Wow, two posts on suspensions in one week!
Front page news in today's Washington Post: black and Hispanic students get suspended at much higher rates than white students. Wait a minute, I thought only my town did that to minority students (and needs an investigation from the Office of Civil Rights to uncover our wrong-doing).
The Post's article lists the usual litany of excuses for the disparity in suspensions:
- poverty
- cultural insensitivity
- poor classroom management
- households with single parents
In short, basically blaming everything except student misbehavior. I love how the article quotes administrators, parents and activists, but not a single teacher (or even student). This seems to be the typical mentality regarding public education: everyone's an expert on it, except for those actually in the classroom.
If a newspaper is going to publish an article on possible racism in school discipline policies, shouldn't they at least talk to the students to ask if they feel discriminated against? Or talk to teachers who can shed light on why they write the suspension reports that they turn in to the administration. No, let's continue to get the opinions and eventual policies from people that haven't been in a classroom since they were students 30+ years ago.
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