GREENSBORO, NC -- This is one of the most valuable things a reporter can do, in my humble opinion: find out what empirical data can tell us about a matter of public interest.
The News & Record's Morgan Josey Glover digs through suspension data to make an "apples to apples comparison" of suspension rates by race in Guilford County Schools.
I'd be interested in Suspension Rate between 1 and 2 parent homes.
ReplyDeleteJosey wanted to see if there was a difference in race among kids who got in trouble, not the differences between the kids who got in trouble versus those who weren't.
ReplyDeleteTony, Morgan is a she, and she makes no conclusion of blame. Do you disagree with her summation of the data, including the portion that followed your quotation?
ReplyDeleteTo clarify, what I wanted to determine was if children who break the same rules are treated differently. Instead of comparing just the number of black and white students who are suspended or just the number of black and white students who get in trouble, I compared the number of children who got in trouble AND then were suspended. It's clear that three years ago, white students who broke the rules (in particular Rule 6 and Rule 8) only got suspended 25 percent of the time whereas minority students got suspended between 37 percent and 50 percent of the time. Why would that be the case?
ReplyDeleteIf school administrators choose to suspend a student for cursing out his teacher or ignoring an order from a principal, they should apply that punishment evenly, regardless of the student's race. Keep in mind that the district set a goal of reducing suspensions across the board for Rule 6 and 8 violations; I believe that goal has been met.
A correction: I should have written that white students were suspended 25 percent of the time for Rule 6 violations only.
ReplyDeleteMorgan, thank you for commenting. What you described was clear to me, but I did not do a good job of explaining it. Thanks for the clarification and for reporting this in the first place, I hope you get the latest data(and sorry for calling you Josey above).
ReplyDelete