Responding to Disciplinary Disproportionality

1. Responding to Disciplinary Disproportionality Cayce McCamish, Ph.D.

2. Overview • Grounding this presentation • Disciplinary Disproportionality • Color-blind Racism • Disciplinary disproportionality and the Organization of Power • Findings • Implications of the model • Framework for investigating and problem-solving disciplinary disproportionality • Resources

3. Grounding this Presentation • Social Construction- • “patterns of mutual expectations” • “The social world is constructed- meanings are made, definitions produced and interpretations propounded” (Clarke & Saraga, 2001) • Race- • “signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies” (Omi and Winant, 1994) • The way power is organized on the basis of skin color. • Power- • “action on the action of others” (Foucault as cited in Flynn, 2005) • Individuals do not “precede” it; “they are produced by it” (Ransom, 1997). • Black or African American? White or Caucasian?

4. What are we really talking about? • -Behavior • -Policies & Procedures • -Rules & Expectations Can we discuss disciplinary disproportionality without discussing race? • -Inequitable outcomes • -Race

5. What is Disciplinary Disproportionality? • It is a term used to describe the inequitable distribution of disciplinary actions in schools (Wallace, Goodkind, Wallace, & Bachman, 2008). • Exclusionary disciplinary practices- suspensions, expulsions, or other actions that result in the removal of the student from the educational environment. • The inequity occurs on the basis of race.

6. How is it calculated? • Risk Index is “the percentage of a given racial/ethnic group that is in a specific category.” • Risk Ratio is a comparison of the “Risk Index for the target racial/ethnic group and the risk index of all other groups.” • Risk Ratio presents a quantifiable number indicating the level of over or under-representation of members of a certain racial/ethnic group to be included in a particular category. • In the case of disciplinary disproportionality the category would calculate the risk for certain racial/ethnic groups for receiving suspensions, expulsions, or other exclusionary disciplinary outcomes. Risk Index = Number of Suspensions- received by Black Students Total Number Enrolled- Students who are Black Risk Ratio= Risk of Suspensions- for Black Students Total Risk of Suspensions- for all other racial groups (The Equity Project at Indiana University, 2011).

7. Desegregation Beginning with…

8. Historical Context Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) “with all deliberate speed…”

9. The Speed of Change… Nearly a decade after Brown (1954), The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights compiled data about desegregation for advisement to the President and Congress (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1963). The report asserted, “Negro schoolchildren still attend segregated schools in all parts of the Nation” (p. 53). Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241, enacted July 2, 1964) -Enforced voting rights, access to public facilities, public education, and prevented discrimination in programs that receive federal assistance. -Authorized grants, training institutes, and technical assistance to overcome problems of desegregation. -Gave authority to the Attorney General to “institute suits” and authority to the Federal Departments and Agencies to withhold appropriations of funds to programs that fail to comply with the law.

10. Emerging Trend • The beginning of Civil Rights Compliance efforts. • Discipline for Black students would significantly increase following desegregation (Thornton & Trent, 1988; Southern Regional Council & Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, 1973) • Peter Holmes, Director of the Office for Civil Rights under the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare testified at the Hearings before the Committee on Equal Opportunities of the Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives on May 12, 1974 (Committee on Education and Labor, 1974). • “the Office for Civil Rights has long recognized that the physical desegregation of a school system does not necessarily mean the end of discrimination. It often means that the discrimination is removed from public view, as in the case of the dual system, and relegated to the classroom or, as we shall see shortly, to the administrator’s office” (1974, p. 475).

11. First Documentation of Evidence • HEW/OCR, 1971: First collection of data regarding expulsions by race • Black students 3X more likely to be expelled • HEW/OCR, 1973: First national survey to collect data regarding suspensions by race • Black students 3X more likely to be suspended • Children’s Defense Fund, 1974: Children Out of School in America • Children’s Defense Fund, 1975: School Suspensions: Are they helping children?

12. Disciplinary Disproportionality: A thing of the past?

13. Disproportionality Rate

14. U. S. Secretary of Education “In America, education is the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter what your race, wealth, special needs, or zip code is- every child is entitled to a quality education. That’s why the fight for equal educational opportunity is about so much more than education. It’s a fight for social justice” (Duncan, 2010).

15. Civil Rights Data Collection 2012

16. Research- Influential Factors • SES • (Skiba, Michael, Nardo, & Peterson, 2002) • Gender • (Skiba, Michael, & Nardo, 2000; Skiba, Michael, Nardo, & Peterson, 2002; Hinojosa, 2008) • Differences in Behavior • (Bahr & Fuchs, 1991 in Noltemeir and McGlothlin)

17. Gender as a factor For students who are Black, both males and females have higher rates of suspensions. 1 in 5 males and 1 in 10 females receive an out-of-school suspension.

18. Behavioral Differences • Black students appear to be referred to the office for infractions that are both less serious and more subjective in their interpretation than white students. • White students were significantly more likely than black students to be referred to the office for smoking, leaving without permission, vandalism, and obscene language. • Black students were more likely to be referred for disrespect, excessive noise, threats, and loitering. • (Skiba, Peterson, & Williams, 1997; Wu, Pink, Crain, & Moles, 1982)

19. Misperceptions • Highest rates of disproportionality occur in the categories of “disruptive” and “Other” (Rausch & Skiba, 2004). • Misinterpretation of African American student behaviors as inappropriate- • overlapping speech as disrespect • play fighting as aggression • ritualized humor as insults • (Hanna, 1988 as cited in Monroe, 2005; Weinstein, Curran, and Tomlinson-Clark, 2004 in Monroe, 2005).

20. Where does it happen? • Racial disparities in school suspension appear to be greatly impacted by disproportionate rate of office referral for African-American students. • (Skiba, Michael, Nardo, & Peterson, 2002)

21. Type of School (Rausch & Skiba, 2004)

22. Zero Tolerance “In districts that reported expulsions under zero-tolerance policies, Hispanic and African-American students represent 45% of the student body, but 56% of the students expelled under such policies” (CRDC, 2012).

23. Disciplinary Disproportionality: Is Racism Still a factor? • State sponsored racism: 355 years • Since the end of state sponsored racism: 59 since Brown or 49 since CRA. • Russ Skiba: Race is not neutral • “Why would we assume there would not be culturally influenced practices in our educational systems?” Russ Skiba • Does the end of state sponsored racism mean an end to racism?

24. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebxvzz6w8BI&feature=related

25. Color-blind Racism • Racism Without Racists (2006), Eduardo Bonilla-Silva presented qualitative research on the new face of racism, color-blind racism. • “practices that are subtle, institutional, and apparently nonracial” (Bonilla-Silva, 2006, p. 3). • “racial norms disallow the open expression of racial views, [and as a result] whites have developed a concealed way of voicing them” (Bonilla-Silva, 2006, p. 57). • While avoiding overt verbal expressions of racism, white participants none-the-less conveyed racialized ideology in a “very careful, indirect, hesitant” and “coded language” (Bonilla-Silva, 2006, p. 55). • Recognition of this change in the language and expression of racism is critical for our efforts to continue to name it as racism.

26. For instance, I don’t see that the man next to me is Black. I don’t see skin color. I am completely color blind. No, sir. I don’t see it.

27. Color-blind Racism and Power • Patricia Hill-Collins asserts “racism is a system of power with four domains” which are: structural, disciplinary, cultural, and interpersonal (Hill-Collins, 2009, p. 53). • Racism is “produced and resisted within each domain of power as well as across all four domains” (Hill-Collins, 2009, p. 55).

28. 4 Domains of Power (Hill-Collins, 2009) “use the rules and regulations of everyday life to uphold the racial hierarchy or to challenge it” and is organized through “bureaucracies” and rely on “surveillance” “how racism as a system of power is set up,” and “organized” through “social institutions” “shapes race relations among individuals in everyday life” whereby during “ordinary social interactions” individuals “accept and/or resist racial inequality” in their lives “manufactures the ideas that justify racial hierarchy” by “constructing representations, ideas, and stories about race and racism”

29. Proposed Model for Examining DD What does our disciplinary data tell us about DD? What behaviors are most involved? How are our disciplinary expectations impacted by race and culture? What policies and procedures impact DD? How so? What are the unspoken beliefs held by staff about our students based upon race and culture? What do we know about relationships between individuals of different races?

30. Disciplinary Disproportionality And The Organization of Power

31. Disciplinary Disproportionality and the Organization of Power • One middle school • Students: 63% White, 21% Black/African Am., 10% Hispanic, 5% Multi-racial, and 2% Other • Staff: 89% White and 11% Black/African Am. (72% female) • Teachers only: 93% White, 7% Black/African Am. (70% female) • Methods: • Comprehensive disciplinary data analysis • Disciplinary policy crosswalk • Whole-school staff survey* • 7 staff member interviews *staff members were asked to offer responses about the whole school

32. Proposed Model for Examining Disciplinary Disproportionality Disciplinary practices, expectations, behaviors, and events/outcomes Disciplinary policies and procedures -School-wide discipline data (ODR, ISS, OSS, Expulsion) -Discipline Handbook -Code of Conduct Perceptions of the relationships between staff members and students Cultural beliefs and perceptions -Staff survey -Staff interviews

33. Disciplinary Domain • 21% (N=127) of the population is Black/African American • Account for 37% of referrals • 56% referred one or more times (N=71) • Risk ratio=1.83 Specific behaviors: Disruptive, disrespectful language, bus misbehavior, other school defined offense

34. Disciplinary Domain-Staff was presented 2 years of trend data demonstrating overrepresentation. Factors: Questions about quality and accuracy of the data. What is disciplinary disproportionality?

35. Disciplinary Domain-Staff perceptions of African American student behaviors Further Analysis: Black/African American staff offered significantly different responses indicating they do not view the behavior of Black/African American students as more “disruptive” (t(23) = -2.89, p < .05), “disrespectful” (t(23) = -2.20, p < .05), “aggressive” (t(23) = -2.12, p < .05), or more “violent” (t(22) = -3.44, p < .05).

36. Structural Domain Ratings: 0 = not listed 6 = listed, defined, outlines consequences, and offers examples. 20 possible points • Disruption is not listed in the District Code of Conduct • Lack of clarity and consistency • Most clearly defined behavior was Dress Code=19.

37. Cultural Domain-It’s the student.

38. Cultural Domain-It’s their family. • “Family values are a significant predictor of behavioral challenges at this school” (72%)

39. Cultural Domain • Culture and race are confusing, but it’s not race (72%) • 24% poverty is a factor- interviewees tended to interject class and gender to avoid race • Volume-Culture (not race)-Disruptive-Punished for culture • Factors thought to be most significant contributing factors associated with disproportionality were within the cultural domain

40. Interpersonal Domain • 40% somewhat agreed and disagreed that most teachers develop meaningful relationships with Black/African American students • Not viewed as a part of their job/not valued • Students with significant behavioral challenges have no relationships • Black/African American administrator (mixed feelings) • Projects, black-cent, and rap music

41. Findings from the Four Domains of Power Analysis -Inconsistency and lack of awareness -Disciplinary practices that do not account for cultural/racial differences -Defensiveness/denial -Inconsistency and lack of clarity -Omissions -Believed to be most significant factors -Cultural beliefs appear to have replaced racial beliefs -Lack of awareness -Avoidance of race -Lack of value for establishing relationships

42. Implications • Findings are contextually relevant • Offers a framework for expanding efforts beyond disciplinary data analysis • Creates opportunity for dialogue about race-related issues within a color-blind context • Provides a basis for strategically responding or implementing interventions to address disproportionality

43. Responding to Disciplinary Disproportionality

44. Phase II: Problem Solving • Working with PBIS problem-solving team(s) • Utilizing the TIPs Problem-solving process • Support teams with engaging in the problem-solving process with a focus on the data related to each domain • Indentify and implement strategies that respond to needs revealed within each domain

45. Structural Domain Data: Are our disciplinary policies consistent and include clear definitions? Do we have a problem? Structural Domain Data: Did we achieve our goal? If not, why not? Continue the process for this or other Domains. Structural Domain Data: “Disruptive” and “Other” behavioral offenses are not clearly defined or even listed in the policies. Structural Domain Structural Domain Data: Clearly define “disruptive” behavior and train staff, avoid “other,” and propose policy revisions to include “disruptive.” Structural Domain Data: Who is doing what by when? What is the goal? How will we measure fidelity? Newton, J.S., Todd, A.W., Algozzine, K, Horner, R.H. & Algozzine, B. (2009).

46. Activity • Work in small groups of 2-3 • Review the data provided • What questions do you have? • What additional data might you need? • What possible solutions can you propose?

47. Additional Considerations for Responding to Disciplinary Disproportionality -Clearly define behaviors related to DD -Implement alternatives to OSS -Ensure quality of data -Train staff about DD -Revise disciplinary policy -Revise Code of Conduct -Revise district policies -Cultural Responsivity Training -Conversations and Training related to: Race, Whiteness, Privilege, Power, Racism, Culture, etc. -Examination of specific beliefs -Identify and implement strategies to enhance student/teacher relationships -Emphasize the importance

48. Conclusion • Context matters- data is relevant to each school • Changes in our understanding of racism should inform our efforts to address race-related topics • Disciplinary disproportionality is complex and efforts to respond must consider a variety of factors • Transitioning from mere data collection to actual responses requires a problem-solving process

49. Next Steps • What will you do with this information?

50. If there is no struggle there is no progress.Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.They want rain without thunder and lightning.They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle.Power concedes nothing without a demand.It never did and it never will.Frederick douglass, letter to abolitionist associate, 1853