A recent study conducted by the
Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the University
of California at Los Angeles
The
high rate of suspension among students with disabilities concerns policymakers
and civil rights advocates. Their
claimed that school districts with high rates of suspensions also had a higher
dropout rate and lower student achievement and test scores, which increased the
risk of delinquency and incarceration, especially among African-American
students. According to the study’s
author, Daniel J. Losen:
“Kids with disabilities
make up a very large portion of
the kids who are in the
juvenile justice system...That’s
a very disturbing
pattern because kids with disabilities
are supposed to be
getting additional supports and
counseling[iii].”
To
support this statement, the study found there were states where
African-American students with disabilities were suspended at a rate above 60
percent, with one state having a rate of 92 percent. Additionally, report also found that the
Civil Rights Office of the Department of Education had opened 19 investigations
in 15 states to examine school districts where African-American students were
disproportionately disciplined[iv].
The UCLA study has brought to the
forefront a problem that has been ignored for a long time. Unfortunately, the study failed to consider
the disproportionate suspension of African-American students with disabilities
as a flawed systemic ideology, instead the study claims the problem is a matter
of policy.
The ideology of school discipline in
a majority of school districts across the country is embedded in a belief that
all students should be held accountable for violations of district policies. This believe is evident in district zero
tolerance policies that provide the same consequences to disabled and
non-disabled students. Even though
students with disabilities are provided certain protections, such as they
cannot be suspended more than 10 consecutive days in a school year for each
violation or when a serious violation occurs, a school must convene a
Manifestation Determination team meeting to determine if the violation is a
result of the student’s disability under the Individual with Disabilities
Education Act (IDEA). This information
was surprisingly absent in the UCLA study when discussing the
disproportionality of suspensions of African-American students with
disabilities. With such high rates of
suspensions, the study should have addressed how many suspended students were
afforded their rights under IDEA law?
How many students were suspended more than 10 days during the school
year? How many students were provided
with a Manifestation Determination team meeting prior to suspension? With high rates of suspensions in some
districts, there is seems to be enough evidence that schools are not following
IDEA rules prior to suspension.
Lastly, the ideology of school discipline
appears to be biased against students with disabilities that are not physically
present. For a long time, the faces of
students with disabilities were considered those with physical manifestations
such as downs syndrome, cerebral palsy, and students in wheelchairs. Students with no physical manifestations such
as learning or emotional disabilities may appear by some to “know” what they
are doing and should be punished as their non-disabled peers. The UCLA study confirms this in their
findings that a majority of suspensions were students who were diagnosed with a
learning disability. Although the UCLA
study did not discuss the racial bias against African-American students with
disabilities one cannot deny the systemic entrenchment of racial biased in the
ideology of school discipline. It is
time to change the archaic ideology of school discipline.
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