New York Times author Susan Dynarski illustrates the difficulties faced by students of color when they are generally not considered for higher level courses, placing them on track for better post-secondary scholarship opportunities. "Black third graders are half as likely as whites to be included in programs for the gifted, and the deficit is nearly as large for Hispanics", Dynarski observed. Buttressing this claim, in describing a widening academic achievement gap that exists in American schools, Diggs laid bare the challenges that educators, students and parents face daily. "What I'm about to describe," he begins, "is not just anecdotal but is actually fact-based and objective. What we are experiencing in Denver Public Schools is the same thing we are seeing across the nation, where our Latino and African American students are performing significantly below their white and Asian counterparts. Another thing that we are working on is the fact that we have disproportionality in discipline," he continued. "Our Latino and African American students are three to five times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white or Asian counterparts, for the same behavior infractions," Diggs bemoaned, determined to help stem the tide of unfair and disparate treatment for any of his students.
What many African-American parents are increasingly beginning to realize, however, is the fact that the struggle to ensure that their young sons are being treated as fairly as other children starts much earlier than elementary school, but rather begins at birth and is exacerbated during their preschool years. In her plea to right-minded educators and frustrated parents hoping to create better disciplinary outcomes for their oft-misunderstood children, Tunette Powell, in her Washington Post essay entitled, "My Son Has Been Suspended Five Times, He's Three", expressed her frustration with "trigger-happy" school administrators opting to "suspend or expel first, and ask questions last", especially for young Black boys. In describing her preschooler's travails, Powell reflected on the following experience: "I received a call from my sons’ school in March telling me that my oldest needed to be picked up early," Powell wrote. "He had been given a one-day suspension because he had thrown a chair. He did not hit anyone, but he could have, the school officials told me," Powell recalled. "For weeks, it seemed as if JJ was on the chopping block. He was suspended two more times, once for throwing another chair and then for spitting on a student who was bothering him at breakfast. Again, these are behaviors I found inappropriate, but I did not agree with suspension." (Powell).
Having had her own run-ins with school administrators as a young student, Powell initially faulted herself for the challenges her son was having. "I blamed myself, my past. And I would have continued to blame myself had I not taken the boys to a birthday party for one of JJ’s [Powell's son] classmates." It was at this private get-together that Powell soon discovered that JJ's actions, although unacceptable, were part and parcel of how many of the other preschoolers in his classroom often behaved, none of whom had ever been suspended for their misdeeds. “My son threw something at a kid on purpose and the kid had to be rushed to the hospital,” another parent said. “All I got was a phone call” (Powell). According to the United States Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, in their "Data Snapshot: School Discipline" report, African American students are over represented in adverse disciplinary actions throughout the American school system, even at the preschool level. "Black children represent 18% of preschool enrollment, but 48% of preschool children receiving more than one out-of-school suspension; in comparison, white students represent 43% of preschool enrollment but 26% of preschool children receiving more than one out of school suspension. Boys represent 79% of preschool children suspended once and 82% of preschool children suspended multiple times, although boys represent 54% of preschool enrollment (Powell)."
According to Gregory Diggs, when a cultural gap exists in which the majority of the student population is Caucasian, and the majority of the educators are Caucasian, one can expect that there will be an achievement gap to follow for minority students. "If you can think about this, we [the United States of America] have an agrarian/industrial school curriculum, in terms of how we setup the classrooms and how we assess our students, which is based on 18th century and 19th century models of education, and this system doesn't fit with the kind of students that we are serving today," he noted. "As a result, there are some cultural mismatches and intractable issues that play into how education and discipline are communicated and delivered to a diverse student population. And yes, some teachers are actually afraid of the emotional expressions and behaviors of students of color, even when they are similar to the same behaviors of Caucasian students. I believe that part of the reason behind this response is a lack of exposure to diverse populations with some teachers, and part of it is attributable to the cultural climate in which we currently find ourselves, particularly with regard to the racial myths and fears that we have in America," Diggs noted. "And until educators at the administrator level,' he continued, "to include principals, superintendents and school boards across the country, take matters into their own hands to reverse the trend of treating children of color as students rather than suspects, very little will change."
Fast-tracked to Failure?
Nicknamed the "City of Lakes" and nestled on the banks of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers, the great midwestern city of Minneapolis, Minnesota is a diverse and cosmopolitan locale that boasts a long history of diversity. Having first been inhabited by a group of permanent Native American settlers, the Dakota tribe, in the 1500's, Minneapolis has historically opened its portals to citizens from all around the world that have converged upon the "Twin Cities" to make it their home. With that being said, however, even this traditionally progressive city found itself at a crossroads when it was suddenly confronted with the fact that its African-American boys were being unduly punished in schools, facing suspension and expulsion at rates higher than all other students.
In her article, "A Superintendent in Minnesota Has Banned Black Kids from Being Suspended Without Her Permission," Krisytle Crossman noted the bold action being taken by a solitary school administrator who had come to her own conclusion that "enough was enough"! "Minneapolis, Minnesota superintendent Bernadeia Johnson is making sure that students of color are getting the same treatment as white students when it comes to suspension in their schools," Crossman begins. "Black children are suspended ten times more than white students and she wants to make sure that changes. In order to do so she has come up with new guidelines for her schools" (Crossman). For example, when a school in Johnson’s district requested the suspension of a student in which the student's actions did not result in harm or violence, principals and other disciplinary administrators had to have Johnson's authorization before doing so. "The guidelines that were set out by Johnson were part of an agreement with the Civil Rights office at the U.S. Department of Education... Johnson is setting an example for school districts all over the nation in showing that the suspension rates for students of color are far too high and something needs to be done about it," Crossman continued. "Some students never recover from these punishments and end up feeling like they are already labeled as bad kids, so why not continue with the bad behavior. This lands them in prison at early ages." (Crossman).
According to a report in the New York Times, young African-American males are almost certainly destined to an economic reality in which they will earn less than their white counterparts, even if they come from wealthy families and well to do neighborhoods. In their article, "Extensive Data Shows Punishing Reach of Racism for Black Boys", journalists Emily Badger and her colleagues from the Times revealed the stark economic futures facing Black males in America. "White boys who grow up rich are likely to remain that way. Black boys raised at the top, however, are more likely to become poor than to stay wealthy in their own adult households. Even when children grow up next to each other with parents who earn similar incomes, Black boys fare worse than white boys in 99 percent of America. And the gaps only worsen in the kind of neighborhoods that promise low poverty and good schools" (Badger).
As sociologists struggle to explain these persistent economic gaps, they have also been startled to discover that the social gulf of acceptance for Black males puts them at a distinct disadvantage from nearly every other group in American society, to include African-American females. “One of the most popular liberal post-racial ideas is the idea that the fundamental problem is class and not race, and clearly
