Minorities being suspended from Indiana schools at higher rate than whites

During a four-hour hearing at the Statehouse on Tuesday, education experts and others called on lawmakers to support efforts to intervene with troublesome students without taking measures that can cause long-term harm.

Indiana has some of the highest school suspension and expulsion rates in the nation for boys and minority youth.

But those punitive measures, driven increasingly by the “zero tolerance” policies of schools, may not be making schools any safer, experts said.

Indiana University education researcher Russell Skiba told a joint House-Senate study committee that the widening use of out-of-school suspension for routine or minor infractions — such as profanity and dress-code violations — undermines student achievement. It also carries broader societal costs, he said.

“Zero tolerance and the over-use of school suspension and expulsion place students at risk for a range of negative outcomes from academic underachievement to dropout to involvement with the juvenile justice system,” Skiba said.

Skiba co-wrote a national research report, released in March, that dispelled notions about the effectiveness of policies aimed at removing “bad kids” from schools to ensure that “good kids” can learn.

Among the report’s findings: Schools with relatively low suspension rates had higher, not lower, test scores.

Yet his study also found that disparities in school suspensions are worsening. In Indiana, where about 70 percent of students are white, 48 percent of the students given out-of-school suspensions last year were black or Latino. That’s up from about 44 percent in 2007.

Butler University education professor Brandie Oliver, who’s president of the Indiana School Counselor Association, echoed Skiba’s findings.

Her research on Indiana schools showed black students were disproportionately suspended from school. She also found that boys — of any color or race — were suspended from school at higher rates than girls.

Like Skiba, her study also found that students were increasingly punished for breaking school rules and not the law. Only 25 percent of out-of-school suspensions, for example, were linked to violence or illegal activity.

Some lawmakers on the committee questioned the premise that minority students were being unfairly punished.

“These kids are getting suspended for a reason,” said state Rep. Jim Lucas, R-Seymour. “If a child is actively committing an offense, I’m having a hard time seeing what the problem is.”

But other lawmakers expressed concern that teachers and school administrators may be engaging in unintended bias toward male and minority students.

They noted the serious differences in suspension rates across different groups.

Rep. Vernon Smith, a black educator from Gary, said schools may be turning to tougher punishment because they lack the resources to intervene earlier with a troubled student.

“What we often have is punishment, not discipline,” Smith said, adding that the latter involves resolving conflict in a way that a student learns from the situation and improves his or her behavior.

Smith and others noted that Indiana suffers from a lack of school counselors, who could help identify troublesome students and act early to prevent the problems that lead to suspension and expulsion.

He urged further study of the issue to look at efforts in other states that have brought down their suspension and expulsion rates.

Failure to act may have consequences: In January, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Education issued warnings to schools across the nation about their disparate suspension and expulsion rates, saying they may be violating federal civil rights laws and could be subject to sanctions.