Seattle Disparities
(Dec. 8, 2019)
Prefatory note: 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 tend to increase such differences. This page is similar to the following subpages of the Discipline Disparities page of this site. Those pages discuss 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, Illinois Disparities, Maryland Disparities, Massachusetts Disparities, Minnesota Disparities, North Carolina Disparities, Oregon Disparities, Rhode Island Disparities, Utah Disparities, Virginia Disparities, Allegheny County (PA) Disparities, Aurora (CO) Disparities, Beaverton (OR) Disparities, Denver Disparities, Evansville (IN) 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 general 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, 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. Recent discussions of this subject may be found in my “COPAA v. DeVos and the Government’s Continuing Numeracy Problem,” Federalist Society Blog (Sept. 12, 2019), which discusses the continuing failure to understand this issue by the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Education. See also the discussion in the Appendix to “Usual, But Wholly Misunderstood, Effects of Policies on Measures of Racial Disparity Now Being Seen in Ferguson and the UK and Soon to Be Seen in Baltimore,” Federalist Society Blog (Dec. 4, 2019), which discusses the way the restorative justice community increases demand for its programs by leading participants to believe that policies will tend to reduce relative racial differences in suspensions when in fact they will increase those suspension.
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). A fuller discussion of all pertinent issues may be found in my “Race and Mortality Revisited,” Society (July/Aug. 2014). A good summary of the current state of understanding of this issue may be found in my August 9, 2019 letter the Department of Justice handling the appeal of COPAA v. DeVos, which is the subject of the September 12, 2019 Federalist Society Blog post. That the government proceeded to dismiss the appeal in the case is discussed at the tend to the December 4, 2019 Federalist Society Blog post.
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Seattle has for some time been concerned about large relative racial differences in suspensions, as reflected in a July 15, 2015 Seattle Times article, which notes that in Seattle the black suspension rate was more than four times the white rate while discussing the fact that Seattle had invited officials from the Oakland Unified School District to discuss the way Oakland’s restorative justice programs reduced racial disparities. One can safely assume that participant in this discussion (including the officials from both Seattle and Oakland) failed to recognize that relative racial differences in suspensions in Oakland actually had increased (as discussed in Oakland (CA) Disparities page and the Appendix to the aforementioned December 4, 2019 Federalist Society Blog post).
A May 21, 2019 Crosscut report titled “Despite state policy changes, WA schools still disproportionality discipline students of color” at once reflects the mistaken expectation that generally reducing suspensions should reduce disparities and that this did not occur in Washington. The second chart in the report shows that in Seattle between 2013 and 2018 the black suspension rate dropped from 11.2 to 6.4 while the white rate dropped from the 2.2 to 1.0. Thus, the ratio of the black rate to the white rate increased from 5.1 to 6.4. To the extent that the forces causing the rates to differ be measured (as by the method in "Race and Mortality Revisited") the difference was essentially the same in 2018 as in 2013. In fact, knowing that black rate declined from 11.2% to 6.4%, one would estimate that the white rate would drop to approximately 1.0%.
The described pattern of change in relative differences will not always occur. But it will usually happen, especially when there occur large changes. And most instances where report or studies have states of suggested that restorative justice programs reduced relative differences in suspension, the relative difference actually increased, as discussed in the Appendix to the December 4, 2019 Federalist Society Blog with regard to Oakland and several other places.
Probably there occurred increases in relative racial differences in suspension in most Washington jurisdictions outside of Seattle as well. But the pattern does not show up in overall figures for Washington (shown in the first chart in the Crosscut report) because of aggregation issues, as in the case of the situation discussed in the Milwaukee Disparities page.
The Crosscut article also discussed a Washington task force’s finding that the overwhelming majority of suspensions and expulsions were related to attendance problems. As discussed in the Appendix to the December 4 post, data on attendance provides one of the best illustrations of the way that limiting sanctions to the most extreme cases will tend to increase relative racial differences in sanction rates.