Editor’s Note: Last week, the Maryland State Board of Education approved a set of regulations aimed at reducing school suspension and expulsion rates. The move, say supporters, should help curtail school discipline practices that end up funneling large numbers of African American youth into the school-to-prison pipeline. Advocates for Children and Youth’s Education Policy Director David Beard explains some of the data behind the move, as well as the board’s decision, and what the new guidelines could mean in practical terms for parents, teachers, and, students. He spoke with NAM editor Khalil Abdullah.
Can you give us some sense of the scope of suspensions and expulsions in Maryland and how they affect different segments of the student population?
In the 2011-12 school year, Maryland suspended or expelled 50,000 students across the state. The numbers came down to 42,000 during 2012-13. We attribute that decline to the hard work of the state board and a number of organizations, including the NAACP of Maryland, the Maryland Disability Law Center, ACLU, and the Advancement Project, among others. These regulations are a great first step in creating effective disciplinary practices.
Still, 42,000 students is too high a number and too many of these students are African Americans, or disabled. So while the overall numbers have fallen, the “who” in the data still show that 8.7 percent of suspensions and expulsions are African-American children compared to 3 percent for white students. Yes, the overall numbers have come down, but the gap between African-American students and white students has increased rather than declined.
For the rest of the Q-and-A, please see: http://newamericamedia.org/2014/02/qa-maryland-abandons-zero-tolerance-approach-to-school-discipline.php
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