Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Black Male Middle School Students 3X More Likely to Be Suspended than Their White Counterparts

Middle schools across the country are suspending children with alarming frequency, particularly in some large urban school districts, where numerous schools suspend a third or more of their black male students in a given year, according to a new study by education researchers Daniel J. Losen and Russell Skiba, and published today by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The study found that African-American children are suspended far more frequently than white children, in general, with especially high racial differences in middle school, causing them to miss valuable class time during a crucial period in their academic and social development.

In a national sample of more than 9,000 middle schools, 28.3 percent of black males, on average, were suspended at least once during a school year, nearly three times the 10 percent rate for white males. Black females were suspended more than four times as often as white females (18 percent vs. 4 percent).

For all students in the schools examined, the suspension rate was 11.2 percent. Hispanic males faced a 16.3 percent risk of suspension.

www.splcenter.org/get-informed/news/new-study-finds-big-racial-gap-in-suspensions-of-middle-school-students