Teachers in schoolhouses across Georgia maintain leaders in the statehouse lack an understanding of their daily challenges. And they often cite student discipline as an example.
At the Capitol a few days ago, a state Senate committee held a second hearing on disturbing data about school discipline and how black students are disproportionately suspended and expelled — often for minor offenses that earn white peers a stern word. Led by Sen. Emanuel Jones, D-Decatur, the committee will offer recommendations for reform by Dec. 1.
While black students comprised 37 percent of the 1.7 million Georgia students in the 2012-13 school year, they accounted for 57 percent of students expelled and 67 percent given out-of-school suspensions. White students made up 43 percent of students enrolled, 31 percent of students expelled and 21 percent of those suspended.
Yet many teachers and parents contend schools coddle wrongdoers and allow them to remain in class to the detriment of classmates. Teachers say even one classroom disruption is costly. A retired teacher explained, “Any time the teacher has to stop and handle a disruption, it takes at least 15 minutes to get things rolling again. Frequently, it is easier to start over again than to try to pick it up and re-direct the class back to where you are.”
But the Senate hearings provide stark and troubling data about how discipline is being doled out in the state. Georgia Legal Services attorney Eugene Choi said, “I have seen this culture of school administrators ruling with an iron fist and seen severe punishment disproportionately being imposed on minority students.”
Choi shared a case where a metro Atlanta school district initially sought to expel an African-American sixth grader for skipping class and writing “hi” on a school locker room wall, and even referred the case to juvenile court. The expulsion was reduced to a seven-day out-of-school suspension.
“She was 11,” said Choi. “Prior to this, she had no disciplinary record and numerous academic awards to her name. Another student involved in the same locker room incident was not referred to juvenile court. The other student was white.”
Among the information shared by expert witnesses at the hearings:
• We are expelling children as young as 13.
• Studies find 65 to 70 percent of expulsions are for non-violent offenses.
• African-American students are three times more likely to receive an out-of-school suspension than other kids.
• Even as a state Department of Education official testified that suspensions and expulsions are trending downward, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation earlier this year found that per capita, black students were expelled at a rate more than double that of white students, and nearly four times as many were suspended.
Teachers contend administrators, under pressure by state and the federal agencies to keep kids in class and on target to graduate, are pushing back when teachers try to remove troublemakers from their rooms. And while most offenses may not count as “violent,” classroom stability suffers when a seventh grader hurls an obscenity at a teacher, or a high school freshman pretends to fall out of his seat.
However, while a suspension may buy a few days of calm, there’s scant evidence it works as a long-term fix to behavioral problems — and it often contributes to students dropping out of school.
“We all need to pull on this rope together. It’s a tug of war, and we are losing,” said attorney Tremaine Reese of the Georgia Appleseed Center for Law and Justice.
As one teacher told me, “Relying on suspension is not the answer. If it was the solution, the numbers would decrease. Now we suspend kids for tardies! Isn’t that a parental issues? Why punish the child, have them miss instruction, because Mommy and Daddy won’t get them to school on time? Makes no sense to me, but I’m just a teacher.”
