Tag: blacked

In this series, appropriately titled “Black Boys in Crisis,” I highlight the problems facing black boys in education today, as well as provide clear steps that will lead us out of the crisis.

The statistics on high numbers of black and Latino boys in special education programs is more than an interesting tidbit – it’s a call to action. What can we do to identify true learning delays and isolated behavior problems and disseminate them from disabilities?

Early intervention.

Here we are again, using the word intervention to identify an actionable step to improve academic success for black boys. There’s a reason intervention is more than just a buzz word; catching developmental delays early on shows the greatest promise for improvement. This starts before Kindergarten in the Head Start programs across the country and state-run intervention initiatives, like Florida’s Early Step program. Investments in early education have shown to return as much as $17.07 to society on every dollar spent.

Doctors are at the frontlines of the early intervention referral program and know what warning signs to heed, even when parents may not. The time between a doctor’s referral and the start of services can take several months, depending on the state and resources available, and that is precious time in the development of the child. For early intervention to have its biggest impact, the time between suspicion of delays and start of services must be accelerated. Children who are diagnosed with developmental delays by the age of 3 have the best shot at catching up to their peers by the time they reach Kindergarten. After that age cutoff, the likelihood of children keeping with their classmates fades.

When black boys with obvious developmental delays do wind up in Kindergarten classes, however, it’s vital that teachers spot it. This takes specialized training that is updated and repeated throughout a teacher’s career to address the ever shifting issues facing our youngest students. Change also calls on teachers to look beyond their preconceived notions of learning disabilities to determine which students may have a shot at overcoming the hurdles and avoiding the special education label. Rather than grouping students for life, we need to start looking at some academic and behavioral issues as temporary and applying the resources we can to guide students over the hurdles.

Mainstreaming

The idea that special education students should be removed in order to learn best is actually being flipped on its head due to recent research. A study done at The Ohio State University found that special-needs preschoolers who spent at least some time in classrooms with typical students had language scores 40 percent higher than peers who remained in special-needs only settings. The improvements extended beyond the special-needs kids, as well. The highly-skilled peers also improved their reading skills over rates from when no special-needs students were in the classroom. In short, the “weakest link” mentality did not apply.

It’s true that true special needs students need a different educational plan than their mainstream peers and that ultimately means some time outside the typical classroom. Special needs students should never be completely isolated from their peers though, and in cases where the classification is not accurate, that will become apparent as children overcome the developmental hurdles they face.

Cultural awareness

It’s extremely vital that teachers have a knowledge set of students outside of their own life experiences and an understanding of how the way those children behave is impacted by it. Students without the benefit of preschool or parents who had the time and availability to teach them literacy basics will not perform as well when they arrive in classrooms. Next to their peers who have had such advantages, they may even seem delayed. It’s important to note, however, that the first required schooling for American children is Kindergarten. There is a push for a lot more learning a lot earlier, but from a purely legal standpoint, kids are not required to show up to learn until they are Kindergarten age (which is defined as late as 7 years old in some states). The cultural expectation is that these children should already know a lot when they arrive, both academically and socially, but for children from families who waited for that Kindergarten age, it truly is the first time they’ve seen a classroom.

Universal preschool in states like Florida, Illinois and Oklahoma can help bridge that learning and socialization gap for low-income families but once again, these programs are voluntary. It’s not fair or accurate for educators to assume that even in states when preschool education is affordable or free, parents are taking advantage of it. There are many factors that go into the level of education families pursue for their children before the school years officially start. Compared to peers, this puts children with no prior classroom experience at a disadvantage. But compared to what is actually required of the students when they show up on that first day of Kindergarten, these blank slate students are exactly where they need to be from a learning perspective.

With that in mind, early grade educators must know the difference between true special education warning signals and a kid who just needs to catch up. There are evaluation processes in place beyond the teacher but it starts in a classroom. This isn’t to say that teachers should try to champion behavior or learning issues they cannot change but merely for them to be aware that not all children have the advantages of an early learning foundation. That doesn’t mean necessarily that all of those children have special education needs.

What do you think? How should schools address this issue?

In this series, appropriately titled “Black Boys in Crisis,” I highlight the problems facing black boys in education today, as well as provide clear steps that will lead us out of the crisis.

Special education classes have changed drastically in the past 20 years. Namely, the students who take advantage of these adapted learning classrooms have changed. Contemporary public school education recognizes that there are degrees of disabilities that may impact student learning and the rise of conditions like autism has fueled the need for more special education intervention.

As a result, the mental image that even today’s youngest educators have of special education students is probably not accurate. For example, did you know that black boys are more likely than any other group to be placed in special education classes, with 80 percent of all special education students being Black or Hispanic males?  Black boys account for 20 percent of U.S. students labeled as mentally retarded, even though they represent just 9 percent of the population. On the other end of the extreme, black boys are 2.5 times less likely to be classified as “gifted and talented” even if their academic record shows that potential.

If all things were weighed equally, these statistics would indicate that there is something genetically wrong with these young men that is causing a higher incidence of disabilities and smaller percentage of gifted individuals. Educators know better. While some, perhaps even a majority, of the black boys categorized as special education students belong in that grouping, some are simply misunderstood.

While unpleasant behavior is certainly a symptom of learning disabilities – like ADHD and some degrees of autism – it isn’t in and of itself a disability. A lack of understanding surrounding how black boys interact with the world, and a quick trigger when it comes to disciplinary and removal practices, is contributing to higher-than-average numbers of black boys in special education classrooms. This is not something that any educator can sit by and let continue, for it impacts the way all students are treated in the public school landscape.

In this series, appropriately titled “Black Boys in Crisis,” I highlight the problems facing black boys in education today, as well as provide clear steps that will lead us out of the crisis.

People who fall outside this fringe group of perceived misfits may wonder why the school-to-prison pipeline should matter to them. Outside of caring about the quality of life for other individuals, which is really something that is not teachable, the school-to-prison pipeline matters in more tangible ways. Each federal prisoner costs taxpayers $28,948 per year based on 2012 statistics, which is about $79 per day. That’s a measurable cost. What isn’t measurable is the indirect impact those incarcerations have on the economy in terms of those prisoners not contributing to the work force. Sure, we may pay the salary of prison employees or the CEOs of large prison privatization corporations but we are missing out on the positive impact these prisoners could have on our economy.

This is an American problem.  It hurts everyone. If we want more high school graduates, less crime, and a more robust economy, we have to stop punishing black boys with school removals or discipline effects that don’t match the offense.

If removal and zero tolerance policies don’t help black boy students long term, what is the best way to discipline students when they do misbehave?

The best answer is found long before the moment when discipline is necessary. Prevention and intervention tactics need a place in all teaching pedagogy and those tactics must adjust for demographics – and individual students. Schools need to offer robust programs for at-risk students that include mentoring from older students, after-school tutoring, and customized learning. If all of this sounds like a lot of work, that’s because it is.

Technology is making the customized learning portion much easier though and also allowing teachers to analyze student performance in a streamlined way long before problems arise. And as simple as it sounds, teachers must approach behavior problems with students in the same way they approach academic problems – with an analytical eye that looks for the best solution that will benefit everyone. Notice that I didn’t say the easiest or best for all the other students in class. I said the best solution for everyone – teacher, peers, and individual student. The benefits to keeping a child in class, or at least in school, far outweigh emotionally kicking a child out of class or recommending suspension.

Educators can certainly strive to reduce suspension and expulsion rates with better intervention and strategy. But what about the students who choose to walk away from their educations when they drop out of high school?

Students who are at risk of dropping out of high school or turning to crime need more than a good report card.  They need alternative suggestions on living a life that rises above their current circumstances. For a young person to truly have a shot at an honest life, he or she has to believe in the value of an education and its impact on good citizenship. That belief system has to come from direct conversations about making smart choices with trusted adults and peers. If we know how much less a high school dropout makes than peers with a diploma, and peers with a college education, then we should tell all high school students that number.

It’s not enough to imply that dropping out of high school is a bad idea; students should have all the facts. For students who struggle socially or behaviorally in high school, schools should intervene with non-traditional options like online courses. This is also true for students who feel the pressure to start earning a living early. The technology is already in place for all students, regardless of discipline issues or life circumstances, to earn a high school diploma. A college degree is nice too, of course, but the true key to ending the school-to-prison pipeline for black boys is keeping them in classrooms instead of removing them, and getting them across the stage to receive their high school diplomas. It will take an organized ideology shift but it’s possible, even in the next generation of black boy students.

In this series, appropriately titled “Black Boys in Crisis,” I highlight the problems facing black boys in education today, as well as provide clear steps that will lead us out of the crisis.

Over and over statistics show that punishment for black boys – even first-time offenders – in schools is harsher than any other demographic.

Black boys taken from schools in handcuffs are not always violent, or even criminals. Increasingly, school-assigned law enforcement officers are leading these students from their schools hallways for minor offenses, including class disruption, tardiness and even non-violent arguments with other students. It seems that it is easier to remove these students from class through the stigma of suspension or arrest than to look for in-school solutions.

Simply put, the currently accepted way of disciplining students—mainly “zero tolerance” policies — is doing more harm than good for young black boys.

When one student is causing a classroom disruption, the traditional way to address the issue has been removal – whether the removal is for five minutes, five days or permanently. Separating the “good” students and the “bad” ones has always seemed the fair, judicious approach. On an individual level this form of discipline may seem necessary to preserve the educational experience for others. If all children came from homes that implemented a cause-and-effect approach to discipline, this might be the right answer.

Unfortunately, an increasing number of students come from broken homes, or ones where parents don’t have the desire or time to discipline. Even the parents with the skillset to discipline in this fashion may not have the time or energy, especially in a home where finances are tight. For these students, removal from education is simply another form of abandonment and only furthers the lesson that they are not good enough to learn alongside their peers.

High profile instances of school violence in recent years have led to a higher presence of law enforcement officers in public schools, often politely labeled as resource officers or a similarly vague term. Of course the presence of guns and other immediate danger items in schools are cause for arrest, or at least temporary removal of the student, but the American Civil Liberties Union reports that children as young as 5 throwing tantrums have been removed in handcuffs by these officers. Rather than addressing the heart of the individual problems, it is easier for public schools to weed out troublesome students under the umbrella of protecting the greater good. Convenience triumphs over finding actual solutions.

The term “zero tolerance” may sound like the best way to handle all offenses in public schools, but it really does a disservice to students. Not every infraction is a black and white issue and not every misstep by a student is a result of direct defiance. Often students with legitimate learning disabilities or social impairment are labeled as “disruptions” and removed from classroom settings under the guise of preserving the learning experience for other, better-behaved students. I suppose there is an argument to be made for protecting straight-and-narrow students from the sins of others, but at what cost?

We tell students that gaining an education is an unalienable right in America but then we withhold it from their peers in the name of discipline and order. Would we withhold food from students who interrupted our math lesson? Of course we wouldn’t because nutrition is something that isn’t earned – it is a necessity for growing children. The same is true of education. Our knee-jerk reaction of removal, particularly of children of color, is not one that has the best interest of any children in mind.

Though ideology on problem students is slowly evolving, at least at present the removal process is most widely accepted. So let’s look at what happens when these individuals, these students who are suspended or expelled, do eventually slip through the accepted cracks and wind up dropping out of high school or landing in prison.

Children are just as much a product of their environments as the expectations placed on them. Parents on a first-name basis with law enforcement officials certainly influence the behavior of their children, but school authorities with preconceived negative associations create an expectation of failure too. Increasingly, educators are learning how to recognize the signs of textbook learning disabilities like ADHD or dyslexia. But what about the indirect impact that factors like poverty, abuse, neglect or simply living in the wrong neighborhood have on a student’s ability to learn? Why aren’t we finding ways to identify the known risk factors for academic impairment and intervening earlier?

Educators should approach students from disadvantaged backgrounds with more understanding, and less preconceived notions. Behavior is a choice but students who have never seen the right way to act modeled for them, or who are looking for that extra bit of attention in classrooms, bad behavior is an academic disadvantage. Instead of less time in classrooms, black boys and especially those with very minor behavior issues should participate more in the learning experience.

In this series, appropriately titled “Black Boys in Crisis,” I highlight the problems facing black boys in education today, as well as provide clear steps that will lead us out of the crisis.

It’s a statistically sound fact that high school dropouts in all demographics have a higher likelihood of incarceration at some point in their lives. Sadly, over half of black young men who attend urban high schools do not earn a diploma. Of the dropouts, nearly 60 percent will go to prison at some point. In fact, The Sentencing Project projects that 1 in 3 black men will likely see the inside of a prison cell at some point in their lives. The connection here is not just superficial.

Yes, it’s fair to say that high school dropouts are more likely to commit crimes because they do not have the means to make an honest living, but I also think this connection centers on a mentality. The same black boys who believe they aren’t good enough to earn the basic American right, a high school diploma, are the ones who feel they cannot make a solid contribution to society at large.

In order to delve more deeply, we need to go even further back. The decision to drop out of high school, after all, isn’t reached overnight. There are many factors that play into any student’s choice to not continue on to earn a high school diploma, some that are completely out of the control of the school and others that are certainly influenced by it.

Look in the face of any Kindergarten student and you’ll find some common themes: innocence, unquenchable curiosity, and potential. More so than the grades that follow, Kindergarten is a mixed bag of developmental, social and academic levels. Some kids arrive with a few years of childcare and preschool under their belts, while others have never even had a book read to them. The students who arrive in these Kindergarten classrooms are already products of their limited life experiences but their public school classrooms are intended to be equalizers. In a perfect world, what has happened outside the classroom should not be a factor in the learning environment and all students should have the same clean slate.

The reality, of course, is that the behavior of children is impacted by their life experiences and that behavior does impact the way a classroom functions. Kindergarten is just the first opportunity in our official public school system for teachers to effect positive change in students who need it from a behavioral standpoint – the real work starts before that though. The U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights reports that black students make up just 18 percent of preschoolers but account for almost half of all school suspensions.  Those statistics don’t improve with age. Around 5 percent of white students are suspended or expelled at some point in a K-12 career, compared with 16 percent of black students.

Enter the school-to-prison pipeline, or the correlation between students who are removed (suspended or expelled) from school and those who end up in prison at some point in their lives. Students who are removed from school, either temporarily or forever, also drop out of high school at much higher rates than students who are never removed from a classroom setting.

A study published by the University of Pennsylvania reports that black students make up 39 percent of students suspended in Florida, which doesn’t sound all that terrible until you consider another statistic: black students only account for 23 percent of the public school population in Florida. The study notes that black students are suspended and expelled more due to “unfair discipline practices” and appearing as “disrespectful or threatening.”

While the numbers for the state are bad, it gets worse in Orange County in the central part of the state where Orlando is located. Making up just 27 percent of the county’s public school population, black students represents 51 percent of the students suspended.

This is just a small portion of the country, of course, but consider this: 18 percent of the nation’s public school students are black but an estimated 40 percent of all students that are expelled from U.S. schools are black. This makes black students over three times more likely to face suspension or expulsion than their white peers. When you add in Latino numbers, 70 percent of all in-school arrests are black or Latino students. If you want to see the correlation between these school-age statistics and lifetime numbers, consider this: 61 percent of the incarcerated population are black or Latino – despite the fact that these groups only represent 30 percent of the U.S. population when combined. Nearly 68 percent of all men in federal prison never earned a high school diploma.

Given this information, the fact that the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world is no surprise. The road to lockup starts in the public school systems — and it starts with unfair punishment.

Sixty-five percent of U.S. public schools reported at least one violent incident in 2013-2014, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in their schools each year, but that number rises to 82 percent for schools where black students make up a majority. Though Hispanic boys are the most likely to be involved with gang activity at school, it is certainly an issue for black boys too – with 31 percent of students nationwide reporting seeing black gang activity in their schools. Violence is just one part of the criminal side of K-12 hallways, though. There are also higher numbers of non-violent crimes, like theft, in schools where more students are black than any other race.

All of that being said, there is still plenty of violence in schools where black students are the minority, and those acts are committed by non-black students. It’s also important to note that reporting standards for school crime may vary from school to school. This isn’t to say that educators and administrators are not telling the truth in predominantly white schools, but rather to say that based on other statistics, students of color tend to face harsher punishment for even the smallest offenses.

What do you think? Do students of color really face harsher punishment in K-12 schools across America?