"African-American students, particularly boys, are far more likely to be expelled or suspended from school than students of other races"
ALI: That's a very good question. From these data, we cannot tell that. We know trends about suspension. We know much more than we ever knew before. Who's been suspended once, who's been suspended more than once, whether students are referred to law enforcement, whether they are arrested in school. But we don't know for what types of offenses and we don't know, in all cases, of students that are treated differently for the very same activity.
That might be something important to know.
ALI: That's right, too. You cannot rush to judgment around these data. Equalizing disciplinary rates is not the fix to these patterns. It's going to require a community effort, a student effort, a parent effort, an educator effort, and certainly Washington needs to support those efforts.
Or it might, you know, be that there are deeper issues of racism that affect a person from before the time they were even born. Add in poverty, plethora of broken home issues derived from such poverty, growing up seeing yourself and people like you portrayed in a negative way, etc.
What do people think of when you say 'Asian kid' or 'white kid', first thing that pops in your mind. Now when someone says 'Black kid' what popped into mind. Now add gender to the race and think about the first thing that pops into your mind about those.
MARTIN: OK. And, finally, Hispanic and African-American majority schools are also offering fewer high level courses, like calculus and physics, than white majority schools. And, again, what do we know about why this happens? And do you see a remedy?
ALI: That is a hugely important concern, especially as we work to achieve the president's goal that, by 2020, we will lead the world once again in the percentage of college graduates. If students are not ready for college by the time they graduate high school, they will be ill-prepared to succeed in the demands of post-secondary work, whether they're in an apprenticeship program or a two or four year college.
It is also hard to know why that is, but for sure, we know that schools serving mostly African-American and Latino students, now, for the first time ever, we know that they are far less likely to have those higher rigor courses.
I thought that last part was pretty interesting.
Poverty as a factor: with poverty a lack of hope/desire might well be found that you don't elsewhere. When all you see is poverty and you fight for even the most basic of needs you are not as focused on education from a book as you are a street. You don't have role models around because when people do get a little success they leave the area as fast as they can. You see kids on tv that have a simple life and their biggest worry is some trumped up drama for that episode and your biggest worry is whether or not your mom is going to make enough tonight as a waitress to bring home some bread so you put what little peanut butter you have left on it...well when that is your life it is a little hard to focus on what those darn adults want you to do like home work.
Schools show and want one side of things and expect everyone to learn the same way because we believe all kids are in the same spot in life. We have this image from tv of them all growing up in loving homes and playing board games with mom and dad before they are tucked in with a warm glass of milk. We have built education up now around those ideals and those stuffy headed assholes in Washington all see it that way. We back it all up by showing kids what we think life is like in movies/tv shows and how we expect them to be grateful and listen to loving wonderful parents who we tell them both love them and have nice jobs and never have to worry about where the next meal comes from or moving because you lost your home.
All kids have the same potential. Not all kids have the same environment and tools. And until educators/politicians get that through their thick skulls you won't see these problems ending anytime soon.
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