Black preschoolers are 3.6 times more likely to be suspended from school than their white counterparts, according to a new report from the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.
This difference can be seen between kindergarten up through the 12th grade, according to the latest Civil Rights Data Collection for the 2013-2014 school year.
“The CRDC data are more than numbers and charts — they illustrate in powerful and troubling ways disparities in opportunities and experiences that different groups of students have in our schools,” said Education Secretary John King, Jr.
Even though student suspensions overall decreased approximately 20 percent since the 2011-2012 report, the data showed that black students are twice as likely to be expelled as white students. It also said black and Latino students only compose 28 percent of Gifted and Talented Education programs, even though they are 42 percent of public school enrollment.
Data did not only measure racial disparities, and it showed that students with disabilities are more than twice as likely to be suspended as students without disabilities.
It also showed that 13 percent of all students during the 2013-2014 school year were “chronically absent.”
The CRDC has been released every two years since 1968, and attempts to create transparency in public education by evaluating nearly every school and school district in the United States. More than 50 million public school children were observed in this data.
“The CRDC data shines a spotlight on the educational opportunities proffered, and denied, to our nation’s sons and daughters in schools every day,” said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon. “We urge educators, researchers and the public to join us in using this data to its full potential to support students in realizing theirs.”
The information will be used by organizations like GreatSchools, a nonprofit which is accessed by more than half of American families with children in school, to highlight issues like access to rigorous coursework, college readiness milestones, student absenteeism and discipline rates.
Additionally, the data will be used to modify the execution of Every Child Succeeds Act, signed by President Obama in 2015 to renew the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which attempts to ensure equal opportunity for public school students.
