Feds Say Suspension Overused on Minority Students

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A growing number of schools suspend over 50% of their racial and ethnic students in a given year, according to a Southern Poverty Law Center study. The study, called Suspended Education: Urban Middle Schools in Crisis, found that zero tolerance policies in schools have led to suspension being overused as a disciplinary tool, especially for kids of color. This corresponds with the Georgia Appleseed Center for Law and Justice’s public school discipline study across the state, which is underway right now. As JJIE.org reported Friday, Georgia Appleseed is surveying parents and kids in Phase II of its study on school discipline methods in public schools. An early version of the study, called Effective School Discipline: Keeping Kids in Class, showed a high number of minority kids being punished by out-of-school suspension, which adversely affected their success in school.

Black Boys Suspended from School 3 Times More than White Boys, Says New Study

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Middle school kids nationwide, specifically minorities, are facing out of school suspension at alarming rates, according to a study published by the Southern Poverty Law Center called Suspended Education: Urban Middle Schools in Crisis. Atlanta is one of 18 urban school districts the researchers studied. Using data from more than 9,000 middle schools they discovered a suspension rate of 11.2 percent. But the suspension rate for black boys was dramatically higher at 28.3 percent…almost three times higher than the rate for white boys.The research focuses on middle schools and warns suspensions in these grades may have significant, long-term repercussions for students. Also, few previous studies have separated middle school data from that for all grades, masking the extraordinarily high frequency of suspension in middle schools.