Report Details Texas School Disciplinary Policies : NPR: ...Of the 1 million students in Texas who were tracked, 15 percent were disciplined repeatedly — 11 times or more. Half of them ended up in juvenile-justice facilities or programs for an average of 73 schooldays. These students were likely to repeat a grade and not graduate from high school.
Just as worrisome, Thompson said, is who is being suspended and expelled.
'African-American students and those with particular educational disabilities experience a disproportionately high rate of removal from the classroom for disciplinary reasons,' he said.
One glaring example: 70 percent of black girls were suspended or expelled, compared with 37 percent of white girls, usually for the same offenses. This gets to another key finding: In almost every case, the decision to remove a student was made solely by a teacher or school administrator. This may explain why minority kids are punished disproportionately, said Doug Otto, schools superintendent in Plano, Texas. He said racial prejudice is involved.
'It is a problem, but it's pretty hard to be a renegade teacher, so to speak, and just willy-nilly expel students because you're prejudiced,' he said.
