James P. Scanlan, Attorney at Law

Oregon Disparities

(July 5, 2016)

Prefatory note:  This subpage is related to the California Disparities, Colorado Disparities, Maryland Disparities, Connecticut Disparities, Minnesota Disparities, Beaverton, OR Disparities, Los Angeles SWPBS, Denver Disparities, Minneapolis Disparities, Montgomery County, MD Disparities, St. Paul Disparities, Henrico County, VA Disparities, Portland, OR Disparities, DOE Equity Report, Suburban Disparities, and Preschool Disparities subpages of the Discipline Disparities page of jpscanlan.com.  The subpages with states, counties, or cities in their titles address data showing that when discipline rates were reduced in the referenced jurisdictions, relative racial/ethnic differences in discipline rates increased.  The DOE Equity Report subpage addresses a Department of Education study showing that relative RACIAL differences in expulsions are smaller in districts with zero tolerance policies than in districts without zero tolerance policies.  The Suburban Disparities and Preschool Disparities subpages addresses the fact that relative racial differences in discipline rates tend to be greater in suburbs than in central cities, and in preschool than K-12,  simply because discipline rates tend to be lower in suburbs than in central cities and preschool than K-12.

Useful background reading for this page include “Misunderstanding of Statistics Leads to Misguided Law Enforcement Policies, ” Amstat News  (Dec. 2012), “The Paradox of Lowering Standards,” Baltimore Sun (Aug. 5, 2013), “Things government doesn’t know about racial disparities,” The Hill (Jan. 28, 2014), and “Race and Mortality Revisited,” Society (July/Aug. 2014).  All address the fact that contrary to the view promoted by the Departments of Education and Justice that reducing discipline rates will tend to reduce racial and ethnic differences in discipline rates, reducing discipline rates will tend to increase relative racial differences in discipline rates (though reduce relative differences in rates of avoiding discipline). 

Also pertinent to this page are the letters to the following entities advising that contrary to views expressed by the recipient entities or communicated to the recipient entities by others, reducing the frequency of adverse discipline actions tend to increase (a) relative differences in discipline rates and (b) the proportion more susceptible groups make up of persons disciplined.  University of Oregon Institute on Violence and Destructive Behavior and University of Oregon Law School Center for Dispute Resolution (July 3, 2016), New York City Center for Innovation through Data Intelligence (June 6, 2016), Houston Independent School District (Jan. 5, 2016), Boston Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice (Nov. 12, 2015), McKinney, Texas Independent School District (Aug. 31, 2015), Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Education (Aug. 24, 2015), Texas Appleseed (Apr. 7, 2015), Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (Mar. 20, 2015), Vermont Senate Committee on Education (Feb. 26, 2015), Portland, Oregon Board of Education (Feb. 25, 2015), IDEA Data Center (Aug. 11, 2014), Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (Apr. 1, 2013), United States Department of Justice (Apr. 23, 2012) United States Department of Education (Apr. 18, 2012)

A letter to the IDEA Data Center (Aug. 11, 2014), while not addressing an expressly mistaken view on the part of the recipient, addresses the recipient’s failure to recognize the referenced pattern in guidance it provides on the measurement of disproportionality in suspensions and other matters.

Letters to American Statistical Association (Oct. 8, 2015) and several other entities with presumed statistical expertise urge the recipients to explain to the federal government that reducing the frequency of adverse discipline actions tend to increase (a) relative differences in discipline rates and (b) the proportion more susceptible groups make up of persons disciplined.

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On February 26, 2016, the Oregon organization Education Northwest gave presentation titled “Reducing Discipline Disparities – What Teachers are Saying” at the NW PBIS Network Spring Conference.  A theme stressed in the presentation (at slide 5) was “Reduce the use of exclusionary discipline overall and to eliminate disparities.   Slide 7 showed an overall reduction in rates at which students received one or more suspensions from 7.1% in the 2007-08 school year to 3.3% in the 2013/14.  Slide 8 showed that during that period the black rate decreased from 18.3% to 10.5% while the white rate decreased from 4.7% to 2.3%.

The PowerPoint presentation does not state anything about the measurement of the disparities, though possibly that was discussed by the presenter.  In any case, Table 1 below shows that, as commonly occurs in the circumstances of a larger overall decrease in suspension rates, the ratio of the black suspension rate to the white suspension rate increased (from 3.89 to 4.57, i.e., an increase in the relative difference from 289% to 357%).  The table also shows that the three other standard measures of disparity changed in accordance with the usual patterns in the circumstances.  That is, the relative difference in avoiding discipline decreased, the absolute difference between rates of suspension (or no suspension) decreased, and the difference measured by the odds ratio increased.  The final column (EES for “estimated effect size) indicates that to the extent that difference in the strength of the forces causing the suspension rates of blacks and whites to differ can be measured (see "Race and Mortality Revisited" and the ASA letter), it decreased very slightly.          

Table 1.  Rates at which black and white students were suspended one or more times in the 2000/08 and 2013/14 school years, with measures of difference