“How US schools punish Black kids” — Vox, 2020, 10:47 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFJ37ri-Saw

Contributed by Mary Scafidi, Cabrini University

This video details the role data plays in our understanding of racial inequalities in school discipline. We learn how Black students are more likely than white students to have disciplinary action taken against them. They are three times more likely to be suspended or expelled from their school. This results in higher dropout rates, the inability to secure a good job, and a higher likelihood of being incarcerated. Part of the problem are the implicit biases we hold related to race, where people with dark skin face more scrutiny and suspicion of doing bad things. Another part of the problem is that policies designed to help students end up perpetuating institutional racism. The old belief was the heavily punish minor infractions in hopes it would prevent criminal activity later in life. It had the opposite effect. So how might educational disciplinary systems be reformed?

From the video’s description: When it comes to who gets punished and removed from American classrooms, the US doesn’t treat all students equally. Black students get suspended and expelled far more frequently than their white classmates, and often for the same or similar offenses. And the weeks of school that Black kids miss each year can kick off a chain reaction that changes a child’s future. But the US education system gives the American president a tremendous amount of power over public schools. Whoever holds the Presidency decides how schools handle things like testing, class size, and discipline. During the Obama administration, the US Department of Education started to take the country’s school discipline problem seriously. They investigated the schools with significant racial gaps in punishment rates, and issued guidance on how to replace outdated policies with more effective ones. Then Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s education secretary, abandoned those efforts. Trump's administration stopped releasing discipline data, changed the standard of what constitutes racist outcomes, and scaled back efforts to fix or even acknowledge racial disparities in how we punish kids. In this video we explain the origins of this crisis, and how the 2020 election could change things.