Last April, Diane Rado at School Week did a piece about discrimination in Glen Ellyn schools. You can find it here at Suspensions Spike In Glen Ellyn Schools.

What has happened since is that black enrollment has decreased by 25%, but suspensions doled out to blacks have increased by 55%; Hispanic enrollment has increased by just under 8%, but suspensions given to them increased by over 200%.

Total suspensions increased 32%, with virtually all of the increase accounted for by these two groups.

Access the suspension data starting at this portal at the Illinois State Board of Education:
ISBE End of Year Reports

access the enrollment numbers starting from this portal on their site: ISBE Fall Housing Enrollment Counts


This is a very serious issue. Every candidate for the School Board should make a clear stand on this, and state unequivocally what they each will do to make sure the district is acting responsibly. What was last year an area of concern is this year a worse mess than ever.

My experience with Hadley is that teachers are far to ready to hand out detentions. Also they seemed like they were pretty arbitrary in how they were handed out.

So I can see something like this being the result.

If the motivation is to be sure that each and every student is suspended or expelled following an established procedure, I am all for that. If an administrator needs to pull up a spreadsheet to check the stats before proceeding, I'm not good with that. If we get to the spreadsheet world, then someone will complain that more boys than girls get booted out of school or more eigth graders get in trouble than sixth graders. We just can't balance each and every aspect of social behavior. The balance comes from the process and the procedures. The students set the wheels in motion, not the other way around.

My daugher was physically assaulted and injured at school in fifth grade (district 41) by another student and the school was going to do nothing. We called the police and the boy was arrested at school, which was more traumatic to both kids than if the school had taken a stand. The boy was in school the day after he was arrested, even went to recess. The safety of the children is first and foremost in my mind, always has been and always will be.

While I would certainly not argue that Glen Ellyn is the most culturally/racially enlightened community, I'm not willing to accept the OP's numbers alone as proof of discrimination.

Is there at least a possibility that the black and hispanic students in D41 commit a more-than-proportionate share of "suspension-worthy" behaviors?

You know the old saying about figures don't lie but liars figure. Really think that Mr. Sances is misusing these numbers.

There was a total of 56 one time only suspensions given out by D41 last year.

White Males=25
White Females=8
Black Males=6
Black Females=4
Asian Males=3
Hispanic Females=4
Hispanic Males=4
Mixed Race Males=2
Mixed Race Females=1

Suspend more than once=29
White Males=11
White Females=3
Black Males=5
Black Females=2
Hispanic Males=2
Hispanic Female=6

So total suspensions = 85 .

If John is right and there was a total percentage increase of 32% in suspensions then the previous years suspensions would have been sixty six. If the increase as John says mostly attributed to Black and Hispanic groups which doubled then the year before there would have been say sixteen suspension handed out to those groups increasing by fifteen to get to last years thirty one.

I think this is to small a sample and only a one year trend. So it's really hard to say the D41 is discriminatory in how it hands out suspensions.

You would have to compare this to other school districts etc.

The group that skews the data is the under representation of white Females in the group.

quote:

Originally posted by GE Fan:

That being said, I do think it is a shame that Hadley doesn't have ONE African American teacher.

Second that.

For the 2007-2008 school year, along with the 56 one-time only people suspended,

number suspensions more than once:

white non-hispanic male: 22
white non-hispanic female: 9
black non-hispanic male: 12
black non-hispanic female: 4
hispanic male: 6
hispanic female: 14

total suspensions more than once 67

67 + 56 = 123 suspensions given 2007-2008.

for 2007-2008 (85 students suspended, 123 total suspensions, an increase of 30, 30/93 = 32.2%):
143 blacks, 28 suspensions given to blacks, one suspension for every 5.1 black students. Double the previous year's rate.
2007-2008: 22.7 % of suspensions given to blacks, who are 4.01 % of student population.
295 hispanics, 28 suspensions given to hispanics, one suspension for every 10.5 hispanic students. Triple the previous year's rate.
2715 whites, 61 suspensions given to whites, one suspension for every 44 white students. Barely no change in rate.

The above numbers and their year-on-year changes merit more attention than just a 'dialog of the deaf'.

for 2006-2007 (76 students suspended, 93 total suspensions):
181 blacks, 18 suspensions given to blacks, one suspension for every 10 black students.
2006-2007: 19.3% of suspensions given to blacks, who are 5% of students.
272 hispanics, 9 suspensions given to hispanics, one suspension given for every 30 hispanic students.
2738 whites, 60 suspensions given to whites, one suspension for every 45.6 white students.

for 2005-2006 (47 students suspended, 72 total suspensions):
180 black students, 27 suspensions given to black students, one suspensions for every 6.6 black students.
248 hispanics students, 6 suspensions given to hispanic students, one suspension for every 41.3 hispanic students.
2761 whites, 36 suspensions given to whites, one suspension for every 76.7 white students.

I disagree with how you're using your numbers. I think we should look at students suspended not total number of suspensions. There were fifty six one time suspensions given out and twenty nine students who were given multiples suspensions.
So that is a better number to use.

Also if we use 2005-2006 as the base line we see a pretty large increase in suspensions.

From seventy two suspensions to one hundred twenty three.

For white students the suspensions went from one for every 76.6 students to one for every forty four students. So roughly an increase of eighty percent in two years. Black suspension rate went from one for every 6.6 to one to every 5.1 for roughly an increase of twenty fiver percent . For Hispanics the rate went from one for every 41.3 to one to ten so almost a quadrupling.

So there are a couple of questions.

1. Why the total increase in suspension in two yaars. Has D41 adopted a zero tolerance policy on some infractions. Are they policing more and better. Have they added more rules to get kids suspended.

2. Is there a race or economic factor in the suspensions etc.

One thing you don't discuss is that this breaks down along sex lines as well. White males are roughly three times as likely to get suspended as white females so is the D41 administration sexist as well as racist.

quote:

Originally posted by taxpayer:
One thing you don't discuss is that this breaks down along sex lines as well. White males are roughly three times as likely to get suspended as white females so is the D41 administration sexist as well as racist.

Taxpayer hints at a novel solution to this inequity: culturally aware standards norming. I propose that a committee be formed to determine what behaviors are acceptable from each sub-group of students. (A separate committee should first determine which classes of students will be established). There may have to be some mechanism for sorting bi-racial and transgendered students, but that can be worked out. Anyway, after determining the acceptable subcultural norms, a target beavior non-conformity rate must be established. Let's say 2.5%, corresponding to the 40-to-1 ratio previously discussed. Then for each racial/sexual/socioeconomic subgroup the proper number of behavioral corrections can be assigned. It should be easy for teachers to budget their corrections under this system so that each student gets his or her proper share.

This is not about counting noses. This is about bias.

From the schoolweek piece:

Glenbard South high school principal Terri Hanrahan, whose school had a significant jump in suspensions in 2006-07 – she wasn’t principal at the time – spoke candidly about whether institutional racism exists, which could be a factor in any unequal discipline. “Are we courageous enough to ask that question?” she said.

“I think any of us would be fooling ourselves if we said there was no institutional racism – it would belie the history of our country,’’ Hanrahan said.

Bias does not have to be intentional. It is still bias. No one necessarily has to be held responsible for institutional bias. Some one should be responsible for monitoring, for making sure that disparities are merited, and for righting things when disparities cannot be explained.

Imagine this. You are in a room filled with district 41's black students and their families. This ought be close to 400 people. You get to admit to them that in this district black students are currently over 8 times more likely to be suspended than are white students, that while last year less than 2% of white students were suspended, over 13% of black students were. You also get to tell them that the district is going to do nothing about it - not even going to look into it, it does not even care to consider whether you are concerned.

Maybe this doesn't seem like a good thing to do. So let's just ignore it.

Let them figure it out for themselves. They will find out about bias, sooner or later. The kids grow up into a society where for every black man that gets a degree, 100 black men are arrested.