Blacks and Latinos are suspended more often

Educators blame disproportionate punishment on racism, zero tolerance

As for Latino students, many of them emigrate from poorer countries with little to no English-speaking skills and interrupted schooling. Recently, advocates have pressed the school system to hire more people to work with Latino parents, and to recruit and retain more bilingual and Latino teachers and administrators to address the suspensions.

The problem is not unique to the massive Montgomery school system — the state’s largest, with more than 137,700 students in 199 schools. Historically, schools nationwide have suspended black and Latino boys much more than any other ethnic group, one expert said.

And while times have changed since the height of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, racism still exists in school systems throughout the nation, analysts say.

Suspensions can range from one day up to 10 days, depending on the offense and the administrator’s discretion. Black students were largely suspended because of disruptive behavior and fighting, according to MSDE.

Intimidation is definitely a factor, said County Councilwoman Valerie Ervin (D-Dist. 5) of Silver Spring, a former school board member.

‘‘If you see a kid with baggy pants that’s hanging down his behind, you assume that the person is a ‘gangbanger,’ but he could be the most docile person,” she said. ‘‘These are really tough conversations and there’s no easy solution.”

Minority students are also wrongly classified as ‘‘nonlearners” by teachers and administrators not willing to work with the child, Ervin said.

‘‘If you’re a frustrated first- or second-grader who cannot read, you will act out in class. If you’re in fifth and sixth grade and can’t do math, you will act out in class,” she added. ‘‘When little Johnny raises his hand and is not getting called in class, he eventually stops raising his hand and opts out.”

The school system is trying to address the suspension rate, said Stephen L. Bedford, MCPS’ assistant chief schools performance officer.

‘‘We know we’ve got to fix this problem, and we’ve got to fix it the best way we know how, and that’s to analyze,” he said. ‘‘This is unfortunately a phenomenon that is prevalent throughout the country. We just have to find a way to stop this from happening.”

Disparity in the numbers

The numbers are stark.

A total of 3,251 black students were suspended from county schools in 2005-2006, compared to 1,278 white students, according to the Maryland State Department of Education.

Also, 1,540 Hispanic students were suspended. While the numbers of suspended white and Hispanic students decreased from the 2004-2005 school year, the number of suspended black students rose slightly, the statistics show.

Compare that to the demographic makeup of the county school system’s population: African Americans are 23 percent; Latinos make up 20.7 percent; whites comprise 41.2 percent; and Asian Americans represent 14.8 percent.

The disparity is reflected statewide. There were 72,683 students suspended from Maryland schools last year. More than half — 43,491 — were black.

‘‘This is something we’ve been trying to fix for a while now,” said Charles J. Buckler, chief of the state’s Student Services & Alternative Programs branch. ‘‘... I think it’s a real complex thing. Some teachers just focus on teaching and simply refer bad students to the office when certain behaviors need to be resolved in the classroom.”

The Montgomery school system’s Office of School Performance is ‘‘critically examining” the reasons for the disproportionate numbers, and trying to find ways to ‘‘reduce the behaviors that lead to suspensions,” Bedford said.

‘‘When kids aren’t participating, aren’t involved, then they participate in these behaviors because they lose interest,” Bedford said.

In an Oct. 18 memo to the county school board, Superintendent Jerry D. Weast acknowledged the disparity.

‘‘At all school levels, the district has intensified the programmatic response and monitoring efforts to eliminate the disproportionate suspension rates among student subgroups,” he wrote in the memo.

There’s the Collaborative Action Process, also called the CAP model, which tries to help teachers and students better communicate. There’s also a peer mediation program so students involved in a dispute can try to work out a resolution before it gets worse. Then there’s the Student Help and Academic Resource Program, called SHARP, an alternative program for suspended high school students to be mentored through group discussions.

Suspensions overall have decreased slightly from year to year, but it is tough to determine if these programs are being used at every school, Bedford said.

‘‘This is a really tough thing,” he said. ‘‘If you see two kids escalating a behavior and are in conflict, if we intervene, how do we know it would or wouldn’t have escalated into a conflict? I don’t know if it’s the early intervention or the process. Our job is to reduce the behaviors that lead to suspensions.”

School board President Nancy Navarro (Dist. 5) of Silver Spring will propose the board ‘‘finally” have an in-depth discussion at its May 31 retreat about the disproportionate suspension numbers and the persistent achievement gap.

However, it may be too tough for the school board to do something about suspensions, she said.

‘‘You want to give the principals the autonomy to run their own schools,” Navarro said. ‘‘We really need to focus on the staff development.”

Racism still plays a role

Typically, administrators punish a school’s neediest children, said Pedro Noguera, a professor in the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University.

Black students normally don’t do well in school, partly because of a ‘‘cultural mismatch” between minority students and white teachers, he said. ‘‘If a kid acts up in school, the last thing you want to do is send them home.”

Instead of sending children home to ‘‘watch television,” Noguera said, school systems in general should focus on getting to the root of a student’s behavior problem.

‘‘Discipline has to reconnect kids to learning,” Noguera said.

Institutional racism also plays a major factor in the disproportionate suspension rates, said Daniel J. Losen, a senior education law and policy associate with The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University.

‘‘Race is part of the reason,” he said. ‘‘Racial discrimination is below the surface. Black kids, and black males in particular, are getting harsher responses.”

Teachers should learn how to better relate to their students, said Crystal DeVance-Wilson, chairwoman of the Montgomery NAACP Parents’ Council.

‘‘I have seen extremely out of control white students that have scared me [and] white teachers ... worked with them to get the situation under control,” DeVance-Wilson wrote in an e-mail. ‘‘Black students could talk loudly, which a lot of kids do, and that could be reason enough for them to be suspended. Unfortunately, I don’t think that it is a priority for a lot of teachers to really understand their students on that level.”

While cultural differences could play a factor, county teachers union President Bonnie Cullison acknowledged, she does not believe minority students intimidate teachers.

‘‘Much of the teaching force is white female. There may be a disconnect, but I wouldn’t classify it as intimidation,” she said. ‘‘I think MCPS is attempting to pay attention to the data and come to a solution, but I think it’s a struggle to make it go fast.”