James P. Scanlan, Attorney at Law

St. Paul Disparities

(May 15, 2014)

Prefatory note:  This subpage is related to the California Disparities, Maryland Disparities, Los Angeles SWPBS, Denver Disparities, and Minneapolis Disparities subpages and the DOE Equity Report subpage of the Discipline Disparities page of jpscanlan.com.  The former five subpages addresses studies showing that when discipline rates were reduced in the referenced jurisdictions, relative racial/ethnic differences in discipline rates increased.  The sixth subpage addresses a Department of Education study showing that relative differences in expulsions are smaller in districts with zero tolerance policies than in districts without zero tolerance policies. 

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According to a May 11, 2014 article in the Twin Cities Daily Planet, “Three St. Paul principals weigh in on discipline and disparities,”  St. Paul, Minnesota is another jurisdiction seeking to reduce discipline rates believing that doing so will reduce racial disparities. In fact, however, reducing discipline rates tends to increase, rather than reduce, relative differences in discipline rates, as I have recently explained  in many places, including “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); “The Mismeasure of Discrimination,” Faculty Workshop, University of Kansas School of Law (Sept. 20, 2013).  The underlying statistical pattern is also explained in my commentary “It’s easy to misunderstand gaps and mistake good fortune for a crisis,” Minneapolis StarTribune  (Feb. 8, 2014)

Data made available by means of a link provided with the Daily Planet article shows no consistent pattern of general increases or decreases in suspension rates until there occurred  substantial decreases between 2012 and 2013 for all groups except Asians.[i]   The 2012 and 2013 suspension rates for white, African Americans and Latinos (the principal groups of interest) are set out in Table 1.  With  African American’s and Latinos identified as the disadvantaged groups (DG), the table shows the ratio of the DG suspension rate to the white suspension rate and the ratio of the white rate of avoiding suspension to the DG rate of avoiding suspension.  And we observe the common pattern whereby a general reduction in discipline rates led to an increase in the relative difference in suspension rates but a decrease in the relative difference in rates of avoiding discipline.  The EES column indicates that, to the extent that the strength of the forces causing the rates to differ can be measured (see pages 15 to 23 of the Kansas Law paper), as to both African Americans and Hispanics, the difference increased very slightly (and did so in terms that would probably not be statistically significant).  

Table 1.  Suspension Rates of Whites, African Americans and Latinos of St. Paul Public Schools in 2012 and 2013, with Measures of Difference (ref n2b5513b2).