Black students in Louisiana are more than twice as likely as white students to be suspended, according to a study from Tulane University’s Education Research Alliance for New Orleans. The new study from the organization also concluded that for fights involving one white student and one black student, black students receive slightly longer suspensions than white ones.
Drawing attention to how students of color and low-income students experience higher rates of suspensions and expulsions than their peers nationwide, the organization released a report Monday (Nov. 20) analyzing Louisiana Education Department data on discipline among K-12 students in the state’s public schools from 2001 through 2014.
Although researchers say the data provides “new insights” into the origins of disparities, the study acknowledges it offers “an incomplete look” because researchers cannot observe whether behaviors that were tolerated for some groups of students were coded as infractions for other groups of students. Researchers usually cannot observe students’ true behaviors and can only analyze the records created by schools writing up students.
The study reviewed discipline infractions and corresponding punishments by race and free-or-reduced-price lunch eligibility, which was deemed a common measure of family income. Researchers also reviewed the punishments issued after interracial fights for “a credible check for the existence of direct discrimination in cases where students behave similarly.”
“It’s extremely difficult to assess whether discriminatory school practices contribute to disparities in suspension rates,” co-author Jon Valant of the Brookings Institution stated…
“By looking at interracial fights and controlling for students’ other background characteristics, we tried to isolate cases in which it would be hard to attribute gaps to explanations other than discriminatory practices. We see small but statistically significant gaps in how black and white students are punished,” he added…
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