Arrested Development: The Pre-school to Suspension Pipeline

[AthenaAwakened]

Where to start:

Children who are being abused or neglected at home tend to have behavior problems. This is not limited to single parent homes nor is it limited to families of certain racial or ethnic groups nor is it limited to certain socioeconomic groups.

You know who else has behavior problems? Children who are over indulged.

Children of single mothers are often assumed to be lacking in certain skills and to have more behavior problems, regardless of race, socioeconomic or educational status. Singleothers are often assumed to be irresponsible and promiscuous even when divorced or widowed.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding your post bit there seems to be an implication that black families have more children than white families. In my observation (living in a highly catholic area) children from large families are generally well behaved, know how to share and get along with others.

In my experience, teachers and schools do often have favorites and scapegoats. They often make some pretty broad assumptions about a students behavior and abilities based upon how a child (and patens) dress, perceived socioeconomic and educational status of the parents, marital stays of the parents, and yes: race of child and parents.

You are indeed misunderstanding my post. I wasn't intending to imply that any of those factors actually are more prevalent among black families, or even that I think they do cause greater behavioural issues. I was just making the point that seeing a difference in race does not mean that race actually has anything to do with it. I tried to make that clear by mentioning contradictory possibilities (children from large families might, on average, be worst behaved due to less parental supervision per child; alternatively, children without siblings might be worse behaved because they are not used to interacting with other children, or because they are spoiled etc). I can give you two more 'contradictory' factors: It might be the case that children who are disciplined a lot at home, act up more at school because it is an outlet for their mischief. Alternatively it might be the case that too little discipline at home leads to bad behaviour at school because they never expect to be punished for what they do.

And of course with any these factors it could be the case that it has no effect, on average, on how children behave. But it's the sort of thing which should be investigated before jumping to conclusions like black children are worst behaved or teachers are racist.

So in a country with a history of racial discrimination and a plethora of current social science studies showing the racism is alive and well and living in America's classroom, it is reckless to think that race might have something to do with disparate racial outcomes.

And please note, no one has ruled out other factors that might contribute to problem. Lets say every thing you mentioned contributes to the problem. Does the mean race could not possibly be a factor?

 

[Metaphor]

Isn't this an empirical question requiring investigation?

I'll bet that boys are more likely to be suspended than girls. Would that be because preschool teachers are sexist?

Actually, it might be part of it. In my experience, plenty of women who teach do not understand young boys, and that does cause them to be harsher on them.

It might very well be part of it, but I doubt it's all of it.

 

[EricK]

You are indeed misunderstanding my post. I wasn't intending to imply that any of those factors actually are more prevalent among black families, or even that I think they do cause greater behavioural issues. I was just making the point that seeing a difference in race does not mean that race actually has anything to do with it. I tried to make that clear by mentioning contradictory possibilities (children from large families might, on average, be worst behaved due to less parental supervision per child; alternatively, children without siblings might be worse behaved because they are not used to interacting with other children, or because they are spoiled etc). I can give you two more 'contradictory' factors: It might be the case that children who are disciplined a lot at home, act up more at school because it is an outlet for their mischief. Alternatively it might be the case that too little discipline at home leads to bad behaviour at school because they never expect to be punished for what they do.

And of course with any these factors it could be the case that it has no effect, on average, on how children behave. But it's the sort of thing which should be investigated before jumping to conclusions like black children are worst behaved or teachers are racist.

So in a country with a history of racial discrimination and a plethora of current social science studies showing the racism is alive and well and living in America's classroom, it is reckless to think that race might have something to do with disparate racial outcomes.

And please note, no one has ruled out other factors that might contribute to problem. Lets say every thing you mentioned contributes to the problem. Does the mean race could not possibly be a factor?

It's not reckless to think it might; it's reckless to immediately jump to the conclusion that it does (or to jump to the conclusion that it doesn't,for that matter).

 

[AthenaAwakened]

So in a country with a history of racial discrimination and a plethora of current social science studies showing the racism is alive and well and living in America's classroom, it is reckless to think that race might have something to do with disparate racial outcomes.

And please note, no one has ruled out other factors that might contribute to problem. Lets say every thing you mentioned contributes to the problem. Does the mean race could not possibly be a factor?

It's not reckless to think it might; it's reckless to immediately jump to the conclusion that it does (or to jump to the conclusion that it doesn't,for that matter).

so whenever disparate racial outcomes happen in a place with a history of discrimination and documented current discriminatory practices in place, not until every other possible avenue is exhausted, should race be considered as a (not necessarily the) contributing factor? even when a white student throws a chair and hits and sends a kid to the hospital and is NOT suspened while a black child in the same school throws a chair, hits no one, and is suspended? Really?

 

[laughing dog]

Actually, it might be part of it. In my experience, plenty of women who teach do not understand young boys, and that does cause them to be harsher on them.

It might very well be part of it, but I doubt it's all of it.

I wholeheartedly agree. In general, I doubt that there is a single cause for any observations about social outcomes, and I think that applies to this specific circumstance.

 

[Metaphor]

Isn't this an empirical question requiring investigation?

I'll bet that boys are more likely to be suspended than girls. Would that be because preschool teachers are sexist?

Actually there is a research spanning decades that says just that.

Now care to answer the question. You don't have to supply reams of data, (unless you want to or your argument requires them), just in your own words and your own experiences,

do you personally think that the disparities in the numbers of black vs white preschoolers who are suspended from preschools is because black preschoolers are choosing to behave worse than white preschoolers?

Two of my nieces are two years apart. The older one was a 'troublemaker' who got into trouble at preschool often and had a hard time socialising with other children. The younger one's personality is completely different -- well behaved, polite, considerate. Even when they were babies, the older one cried more than the younger.

I sympathise with the older one (a chubby child who had a hard time making friends), and I don't believe a three year old 'chooses' to misbehave more, but I'd believe some actually do misbehave more than others. So, whilst I can say I don't think three year olds have the malice aforethought to be morally evil agents, I also believe that by three and four years old, children already show enormous differences in (anti)social behaviour.

Now in regards to the particular circumstances of the OP: by her own admission, her children misbehaved, and they misbehaved seriously enough to be suspended eight times. It's difficult to tell if Black children are being 'overpunished' for their misbehaviour (in comparison to equivalent behaviour from White children). For example, in the school that the author sent her children, what behaviours were other children suspended for? Did other children ever get away with similar behaviours without being suspeded?

The author mentions a White mother whose child injured another child enough to send the other child to the hospital but all she got was 'a phone call'. I don't know where this White woman is sending her violent child, but I'd withdraw my own child from any school that would allow her child to continue there. It doesn't matter if the child is 'choosing' to misbehave or not; they're a danger, in the same way a child with a communicable disease is a danger.

If suspensions are unfairly weighted on colour lines, where Black children are more likely to be suspended for behaviour that White children would get away with, I think that's a very real problem that needs constant vigilance.

If suspension rates differ along colour lines because Black children really are misbehaving more, then that too is a big problem but it is obviously of a different origin and the solution won't be easy.

And if your child goes to a preschool where a White kid can throw a chair on purpose and land your child in hospital and all the preschool does is inform the mother of the offending child, get your child out of that preschool. That's insane.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The OP links a video to CNN... a news source that is frivelous at best. So I dare not waste 7 minutes of my life to watch and see whether this is about a study or an investigation, whether it took financial dynamics into account.

uh

Actually it links to a panel discussion of a Washington editorial on the The Young Turks.

The preview window shows a pic from CNN, hence my conclusion.

So is there any data to look at? Certainly race would likely be a negligible source for a particular behavior.

My anecdotal evidence are young boys of First Nation (are they called First Nation in the US?) population (in a single school in Northern Minnesota) having a disturbingly bad attitude (respect) towards girls. The automatic default cause would be poverty, situations with parents, etc... Not because of the race of the person.

So when did suspensions start happening in preschool?

 

[AthenaAwakened]

uh

Actually it links to a panel discussion of a Washington editorial on the The Young Turks.

The preview window shows a pic from CNN, hence my conclusion.

So is there any data to look at? Certainly race would likely be a negligible source for a particular behavior.

My anecdotal evidence are young boys of First Nation (are they called First Nation in the US?) population (in a single school in Northern Minnesota) having a disturbingly bad attitude (respect) towards girls. The automatic default cause would be poverty, situations with parents, etc... Not because of the race of the person.

So when did suspensions start happening in preschool?

are first nation three-year-olds being suspended from preschool because of their attitudes toward girls while white three-year-olds with similar or identical attitudes are not, or at best in disproportionally low numbers?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The preview window shows a pic from CNN, hence my conclusion.

So is there any data to look at? Certainly race would likely be a negligible source for a particular behavior.

My anecdotal evidence are young boys of First Nation (are they called First Nation in the US?) population (in a single school in Northern Minnesota) having a disturbingly bad attitude (respect) towards girls. The automatic default cause would be poverty, situations with parents, etc... Not because of the race of the person.

So when did suspensions start happening in preschool?

are first nation three-year-olds being suspended from preschool because of their attitudes toward girls while white three-year-olds with similar or identical attitudes are not, or at best in disproportionally low numbers?

From what I'm aware of, their behavior wasn't really kept in check. Not a good school to go to as a girl in Pre-K or K.

 

[Toni]

Where to start:

Children who are being abused or neglected at home tend to have behavior problems. This is not limited to single parent homes nor is it limited to families of certain racial or ethnic groups nor is it limited to certain socioeconomic groups.

You know who else has behavior problems? Children who are over indulged.

Children of single mothers are often assumed to be lacking in certain skills and to have more behavior problems, regardless of race, socioeconomic or educational status. Singleothers are often assumed to be irresponsible and promiscuous even when divorced or widowed.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding your post bit there seems to be an implication that black families have more children than white families. In my observation (living in a highly catholic area) children from large families are generally well behaved, know how to share and get along with others.

In my experience, teachers and schools do often have favorites and scapegoats. They often make some pretty broad assumptions about a students behavior and abilities based upon how a child (and patens) dress, perceived socioeconomic and educational status of the parents, marital stays of the parents, and yes: race of child and parents.

You are indeed misunderstanding my post. I wasn't intending to imply that any of those factors actually are more prevalent among black families, or even that I think they do cause greater behavioural issues. I was just making the point that seeing a difference in race does not mean that race actually has anything to do with it. I tried to make that clear by mentioning contradictory possibilities (children from large families might, on average, be worst behaved due to less parental supervision per child; alternatively, children without siblings might be worse behaved because they are not used to interacting with other children, or because they are spoiled etc). I can give you two more 'contradictory' factors: It might be the case that children who are disciplined a lot at home, act up more at school because it is an outlet for their mischief. Alternatively it might be the case that too little discipline at home leads to bad behaviour at school because they never expect to be punished for what they do.

And of course with any these factors it could be the case that it has no effect, on average, on how children behave. But it's the sort of thing which should be investigated before jumping to conclusions like black children are worst behaved or teachers are racist.

I've personally watched adults (teachers, principals, etc.) treat children of color differently than white children. I've also seen children who were from poorer, less educated families treated differently than those from more well to do families. And I've seen some pretty harsh judgements and some very inaccurate stereotypes applied to single parents, especially young, pretty single mothers. The worst is what is levied at black children, black families, with (in my area) Native Americans and formerly, until they were better accepted into the community, immigrants from S.E. Asia. If there were enough Hispanics around for me to have actually seen how the school personnel interacted with Hispanic families, I am sure I would have noticed something there.

Here's what I saw: Behavior by black children was seen as worse than the exact same or objectively worse behavior by white children. Black boys were seen as being 'more dangerous.' Even a small infraction--the kind that all children do all the time: fidgeting, being a little out of line, talking out of turn, etc.: things that are seen in every classroom--those were seen as major infractions if the child was black, especially black and male.

I noticed it when I was in first grade. You would think that things would change a lot in all of those years since, but not so much.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Well, let's not overlook the fact that these children are black. Is it possible that they're just getting into the crack that all their parents have lying around the house and that's what's causing the behavioural problems which the schools are then forced to react to?

There's no reason to just blindly assume racism here.

 

[EricK]

It's not reckless to think it might; it's reckless to immediately jump to the conclusion that it does (or to jump to the conclusion that it doesn't,for that matter).

so whenever disparate racial outcomes happen in a place with a history of discrimination and documented current discriminatory practices in place, not until every other possible avenue is exhausted, should race be considered as a (not necessarily the) contributing factor? even when a white student throws a chair and hits and sends a kid to the hospital and is NOT suspened while a black child in the same school throws a chair, hits no one, and is suspended? Really?

If, for example, you found out that black children generally did worse in exams than white children, would your assumption be that the people marking the exams are being racist? Would the only alternative to that be that black children are stupider than white children? Or can you think of other possible explanations?

 

[AthenaAwakened]

so whenever disparate racial outcomes happen in a place with a history of discrimination and documented current discriminatory practices in place, not until every other possible avenue is exhausted, should race be considered as a (not necessarily the) contributing factor? even when a white student throws a chair and hits and sends a kid to the hospital and is NOT suspened while a black child in the same school throws a chair, hits no one, and is suspended? Really?

If, for example, you found out that black children generally did worse in exams than white children, would your assumption be that the people marking the exams are being racist? Would the only alternative to that be that black children are stupider than white children? Or can you think of other possible explanations?

what a child does on an exam and what is done to him by a teacher are not comparable. In one, the child is acting and in the other the child is being acted upon. Now to go further, can tests be racist, classist, sexist, etc.? Yes, they have been and they can be and that can happen without intentional discrimination on the part of the individual teacher.

I will state AGAIN, there can be multiple causes of a problem all happening at once and among them can be racism. Racism does not cancel out other reasons and other reasons do not cancel out racism. And to deny racial discrimination as a cause for a racially biased outcome because it makes some people uncomfortable to think that discrimination is happening can be a little like denying that the bullet inside your gut and causing you to bleed to death came from the smoking gun the guy you are fighting is holding In his hand because you just don't want to believe he would shoot you.

 

[Toni]

so whenever disparate racial outcomes happen in a place with a history of discrimination and documented current discriminatory practices in place, not until every other possible avenue is exhausted, should race be considered as a (not necessarily the) contributing factor? even when a white student throws a chair and hits and sends a kid to the hospital and is NOT suspened while a black child in the same school throws a chair, hits no one, and is suspended? Really?

If, for example, you found out that black children generally did worse in exams than white children, would your assumption be that the people marking the exams are being racist? Would the only alternative to that be that black children are stupider than white children? Or can you think of other possible explanations?

In this case, we are talking about very young children receiving widely disparate consequences for misbehavior in preschool.

The child who behaved the worst: the child threw a chair striking another child who was sent to the hospital. That child's parents received a phone call.

The child who threw a chair, hitting no one was: that child was suspended.

What merited the very different responses?

Or are you suggesting that when children receive different treatment from teachers for behavior at school, they may have different levels of achievement and performance in academic areas?

 

[EricK]

If, for example, you found out that black children generally did worse in exams than white children, would your assumption be that the people marking the exams are being racist? Would the only alternative to that be that black children are stupider than white children? Or can you think of other possible explanations?

In this case, we are talking about very young children receiving widely disparate consequences for misbehavior in preschool.

The child who behaved the worst: the child threw a chair striking another child who was sent to the hospital. That child's parents received a phone call.

The child who threw a chair, hitting no one was: that child was suspended.

What merited the very different responses?

One possibility (which I have already mentioned) is that teachers are almost certainly biased against children who frequently get into trouble and treat them more harshly than children who are committing a first offence.

One thing I have noticed is that when the media report on something quite outrageous, and a post is made about it here, it nearly always turns out that there is more to the story than what has been reported.

 

[laughing dog]

One thing I have noticed in this threads, is the extraordinary excuses/rationales to move the discussion away from racism. Sometimes, the horse really is just a horse, not a zebra.

 

[fast]

It is very easy for some people to look at crime stats and prison stats, see a disproportionate number of black people represented and then say, "Blacks just commit more crime."

But three year olds?

Are black three year old kids choosing to be bad kids more often than white three year old kids?

Before those among us who think black people are "culturally" predisposed to bad behavior answer, and you know who you are, keep in mind that everyone here has experienced three year old children, in all the colors of the rainbow. We have experienced them in classrooms, in supermarkets, on airplanes, in restaurants and in our homes.

So chose your words well.

I don't know that I would go so far as to say they're 'choosing' to misbehave, but sure, they're acting out. My guess is that the majority of the suspended black kids are being raised in black families where discipline, interpersonal treatment, and attention varies comparatively different to others. Go out to eat and watch the interaction between children and parents. It's not about race, but there might be identifiable trends that coincide.

If we compare race, we tend to see race as a factor--either, someone's a racist or there's some racial deficiency. Why can't we compare the factors precipitating the behavior --like how the children are loved for in their daily lives. Like I said, go out and eat.

 

[EricK]

One thing I have noticed in this threads, is the extraordinary excuses/rationales to move the discussion away from racism. Sometimes, the horse really is just a horse, not a zebra.

Surely the purpose of a discussion board is to discuss the situation, and the possible causes. If everybody just agrees with the OP, then what's the point of that? It would be as annoying as that segment linked to in the OP.

 

[Playball40]

If the question is "Are black three year old kids choosing to be bad kids more often than white three year old kids?" then I thought I had answered it.
The short answer is I don't know, based on the evidence provided.
The medium length answer is I don't know - there's not even enough data to conclude that race is a factor at all, either in the behaviour of the children or in the reaction of the teachers
The long answer is as explained above.

To put it into more concrete terms, suppose (and this is just a hypothetical example) that the exact same data is re-analaysed but instead of dividing it up as black v white, it is divided up as, say, single parent parent family v two parent family. And suppose the data showed that despite single parent families being a minority, 90% of those suspended came from single parent families. Then I think it would be reasonable to assume that this was the predominant factor in what leads some children to be suspended and others not, and the colour of the children was just a red herring.

Where to start:

Children who are being abused or neglected at home tend to have behavior problems. This is not limited to single parent homes nor is it limited to families of certain racial or ethnic groups nor is it limited to certain socioeconomic groups.
You know who else has behavior problems? Children who are over indulged.

Children of single mothers are often assumed to be lacking in certain skills and to have more behavior problems, regardless of race, socioeconomic or educational status. Singleothers are often assumed to be irresponsible and promiscuous even when divorced or widowed.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding your post bit there seems to be an implication that black families have more children than white families. In my observation (living in a highly catholic area) children from large families are generally well behaved, know how to share and get along with others.

In my experience, teachers and schools do often have favorites and scapegoats. They often make some pretty broad assumptions about a students behavior and abilities based upon how a child (and patens) dress, perceived socioeconomic and educational status of the parents, marital stays of the parents, and yes: race of child and parents.

In my experience of owning a center, this nails hold the absolute most truth. That said, we rarely 'suspended' anyone. On rare occassion, we expelled children although I can only think of two times for a child under 5.

 

[Playball40]

At the preschool level, we should be disciplining children, not punishing them. Suspension, in my opinion, is an attempt to punish the parent, not the child.