James P. Scanlan, Attorney at Law

Portland (OR) Disparities

(Feb. 21, 2015; rev. Mar. 31, 2015)

Prefatory note:  This subpage is related to the California Disparities, Maryland Disparities, Beaverton, OR Disparities, Los Angeles SWPBS, Denver Disparities, Minneapolis Disparities, Montgomery County, MD Disparities, St. Paul Disparities, Henrico County, VA Disparities, Connecticut Disparities,  DOE Equity Report, Suburban Disparities, and Preschool Disparities subpages of the Discipline Disparities page of jpscanlan.com.  The first ten subpages address studies 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).  My recent “The Perverse Enforcement of Fair Lending Law,” Mortgage Banking (May 2014) addresses the same issue in the lending context.  The statistical issues have also been recently addressed in my November 17, 2014 amicus curiae brief in Texas Department of Housing and Community Development, et al. v.  The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc., Supreme Court No. 13-1731.

Note added March 31, 2015:  I recently explained this issue to the Portland Board of Education by letter of February 25, 2015, and by letter of March 20, 2015, to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions by letter of March 20, 2015.  The latter item pertains to the legislation discussed on the Keep Kids in School Act subpage.

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A February 16, 2014 Oregonian article titled “Portland expels, suspends fewer students, but still disciplines African American students at higher rates” that discussed released data on discipline rates in Portland’s Public Schools began as follows:

“Roughly 3 percent of Portland Public Schools students were suspended or expelled last school year, a drop from nearly 5 percent the year before, according to data released by the district.

“But African American and Native American students are still being sent out of class at far higher rates than their white peers--almost four-and-a-half times more often for African American students.”

The article’s title and the “But” beginning the second paragraph reflect the common mistaken belief that reducing discipline rates will tend to reduce relative difference in discipline rates.  As discussed in the prefatory note, the opposite is the case. 

While the data cited in the article and the underlying report show some variation from the standard patterns by which measures tend to change as the frequency of an outcome changes, with respect to the black-white and Native-American disparities noted in the article’s second paragraph, the table in the article on rates of suspension or expulsion shows that the ratio of the black rate to the white rate rose from 4.36 in 2011-2012 to 4.57 in 2013-2014 and that the ratio of the Native-American rate to the white rate rose from 2.3 in 2011-2012 to 3.22 in 2013-2014.

There will be variations from the pattern described in the prefatory note (as in the case of the decline in black/white ratio between 2012-2013 and 2013-2014that can be derived from the table in the article).  But in general the further reductions in discipline rates planned by school administrators can be expected to increase relative differences in discipline rates rather than reduce them.

In the case of the substantial decreases in exclusionary discipline at the Boise-Eliot/Humbolt K-8 discussed in the article as a success story (from 15% in 2012-2013 to 7 % in 2013-2014), the 51st page of the underlying report shows that the ratio of the black rate to the white rate increased from 1.2 to 2.6.