Tag: school

Ban the other box – Suspension and expulsion shouldn’t be a bar to college

  The following piece was originally published by The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization focused on the US criminal justice system.  Even though criminal records and school disciplinary records are entirely distinct, they both pose similar, often unjust, obstacles to higher education.  Consideration of both types of records in the admissions process can have the troubling effect of excluding qualified and motivated young people — particularly those from minority communities — from America’s colleges and universities because of past mistakes that have little to do with academic potential or the protection of public safety. The story is familiar: a high school student grabs another student’s iPhone at lunch and tries to sell it. He is caught, arrested, and booked into juvenile hall. He is also suspended. If universities and colleges follow the recent recommendation of the Obama administration, colleges will not consider the student’s criminal record in the initial stages of the admissions process. These recommendations, contained in a recently released “Dear Colleague” letter by Education Secretary John B. King, represent a significant step in removing barriers to education for people with criminal records. And just this week, over a dozen colleges and universities signed on to the White House’s Fair Chance Higher Education Pledge. Unfortunately, the letter and the pledge are silent about another common question on college applications: Have you ever been suspended or expelled from school? For the teenager who stole the phone, this means that while his criminal record may not ruin his chance to be admitted to college, his school disciplinary record just might. More than 3 million students are either suspended or expelled from schools each year and when they are, a discipline record is generated. While the barriers created by criminal records have begun to receive much-needed attention, the barriers created by school discipline records have been largely overlooked. The Department of Education report that accompanies King’s letter mentions school records only in passing, without taking a firm position. Like criminal records, school discipline records can, and do, jeopardize young people’s chances to succeed. Like criminal records, school records are a scarlet letter. According to a study released last year by the Center for Community Alternatives, roughly 75 percent of colleges and universities collect high school discipline information and almost 90 percent of those use the information in admission decisions. The Common Application, used by 600 colleges and universities, specifically asks applicants if they have “ever been found responsible for a disciplinary violation” at school. School discipline records are not automatically expunged and, according to the study, 50 percent of high schools provide colleges with these records. The Obama administration’s commitment to giving people with criminal records a second chance should be extended to students with school disciplinary records. Students’ mistakes in middle or high school should not cast a shadow over their future or prevent them from attending college. Indeed, most states limit public access to juvenile court records for precisely this reason: we share a collective belief in giving young people a fresh start when they become adults. School discipline should play no role in college admission decisions for several reasons. First, these records have no predictive value. There is no evidence that criminal background checks reduce crime on college campuses. Everything we know about neuroscience and adolescent risk-taking establishes that children don’t think like adults, or have the same ability to control impulsive behavior, and that children grow out of problematic behavior. Second, research clearly shows that black and Latino students are more often, and more harshly, punished in school compared to their white counterparts who engage in the same behavior. This means that because of bias, over-policing and profiling, black and Latino college applicants are at a greater disadvantage than other applicants. Third, school discipline records, like criminal records, are often inaccurate, misleading or both. Talking back to a teacher may be labeled as “defiance,” grabbing a cell phone at lunch may be classified as a robbery, and a schoolyard fight where a rock is thrown can be an assault with a deadly weapon. Students facing suspension or expulsion rarely have a lawyer and are afforded minimal due process protections to challenge the allegations in the first place. In contrast to the criminal justice system, where there are some very limited opportunities for expungement or certificates of rehabilitation, there is rarely such an option for school records. The result: school discipline records that may be unreliable and misleading are a barrier to college admission. Shouldn’t colleges be aware of serious crimes, like rape or murder? There may be strong policy reasons for schools to consider very serious criminal convictions in limited circumstances. The Department of Education letter would not eliminate the use of criminal records in all cases. But the report rightly takes the position that even serious convictions, on their own, should not bar someone from higher education for all time. Even very serious misconduct by young adults does not portend adult criminal behavior. And applicants with criminal records have completed the punishment a judge (or school) deemed appropriate. There’s no need to continue punishing them. In any event, the logic of looking past a criminal history applies even more strongly to school disciplinary records, which do not depend on findings of a court, where the school’s burden of proof is lower, and where due process protections are nearly nonexistent. In the “Dear Colleague” letter, King emphasizes the “chilling effect” of asking college applicants about criminal records. The same chilling effect occurs with school discipline records. The message that box sends is: there is no outgrowing your childhood mistakes. Read more

Discipline for schoolgirls differs by race and skin tone

The New York Times this morning describes data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights showing that African-American girls tend to face more serious school discipline than white girls.  “For all the attention placed on problems that black boys face in terms of school discipline and criminal justice, there is increasing focus on the way those issues affect black girls as well.”  Black girls who get in trouble at school are also more frequently referred to the criminal justice system, where they can incur a criminal record that sticks with them into adulthood. The article tells the story of 12-year-old Mikia, who was charged with a crime after she and a friend wrote graffiti on the walls of a gym bathroom at Dutchtown Middle School in Henry County, Georgia.  The incident was a surprise to her parents, since Mikia was a good student who had not been in any trouble before: Even more of a surprise was the penalty after her family disputed the role she was accused of playing in the vandalism and said it could not pay about $100 in restitution. While both students were suspended from school for a few days, Mikia had to face a school disciplinary hearing and, a few weeks later, a visit by a uniformed officer from the local Sheriff’s Department, who served her grandmother with papers accusing Mikia of a trespassing misdemeanor and, potentially, a felony. As part of an agreement with the state to have the charges dismissed in juvenile court, Mikia admitted to the allegations of criminal trespassing. Mikia, who is African-American, spent her summer on probation, under a 7 p.m. curfew, and had to complete 16 hours of community service in addition to writing an apology letter to a student whose sneakers were defaced in the incident. Her friend, who is white, was let go after her parents paid restitution. Michael J. Tafelski, a lawyer from the Georgia Legal Services Program who represented Mikia in the school disciplinary hearing, said his office had filed a complaint with the Justice Department claiming racial discrimination and a violation of the Civil Rights Act: “I’ve never had a white kid call me for representation in Henry County,” Mr. Tafelski said.   “What kid needs to be having a conversation with a lawyer about the right to remain silent?” he said. “White kids don’t have those conversations; black kids do.” A study conducted by Villanova sociologists shows that skin tone also affects the rate of school discipline. Among a cohort of African Americans, girls with darker skin tone were three times more likely to be suspended than girls with lighter skin tone: There are different gender expectations for black girls compared with white girls, said Lance Hannon, a Villanova sociology professor who conducted the analysis. And, he said, there are different expectations within cross-sections of black girls. “When a darker-skinned African-American female acts up, there’s a certain concern about their boyish aggressiveness,” Dr. Hannon said, “that they don’t know their place as a female, as a woman.” The long-term damage done by school disciplinary practices is aggravated when it is perceived as unfair: Catherine E. Lhamon, the assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education, whose office published a report on school discipline in March that offered recommendations for how to improve disciplinary practices in schools, said the discrepancies in disciplinary practices were not lost on young girls of color. “The felt experience of too many of our girls in school is that they are being discriminated against,” she said.  “The message we send when we suspend or expel any student is that that student is not worthy of being in the school,” Ms. Lhamon said. “That is a pretty ugly message to internalize and very, very difficult to get past as part of an educational career.” When school discipline results in a criminal record, it is difficult to get past as part of life in general. Read more