ed's Greg Toppo. These were Petrilli's comments as prepared. 

Shaun's comments were well said, though you won't be surprised to know that I disagree with many of his arguments. I'm happy to get into that, as Greg sees fit. 

But first I want to focus my comments on you, the reporters.
We all know that this is a difficult time to talk about issues of race and class in this country, thanks to the extreme polarization and division, including on this issue. Of course, President Trump doesn't make it any easier, as he shows no interest in bringing us together or bridging divides. In fact, he seems intent on making the divides even larger, with his awful race-mongering at his rallies and in social media, and with many of the actions his administration is taking. This is why I was a Never Trumper, and why I left the Republican Party after Charlottesville. 

But the rest of us shouldn't play his game. And especially when discussing these highly fraught issues around race, we should work extra hard to find common ground, and find solutions.
It's my belief that the overwhelming majority of Americans, and the overwhelming majority of educators, are sympathetic to the concerns Shaun discussed. It disturbs us that so many kids of color continue to face unfair barriers in their educations and in their lives, and we want to do something about it.
But we can't have productive conversations if those conversations are quickly shut down. And that's what I see too often: conversations on race shut down if those of us on the right express disagreement with the views of folks on the left. If we say, for example, that we agree that racism and racial bias are real, and are factors in the gaps and disparities we see, but we don't think they are the only factor, that other factors matter, too, including families, and personal responsibility, and student behavior—if we say these things that are perfectly reasonable, too many times we are called racists. We are thrown in with the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville.  

And reporters are sometimes complicit. I see this in the debate around discipline disparities. We are all alarmed by the fact that African American students are three times as likely to be suspended as their white peers. We are open to finding solutions to that problem. 

But in the press we are caricatured. Civil rights groups and other progressives think the disparities are being driven by racism and racial bias. The conservative view is not that racism or racial bias aren't factors, or don't exist. Anyone who has studied American history, slavery, Jim Crow, understands the racist history of this country. And anyone who understands human nature and cognition knows that implicit bias is a real thing, and something we all have to be on guard against in our own lives. Of course racism and racial bias are part of the story. 

The conservative position, though, is that it's not the entire story. When you go and look at the best evidence—the most rigorous studies and surveys of students themselves—it is undeniable that the other big part of the story is student behavior. Some groups of students misbehave in school more frequently than others: African Americans more than white students, white students more than Asian American students, and so forth. This is not because of their race, but almost surely because of various risk factors that are connected to student misbehavior, all of them related to poverty. 

African American kids are three times as likely as white students to grow up in poverty, even more likely to grow up in deep poverty, three times more likely to grow up without a dad in the home, much more likely to be exposed to lead poisoning, more likely to be in the child welfare system, and on and on and on. This is a tragic state of affairs, and much of it is the legacy of racism. But we can't wish it away. 

And it matters for discipline policy because, if you expect to reach perfect parity in suspensions, but student behavior varies, you are telling educators to stop holding certain kids to high expectations. And that's not good for the kids, and it's certainly not good for their peers, or for a positive school climate. And it also paints educators as the problem, when the truth is much more complicated. 

And yet when I've argued that student behavior is part of the issue, that it varies by race, not because of race, but because of these other factors, people in this room have called me a racist. 

Can we stop doing that? 

So again, to the reporters, my plea is this: On issues of race, but really all issues, please check your own biases, including ideological and political biases. When your editors tell you to include the conservative point of view, please work hard to really understand it. Don't caricature it. Don't make it sound like conservatives are denying racism and racial bias in the same way some deny climate change. These issues are complicated and complex—and your readers deserve to see them portrayed that way.

Sent from my iPhone

The best sentence I read today..... - AEI

http://aaww.org/limits-diversity/

from aei.org
The best sentence I read today..... - AEI:

… is from Scott Johnson writing about Penn Law professor Amy Wax on the Powerline Blog “Darkness at Penn, Take 2“:

As a wholly owned subsidiary of “multiculturalism,” the ideology of “diversity” adheres to certain tenets: (a) outcomes must be equal among racial and ethnic groups, except when they accrue to the advantage of a racial or ethnic “minority” (including women); (b) disparate outcomes among racial and ethnic groups represent some form of institutional bias to be rectified by the authorities; (c) all cultures are equal, except for that of the United States, which is eternally guilty of racism under (a) and (b) above; (d) the expression of views disagreeing with (a) through (c) must be suppressed or, if it cannot be suppressed, must be stigmatized as “racist.”

'via Blog this'

What Chris Rock got wrong: Black Latinos and race in baseball | MLB | Sporting News

(Getty Images)

What Chris Rock got wrong: Black Latinos and race in baseball

Adrian Burgos Jr. Contributor @adburgosjr

May. 10, 2015

May 10, 2015 1:02pm EDT May 10, 2015 1:02pm EDT 

When do black Latinos count as black? The comedian ignored that crucial question.

We had two strikes against us: One for being black, and another for being Latino. — Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda

Cepeda shared this reflection with me a number of years ago in recalling his playing days as baseball's racial integration unfolded. Cepeda recalled numerous instances in which Americanos saw the Puerto Rican as just another black man when deciding to deny him services or in refusing him the same accommodations that his white teammates enjoyed. He also shared that on other occasions Americanos who he encountered saw him as a Latino, and proceeded to poke fun at his accent and his unfamiliarity with North American ways, which reminded him how they saw him as a foreigner in this land — even though his native Puerto Rico was (and remains) a U.S. territory.

Cepeda was not alone in enduring such encounters during that era. This treatment (and feeling they were consistently behind 0-2 in the count in their social encounters) was at the core of the critique that Roberto Clemente and Felipe Alou would make about how those within MLB circles (whether team staff, league officials, or the press corps) dealt with Latinos. Unfortunately, many of the issues about perceptions of those ballplayers who are both black and Latino continue in US baseball circles, particularly in discussions of race and the history of America's game.

Making the visibile invisible

Chris Rock's recent appearance on "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" permitted the comedian to expound on the rocky relationship between African-Americans and baseball. Provocative as always, Rock also used his biting wit in detailing baseball's shortcomings that have effectively turned off African-American sports fans, preventing them from sharing his own love of baseball.

A diehard fan, Rock fondly remembered the days when it was much easier to spot African-Americans on the field, highlighting the Mets of the late 1980s with Dwight Gooden, Kevin Mitchell, Darryl Strawberry and Mookie Wilson. Interestingly, the 1986 Mets squad that claimed a World Series title included five key players who were Latinos, three of whom were Mexican American: Jesse Orosco, Rick Aguilera and Bob Ojeda.

One of the zingers Rock flung MLB's way prompted my memory of interviewing Cepeda. To illustrate his point about the disappearance of black ballplayers from MLB, Rock decried that the Giants won the 2014 World Series without a single black player. That statement surely must have surprised Pablo Sandoval, a black Latino from Venezuela. Sandoval, moreover, was not the lone Latino Giant who, had he played in the era when a color line determined opportunity in baseball, would have more likely been Negro Leaguers than major leaguers.

Rock, however, is not alone in making claims that the many Afro-Latinos in MLB do not count as black. A number of Jackie Robinson Day celebration back, Torii Hunter referred to black Latinos like Vladimir Guerrero as imposters. And this is not just a recent thing. Minnie Miñoso described in one of his autobiographies an uncomfortable clubhouse encounter with Cleveland Indians teammate Harry Simpson. The two spoke in unfriendly tones when Simpson insisted that Miñoso was not black. The claim flew in the face of the fact that both the U.S.-born Simpson and the Cuban native Miñoso began their playing careers in the Negro Leagues due to baseball's color line, and how both suffered from the indignities of Jim Crow in spring training camp, in the minor leagues, and when they traveled on the road.

Orlando Cepeda (Sporting News archives)

Undercounted: invisibly present

Herein lays a source of aggravation as a historian who studies race, baseball, and Latinos.  Who gets to count them? And, perhaps most significantly, how does this impact how we talk about race and baseball both in the current moment and historically?When do black Latinos count as black?

The stakes are significant. Not in terms of who gets to be black, which historically has not been the most enviable position in baseball circles, but rather in how MLB addresses its 21st century realities as a global sport that is heavily dependent on Latino talent on its baseball diamonds and that, purportedly, seeks to increase the African American presence on the field and in the stands.

The question also matters historically. Most baseball fans simply think that the Latino presence in baseball is a recent phenomenon that started in earnest in the early 21st century or perhaps as early as the 1990s.

Research undertaken by baseball historians Mark Armour and Daniel Levitt (which you can read here ) has effectively busted one of baseball's long-held myths that the zenith of African American participation in baseball was at 28 percent in 1975. While this number still finds its way into print, into the social media platforms, and onto the broadcast air, the research conducted by Armour and Levitt on baseball's integration uncovered that the 28% figure included many players who shared the distinction of being black and Latino with Cepeda, Clemente, and Miñoso.

Worth considering then is the manner that the 28% stat hid from plain sight the active participation of Latinos both in the years of pioneering integration and in the decades that followed. It also minimized part of Jackie Robinson's legacy; that the impact of racial integration was as much international in letting in black Latinos as it was about African American inclusion.

Keeping count

The findings of Armour and Levitt altered the timeline of not only when the zenith of African American participation occurred but also when Latinos began to outpace African American participation. Rather than 1975, MLB saw the largest participation of African Americans in 1981. Moreover, the high-water mark was 18.7% and not 28%. As for Latinos, after first reaching double-digits as a percentage of MLB players in 1967, they eclipsed African Americans in on-field presence (16.9 percent  to 16.8 percent) in 1993. Three seasons later Latino participation surged over 20% and reaching its zenith in 2009 at 28.5 percent.

These stats, I am convinced, are quite connected. After all, the professional baseball aspirations of African Americans and Latinos were interconnected during baseball's color line era. The overwhelming majority of Latinos who ventured to north to play professionally in the United States did so by performing in the black baseball circuit where over 240 Latinos participated. Conversely between 1902 and 1946, 53 Latinos (foreign and US-born) appeared in the majors. Moreover, when one looks at the Latino stars that emerged in the first decades of integration, the vast majority of them were Afro-Latinos; Luis Aparicio being the most notable exception.

Indeed, what discounting the status as fellow blacks of those from Latin America, the history of how profoundly the color line affected Latinos, especially black Latinos, is minimized. That also diminishes the vital role that the Negro Leagues played as the main professional circuit Latinos participated in during baseball's segregated era. It was there where José Méndez managed the great Kansas City Monarchs to multiple pennants in the 1920s; where Cristobal Torriente blasted home runs to pace the Detroit Stars and Chicago American Giants; where Martin Dihigo displayed a level of versatility and excellence that landed him in the Hall of Fame not only in the U.S. but Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, and Dominican Republic.

It also diminishes how important the Latin American leagues were in advancing black baseball talent on and off the field. It was in Mexico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela where African Americans gained their first professional managerial experience guiding integrated ballclubs, managing teams that included white Americans, Latinos of all shades and hues, and fellow African Americans.

Indeed, not recognizing as black players like David Ortiz, Sandoval or Puig denies not only what is visible but also renders invisible the history of race in baseball (and Latin America) and, equally significant, of the choices MLB has made in pursuing Latin American talent after it had dismantled the black baseball infrastructure that had been established and sustained by the Negro Leagues.

SN contributor Adrian Burgos, Jr., is professor of history at the University of Illinois. His expertise includes Latinos in baseball and the Negro Leagues. The author of "Cuban Star: How One Negro League Owner Changed the Face of Baseball" (Hill & Wang, 2011) and "Playing America's Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line" (University of California Press, 2007), he consulted for the National Baseball Hall of Fame's ¡Viva Baseball! exhibit, Ken Burns' "The Tenth Inning" and on the forthcoming "Jackie Robinson," among other exhibits and documentaries.

Sent from my iPhone