Our students may not be learning calculus, music theory or art history, but they are learning that racism is acceptable, that it is part of our society’s institutional culture. They witness it from preschool all the way through grades K-12.
They see it in the suspensions and expulsions of their classmates. In preschool, black students are 3.6 times more likely to be sent home from school than are white students. This is in preschool—before they even get to kindergarten. According to a new report from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights:
• Black children represent 19% of preschool enrollment, but 47% of preschool children receiving one or more out-of-school suspensions; in comparison, white children represent 41% of preschool enrollment, but 28% of preschool children receiving one or more out-of-school suspensions.
• Black boys represent 19% of male preschool enrollment, but 45% of male preschool children receiving one or more out-of-school suspensions.
• Black girls represent 20% of female preschool enrollment, but 54% of female preschool children receiving one or more out-of-school suspensions.
In grades K-12, the statistics aren’t much better:
• Black K-12 students are 3.8 times as likely to receive one or more out-of-school suspensions as white students.
• Black girls are 8% of enrolled students, but 14% of students receiving one or more out-of-school suspensions. Girls of other races did not disproportionately receive one or more out-of-school suspensions.
• American Indian or Alaska Native, Latino, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and multiracial boys are also disproportionately suspended from school, representing 15% of K-12 students but 19% of K-12 students receiving one or more out-of-school suspensions.
• 11% of American Indian or Alaska Native boys received one or more out-of-school suspensions, as did 10% of multiracial boys, 8% of Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander boys, and 7% of Latino boys.
• Asian and white students did not disproportionately receive one or more out-of-school suspensions.
The racial disparity and the increasing use of suspensions has led the U.S. Department of Education to release a “Policy Statement on Expulsion and Suspension Policies in Early Childhood Settings,” which includes this opening overview:
The beginning years of any child’s life are critical for building the early foundation of learning, health and wellness needed for success in school and later in life. During these years, children’s brains are developing rapidly, influenced by the experiences, both positive and negative, that they share with their families, caregivers, teachers, peers, and in their communities.10 A child’s early years set the trajectory for the relationships and successes they will experience for the rest of their lives, making it crucial that children’s earliest experiences truly foster – and never harm – their development. As such, expulsion and suspension practices in early childhood settings, two stressful and negative experiences young children and their families may encounter in early childhood programs, should be prevented, severely limited, and eventually eliminated. [Emphasis added]
When our society tries to measure the cost of this policy of “no tolerance” and sending children to jail for infractions that in past eras would have resulted in detention, they look at how the suspensions impact the child who is suspended.
Suspension and expulsion can influence a number of adverse outcomes across development, health, and education. Young students who are expelled or suspended are as much as 10 times more likely to drop out of high school, experience academic failure and grade retention, hold negative school attitudes, and face incarceration than those who are not.5,6,7 While much of this research has focused on expulsion and suspension in elementary, middle, and high school settings, there is evidence that expulsion or suspension early in a child’s education is associated with expulsion or suspension in later school grades.11
It is conservatively estimated that the financial cost of our current school suspension policies result in a lifetime price of $527,000 per 10th grade drop-out. With 67,000 suspension based dropouts, those costs exceed $35 billion in lost tax revenue, health care costs, and criminal justice costs.
“Thirty-five billion seems like a huge number, but it’s actually a very conservative estimate. We looked at data from just one cohort of 10th grade students. Multiply that with 10th grade cohorts from additional years and costs will easily exceed $100 billion,” said Daniel J. Losen, director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at UCLA, in the announcement of the report.
But the suspension/expulsion policies are not the only places where our children are exposed to institutional racism during their education. They watch as police beat up minority students, as they yank them from their desks, as they throw students to the ground, and as they handcuff them for (not) stealing a carton of milk.
In 1950, there were less than 100 police officers in public schools. Today, estimates of policemen in schools range from 14,000 to 20,000, and 24 percent of elementary schools and 42 percent of high schools now have law enforcement officers. At high schools with high black and Latino enrollment, that figure climbs to 51 percent. Originally assigned to schools during the 80s and 90s, after the Columbine shooting their numbers dramatically increased and they have gradually been used to address minor infractions, too often treating children as criminal suspects.
What does that say to white students? What can they learn from watching their black and Latino peers punished for infractions they themselves get away with? How can they not assimilate the unspoken lesson of racial inequity? And how do we measure that cost?
Early this month, white Staten Island teens chased a group of black teenagers until one collapsed and died.
“They were calling us n—-rs,” Smith said of the chase. “I just heard a lot of racial slurs. They were mixed — some white, some of them were Hispanic. But nobody was black.” At least one of the assailants had a gun.
The black teenagers say they were eventually cornered, but caught a lucky break when police officers were heard nearby. The attackers ran away, but McKenzie showed signs of distress. “It’s mad hot,” he said, before falling to the ground. McKenzie, who’d forgotten his inhaler at home, was unable to breathe.
Over the Memorial Day weekend, Grosse Point South High School students made a racist video of themselves and passed it around on social media. (This is the same school that suspended a total of six white students in March for a racist photo also posted on social media.)
The video showed students interviewing one another about how they'd treat black people if elected U.S. president in the 2040 election, said senior Melba Dearing, 18, of Grosse Pointe Park, who is black.
"One of the answers was they should send black people back to Africa. And they said the only states where African Americans could go would be Maine and North Dakota and … Idaho, but then one said, 'Oh no, I like Idaho potatoes. Don't say that.’
In North Carolina, at McDowell High School, students built a wall of cardboard boxes as part of a senior prank. Seated prominently in the front row is a student sporting a Trump t-shirt. Students for Trump posted the photo on their Instagram account, proudly proclaiming “THEY BUILT A WALL!!.”
According to parents of some of the students involved, the problem was the posting of the photo on social media. Not that their children built a divisive wall and took the photo of the student with the Trump t-shirt front and center, no, the fault was with social media. The students had originally asked the supervising teacher (yes, there was a teacher present) if they could put a Trump poster on the wall of boxes. That request was denied.
In California’s Yucca Valley High School, graduating senior Beth Gonzales was assigned the superlative “teacher’s nightmare,” along with a black classmate. (She had hoped to receive “class clown.”) The two students were posed and photographed, she pointing a knife at a book and he pointing a gun at a book, with pose and props provided by the yearbook teacher-advisor. Supposed to be a parody, the mother of Beth Gonzales felt it reinforced racial stereotypes. Its wide circulation on social media has led to fears that the incident may harm her chances of getting into the US Navy.
Less than a week later, a math teacher, Kim Siddall, who is also the head of the math department at the same Yucca Valley High School, was recorded using an offensive racial slur during class. A sophomore, Alizédrian Roberts, was recording the class at the request of her mother who was concerned about her daughter’s earlier reports about the math class.
"It's indescribable at the moment, and who was I supposed to go tell?" Asked Roberts. "I felt ashamed that I was a minority in a class of different races and it's still something that I can't get over," said Roberts.
That wasn't the only crass thing recorded during the class. Here's Siddall allegedly using a math problem to describe her nickname for her motorcycle group.
"This is the same thing as saying F of G and G of F which is this right here. Say that fast to yourself right here," said Siddall in the recording. A student is heard responding saying "F*** off.”
We really shouldn’t be surprised at the racism of our high school students. They have been indoctrinated since preschool into the belief that they are entitled to privilege due to the color of their skin. Their teachers all too often reinforce that belief. If not through direct action, a la Yucca Valley, it can be found in the lack of action by teachers who stood by while seniors built a wall across a common area of the school. And now we have a presidential candidate giving them all shade.
What is surprising is that they are not a majority of the high school population. Fifty years ago Newsweek did a survey of American teenagers, their concerns, and interests. Last month they published a current survey under the title, “What do American teens want? Less racism.”
The most compelling findings show that race and discrimination are crucial issues for teens today. In 1966, 44 percent of American teens thought racial discrimination would be a problem for their generation. Now nearly twice as many—82 percent—feel the same way. The outlook is more alarming among black teens: Ninety-one percent think discrimination is here to stay, up from 33 percent in 1966.
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And many teens, regardless of race or ethnicity, perceive that black Americans are discriminated against at higher rates than others, including the way they’re treated by police (62 percent) and their ability to access decent jobs (39 percent).
It is good that the majority of teens are aware that racial discrimination is a crucial issue and are willing to work against it. But perhaps if our schools (and our preschools) heeded the recommendations of the Department of Education and worked to eliminate the suspension/expulsion policies and replace them with constructive policies to keep children in school, and if we could train all police officers who work in school settings in how to deal with children, we could grow that majority.
Children are not born fearing people whose eyes are a different shape or whose skin is a different shade. They have to be carefully taught.