North Carolina Disparities
(February 19, 2019)
This is one of the many pages on this site discussing that, contrary to the belief promoted by the Departments of Education, Justice, and Health and Human Services (as well as the social science community) that generally reducing discipline rates will tend to reduce relative racial and other demographic differences in discipline rates, generally reducing discipline rates tends to increase such differences. This page is similar to the following subpages of the Discipline Disparities page on this site, which discuss like situations where (in the jurisdictions indicated in the titles of the subpages) general reductions in discipline rates were in fact accompanied by increased relative racial/ethnic differences in discipline rates: California Disparities, Colorado Disparities, Connecticut Disparities, Florida Disparities, Maryland Disparities, Massachusetts Disparities, Minnesota Disparities, Oregon Disparities, Rhode Island Disparities, Utah Disparities, Allegheny County (PA) Disparities, Aurora (CO) Disparities, Beaverton (OR) Disparities, Denver Disparities, Henrico County (VA) Disparities, Kern County (CA) Disparities, Los Angeles SWPBS, Loudoun County (VA) Disparities, Milwaukee Disparities, Minneapolis Disparities, Montgomery County (MD) Disparities, Oakland (CA) Disparities, Portland (OR) Disparities, St. Paul Disparities, South Bend Disparities, Urbana (IL) Disparities. Some of the subpages may provide substantial detail, while others simply present statements describing the situations. See also my “Discipline disparities in Md. Schools,” Daily Record (June 21, 2018), which discusses a study showing that generally reductions in suspension in Maryland schools between the 2008-09 and 2013-14 school years had been accompanied by an increase in the ratio of the statewide black suspension rate to the statewide white suspension rate, and that, during that period, in 20 of the 23 Maryland school districts for which data on black and overall suspension rate reductions could be analyzed there occurred an increase in the ratio of the black suspension rate to suspension rate for other students.
Other useful related readings regarding the pervasive misunderstanding of this issue include my December 8, 2017 testimony explaining the issue to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, my letters explaining the issue to the United States Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice (July 17, 2017), Comptroller General of the United States (Apr. 12, 2018), Minnesota Department of Human Rights (May 14, 2018), and Maryland State Department of Education (June 26, 2018), as well as my “Misunderstanding of Statistics Leads to Misguided Law Enforcement Policies,” Amstat News (Dec. 2012), “The Paradox of Lowering Standards,” Baltimore Sun (Aug. 5, 2013), “Innumeracy at the Department of Education and the Congressional Committees Overseeing It,” Federalist Society Blog (Aug. 24, 2017), “The Pernicious Misunderstanding of Effects or Policies on Racial Differences in Criminal Justice Outcomes,” Federalist Society Blog (Oct. 12, 2017).
On March 15, 2016, North Carolina published its Report to the North Carolina General Assembly: Consolidated Data Report 2014-15 (Rep.), providing information on, among other things, discipline rates among the states racial/ethnic groups. Table S3 (at page 29) showed that between the 2010-2011 and 2014-15 school years, the black short-term suspension rate declined from 3.86% to 3.0%, while the white rate declined from the 0.98% to 0.71%. Thus, the ratio of the black rate to the white rate increased from 3.94 to 4.23. Similar increases in the relative difference between black and white rates were shown for long-term suspensions and expulsions, though these outcomes were rather rare.
This information came to my attention as a result of a 2016 presentation by the Public School Forum of Norther Carolina, which also presented Table S3 from the General Assembly report, which formed the basis for the statement that “Black students in particular are as much as four-times as likely to receive short-term suspensions as their white counterparts.” The presentation later states: “Restorative Justice programs like those in Oakland Unified School District have proven to be effective in decreasing the overall incidence of student misbehavior as well as reducing racial gaps,” relaying on Restorative Justice in Oakland Public Schools Implementation and Impacts (Rep.). (2014, September).” See the Oakland (CA) Disparities, page regarding the way that study has led many observers to believe that the ratio of the black suspension rate to the white suspension rate decreased in Oakland, though it in fact increased.