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Disparities in Suspension Rates for Students with Disabilities
If we assume that being present in the classroom is fundamental to learning in school, then African-American students with learning disabilities are in big trouble. According to Lee Romney, author of a recent article in EdSource, “African-American special education students nationwide lose substantially more instruction time due to discipline than their white counterparts, according to a report by The Civil Rights Project at UCLA and the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard University.”
According to the report, the disparities nationwide between white and black students with disabilities is staggering: “for every 100 white students with special needs in 2015-16, white students lost 43 days to suspension, while black students lost 121 days.”
The findings surprised the report’s author, Daniel J. Losen:
There is a huge amount of lost instruction for black kids due to their suspension that is very different from what white kids are experiencing and it needs to be addressed. I was shocked and I’ve been working in this area for some time.
“A Grave Problem”
The report further pointed out that when students are not in school, they lose access to other resources, such as counseling, certain therapies, tutoring, etc., which can add to the challenges of students already struggling with academics. As the report concludes: “That is why the huge racial difference in the amount of instruction time lost suggests that black students with disabilities face an especially grave problem.”
This report comes at a time when fewer than half the states have identified school districts where racial disparities in discipline exist, despite the IDEA mandate to track and report that information. This analysis, writes Romney, found that “some of the states that reported no such disparities in fact, have the highest racial disproportionality in suspensions.” States posting the largest gaps include Nevada, Nebraska, Ohio, Missouri, and Tennessee.
Dawn
Quite honestly, I believe that we suspend and expel too many students with disabilities, regardless of color. Now that I’ve said that, let me say that the discrepancy between white and black students’ days of suspension is ridiculously high. In case someone wants to say we need to raise the white suspensions, let me say that we need to reduce the black suspensions. As is mentioned in this blog, students lose access to instruction, counseling, and other programs that help them to become better people. I am very fortunate in the elementary building I work in. I am the behavior support teacher (fancy way of saying I work with students with behavior disorders). My principal and I both believe that students are not learning the skills they need if we send them home. For one, sometimes we are rewarding the behavior because that is exactly what the student wanted. Another thing is that sometimes home is where the student is learning the behavior (note that I said sometimes….this is not the case all the time). Students who are acting out need to be taught the skills they need to be successful. We need to exert patience and common sense. We can make a difference in this students’ lives.