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— genuinely — a final resort.
Can reducing the use of kiddie racial pro-
filing to discipline youth by kicking them
out of class be the key to reducing the
achievement gap – and the incarceration
rate?
New Obama Policy
Last July, U.S. Attorney General Eric
Holder and Education Secretary Arne Dun-
can together rolled out the Supportive
School Discipline initiative, dedicated to
addressing “the ‘school-to-prison pipeline’
and the disciplinary policies and practices
that can push students out of school and into
the justice system,” the Justice Department
said.
“The initiative aims to support good disci-
pline practices to foster safe and productive
learning environments in every classroom,”
Holder said at the time.
The policy came in response to a massive
University of Texas study tracking nearly
one million seventh graders for three years.
room holds them back in the long run.
“We have seen this kind of indication for
literally decades,” he says. “We know what
works, we just have, for various reasons,
political philosophical and otherwise,
decided that we’re not going to do what
works.”
Frederick says that back in 1979-1980,
part of the Portland schools desegregation
plan was “the concern about the kind of
impact that suspensions and expulsions
have on minority kids, black kids in partic-
ular, and that in fact was feeding the
pipeline for kids going into the prison sys-
tem.”
“By showing an increasing number of
black kids that are being suspended and
expelled, you were also finding a dispropor-
tionate number of kids in juvenile detention,
because they were being expelled and sent
home without supervision, in part because
they didn’t have the family structure to pro-
vide supervision – there was this ‘Leave It
‘We know what works, we just have, for various
reasons, political philosophical and otherwise,
decided that we’re not going to do what works’
The data showed the vast majority had at
least one suspension — 84 percent for boys,
70 for girls. Black students were 31 percent
more likely to receive a “school discre-
tionary action” than white or Hispanic stu-
dents.
“Ensuring that our educational system is a
doorway to opportunity – and not a point of
entry to our criminal justice system – is a
critical, and achievable, goal,” Holder said
in a statement last summer. “By bringing
together government, law enforcement, aca-
demic, and community leaders, I’m confi-
dent that we can make certain that school
discipline policies are enforced fairly and
do not become obstacles to future growth,
progress, and achievement.”
‘Literally Decades’
Oregon Rep. Lew Frederick, D-Portland,
spent many years as the public information
officer for the Portland Public Schools;
before that he was a television news
reporter. He says he’s not surprised by the
idea that kicking students out of the class-
C
O
M
to Beaver’ belief that mom was going to be
there and hand out discipline there when it
clearly was not going to be the case.”
Slow Progress
In Washington state, education officials
have yet to agree on any statistical data on
the “push out” issue; in Oregon, the num-
bers add up in an almost spooky way.
“More than a third of Oregon young peo-
ple who have been incarcerated are convict-
ed of felonies within three years of their
release,” reported the Annie E. Casey Foun-
dation last year in their study, “No Place for
Kids: The Case for Reducing Juvenile
Incarceration.”
Meanwhile, a new study by Multnomah
County’s Department of Community Justice
shows nearly 40 percent of African Ameri-
can school kids throughout Multnomah
County experience suspension or expulsion,
almost 3.5 times the rate of white students.
These two statistics measure different
things — yet the “nearly 40 percent” and
the “more than one third” proportion is a
M
U
N
I
T
haunting clue to the consistent population of
young people being flushed out of the
schools and into the prisons.
Oregon State Department of Education
spokeswoman Crystal Green listed off local
school districts that have landed on a list for
disproportionate discipline of special edu-
cation students.
In 2011: Portland Public Schools and
Woodburn School District
In 2010, Woodburn, Beaverton and
Tigard/Tualatin
In 2009, Eugene, Portland, and
Tigard/Tualatin.
“There’s a highly complicated formula
that looks for are too many minority special
ed kids being identified for special ed, and
are the minority special education kids
being disproportionally disciplined,” Green
said. “I’ve definitely heard principals from
schools doing this work and being success-
ful in this work saying, you don’t want to
believe it’s perception, but everyone comes
into this things with their own judgments;
so just making sure that peoples’ awareness
is really there on this issue.”
Missing Data?
In Seattle, the Post-Intelligencer newspa-
per has reported on the disparities for 10
years; school officials say they are just now
beginning to collect data district-wide and
they’ll make it available in 2013.
That’s not soon enough for one
researcher, who has already obtained the
raw data and crunched the numbers. Steve
Trubow of the Olympic Research Laborato-
ry in Port Angeles, Wa., has filed civil rights
complaints against 19 school districts
across the state in the past few months.
His findings:
• in Highline Public Schools, where white
special ed students outnumber black special
ed students 2 to 1, the black students com-
prise 57 percent of the suspension rate;
• The disproportionality rate in Seattle,
Issaquah and Battle Ground shows black
students suspended or expelled at four times
the rate of white students;
• Black students are expelled or suspend-
ed at five times the rate of white students in
Bremerton and Shelton
• in Bellingham schools, black students
with IEPs are suspended or expelled at
seven times the rate of white students with
IEPs;
• in Pasco, the African American students
Y
C
S EATTLE
B ULLETIN B OARD
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L
E
N
Camron and Tamberlee Tarver
with IEPs are suspended or expelled at 28
times the rate of their white counterparts.
Schools to Prisons
The new Multnomah County report,
“Exclusionary Discipline in Multnomah
County Schools: How Suspensions and
Expulsions Impact Students of Color,” links
early-childhood school exclusions to the
drop-out rate, youth violence and incarcera-
tion.
The document is truly a milestone; its
authors describe it as “the first time our
community has been able to compare disci-
pline data, disaggregated by race, across all
districts using shared definitions and
assumptions.” It was commissioned by the
Commission on Children, Families & Com-
munity and the SUN Service System.
“Nationally, Caucasian students are
referred to the office significantly more fre-
quently for offenses that can be objectively
documented (e.g.smoking, vandalism, leav-
ing without permission and obscene lan-
guage),” it says.
“African-American students, in contrast,
are referred more often for disrespect,
excessive noise, threat and loitering —
behaviors that would seem to require more
subjective judgment on the part of the refer-
See SUSPENSION on page 3
D
A
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2012
p.m. Ballard Branch Library, 5614 22nd Ave. NW.
Free and open to the public.
Hall Seattle, 1119 8th Ave.
Friday – Sunday March 2 – 4
Sunday February 26
If you have an event you want to share
with the community, email it two weeks
in advance to The Skanner at
info@theskanner.com
Thursday February 23
LOCAL AUTHOR’S WILL DISCUSS THE 1962 SEATTLE
WORLD’S FAIR. Author’s Paula Becker and Alan J.
Stein will discuss their book. The Seattle’s World’s
Fair featured the debut of two Seattle landmarks:
The Space Needle and the Monorail. 6:30 – 7:30
Page 2 The Seattle Skanner
February 22, 2012
BITTERLAKE COMMUNITY CENTER’S PANCAKE
BREAKFAST. Enjoy all-you-can-eat pancakes, plus
scrambled eggs, sausage and juice and coffee.
Proceeds from this event will help provide
scholarships for our low income neighbors. $5
per person children under 4 are free. 9 a.m. –
noon 13035 Linden Ave. N.
FRIENDS OF THE SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY MINI BOOK
SALE. Approximately 25,000 items will be up for
sale to the public at bargain prices at the 2012
Friends of the Seattle Public Library Mini Book
Sale, scheduled for March 2 - 4. Friday &
Saturday hours 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Sunday hours 9
a.m. – 1 p.m. Warren G. Magnuson Park, 7400
Sand Point Way. NE Building 30 workshop.
Monday February 27
Saturday March 3
WATERFRONT SEATTLE FORUM: ENVIRONMENT AND
ECOLOGY. How can the waterfront help to restore
the natural ecology of Elliott Bay and showcase
sustainable design: Come and get involved with
the discussion. 5:30 – 7 p.m. Downtown at Town
PANCAKE BREAKFAST. Everyone is invited to join us
for great food and good conversation. Breakfast
is free however donations are greatly
appreciated. Zion Lutheran Church 4634 Alger
Ave. Everett. 9 a.m. -11 a.m.