Educators are doing something right inside our public school buildings. While it’s not often reported, indicators of disciplinary problems have been showing steady declines in recent decades, including for such serious infractions as gang activity, physical threats of violence, and weapons carried on school property. But it’s too early to start high-fiving. A new study further reveals that the overall picture is hiding disturbing and persistent inequities in how discipline is administered.
First, let’s look at what’s moving in the right direction:
Between 2000 and 2016, the percentage of public schools reporting at least weekly incidents of bullying fell from 29.3 to 11.9%. Over the same time period, schools also saw declines in student verbal abuse of teachers (12.5 to 4.8%); student to student sexual harassment (4.0 to 1.0%); and gang activity (18.7 to 10.4%).
Since 1993, the percentage of high school students who reported being in a physical fight at school decreased by half (16 to 8%); students who said they had carried a weapon (defined as a gun, knife or club) in school fell from 12 to 4%.
Schools are reporting fewer “serious disciplinary actions“ against students for fighting, insubordination, and possession or distribution of illegal drugs or weapons. In 2005-06, nearly half — 48.1% — of public schools had on at least one occasion removed a student for five days or more. That percentage dropped to 37.2% in 2015-16.
The number of students who have been subject to such disciplinary actions has fallen even more dramatically, from 3.9 million in 2005-06 to about 600,000 in 2015-16.
Unfortunately, not all students were equal beneficiaries of these improvements. The non-partisan U.S. Government Accountability Office examined how school discipline practices affect black students, boys, and students with disabilities compared to their classmates. Its report was developed at the request of Representatives Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and was released in March of this year.
The authors analyzed the most recent data (2013-14) from the Office of Civil Rights in order to compare the proportion of disciplinary actions received by different student groups compared to their representation in the overall student population. Here’s what they found:
The Department of Education’s (Education) Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) and postsecondary schools collect, use, and share a variety of information—including personally identifiable information (PII)—from students, their families, and others to support the administration of student aid. This information is used to make decisions about the eligibility of schools to participate in federal student aid programs, the processing of student applications and students’ eligibility to receive various types of aid, the disbursement of funds to aid recipients, and the repayment of loans and recovery of defaulted loan payments.
Education and FSA have established policies and procedures for managing and protecting student information that are aligned with applicable federal laws. However, shortcomings in key areas hinder the effectiveness of FSA’s procedures. For example, FSA established procedures and tools for managing and organizing records and scheduling them for disposition, but did not fully establish such procedures for electronic data, ensure that employees regularly received training, or conduct a required internal assessment of its records management program. Regarding the protection of student information, FSA did not consistently analyze privacy risks for its electronic information systems, and policies and procedures for protecting information systems were not always up to date. FSA’s shortcomings are consistent with the Education Inspector General’s identification of persistent weaknesses in the department’s information security policies, procedures, and controls. Recommendations to address these weaknesses are not yet fully implemented. Until FSA implements the recommendations, it increases the risk of improper disclosure of information contained in student aid records.
Based on a GAO survey of schools, the majority (an estimated 95 percent of all schools) of those participating in the federal student aid process reported having policies in place, including records retention and disposition policies. However, schools varied in the methods they used to store records, the retention periods for paper and electronic records, and the disposition control activities they employed (such as the authorization and approval process for destroying records).
FSA oversees schools’ participation in student aid programs, but this oversight does not extend to schools’ information security programs. To oversee schools’ compliance, FSA conducts reviews of schools’ student aid programs, based on a number of risk factors. However, it has not identified implementation of information security programs as a factor to consider in selecting schools for program reviews, even though schools have reported serious data breaches. GAO’s review of selected schools’ policies found that schools did not always include required information security elements, such as assessing risks or designing and implementing safeguards. Moreover, Education’s implementing regulations do not require schools to demonstrate their ability to protect student information as a condition for participating in federal aid programs. This raises concerns about FSA’s oversight and how effectively schools are protecting student aid information. Until Education ensures that information security requirements are considered in program reviews of schools, FSA will lack assurance that schools have effective information security programs.
Why GAO Did This Study
FSA oversees the award of billions of dollars in federal student aid to eligible students each year. The processing of student aid requires FSA, along with participating schools, to perform a range of functions across the student aid life cycle, including the management of PII on students and their families.
GAO was asked to examine how FSA and schools manage federal student aid records. The objectives of this study were to: (1) describe how FSA and schools use information they collect to manage the federal student aid program, (2) determine the extent to which FSA policies and procedures for managing and protecting this information align with federal requirements, (3) describe the extent to which schools have established policies and procedures for managing student aid information, and (4) determine the extent to which FSA ensures that schools protect this information. To do this, GAO reviewed Education and FSA policies and interviewed agency officials. GAO also administered a survey to a stratified random sample of 560 schools that is generalizable to the population of about 6,200 schools.
What GAO Recommends
GAO recommends that FSA take seven actions to strengthen its management and protection of federal student aid records and enhance its oversight of schools. FSA concurred or generally concurred with five of GAO’s recommendations, partially concurred with another, and did not concur with another. GAO believes all of the recommendations as discussed in the report are warranted.
For more information, contact Nick Marinos at (202) 512-9342 or marinosn@gao.gov.
By Rushern Baker (County Executive, Prince Georges County, Md.)
On November 4, 1952, Dr. Helen Kenyon addressed the Women’s Society of Riverside Church in New York City and opined that, “Eleven o’clock Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. often paraphrased the quote.
Today, sadly, our public schools best reflect Dr. Kenyon’s and Dr. King’s sentiment as the most segregated place in America.
The rampant re-segregation of American public schools poses a greater threat to the trajectory of America’s progress than terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and Russian meddling in our elections. Sixty-two years after Brown v. Board, the GAO (Government Accountability Office) reported that from the years 2000-2014, both the percentage of K-12 public schools in high-poverty and the percentage of African American and Hispanic students enrolled in public schools more than doubled, and the percentage of all schools with so-called racial or socioeconomic isolation grew from 9 percent to 16 percent.
Research shows that racial and socioeconomic diversity in our classrooms leads to higher than average test scores, greater college enrollment rates, and the narrowing of achievement gaps. These gains don’t just apply to poor and minority children either—every student benefits from learning and engaging with peers from different backgrounds. Despite the evidence, today our public schools are more segregated than they were 40 years ago.
As an advocate for children and families, and as a public servant, who has fought for more resources for students, I believe we must act boldly to save free, high-quality public education for all.
Some of the very leaders tasked with solving the negative effects from school re-segregation offer shortsighted policies that exacerbate racial and economic divisions. The ripple-effect, consequences of their misguided thinking remains the greatest policy foible of the modern era. Lazy logic behind bad policy feeds a perception that that the achievement gap exists simply, because poor and minority students learn differently than their wealthier, White peers. Rather, it is directly tied to declining enrollment, lower property values, and the dwindling resources available to tackle mounting challenges in the communities that surround underperforming public schools.
The greatest irony remains that those promoting harmful education policies use the same language of “giving every child a chance at a high-quality education” to pitch their tax-dollar-poaching and resource-pilfering experiments to desperate parents.
Rather than making public education a number one priority, a Hunger-Games-like competition for vouchers and charter schools leaves parents and students fending for themselves. The families that lose the education lottery end up at schools with increased needs and declining resources. In Maryland, our Governor’s BOOST voucher program set aside $5 million dollars of public money to help 2,400 families pay for their child’s education. Yet, 80 percent of the families receiving these grants had children who were already enrolled in private schools.
Vouchers, whose American roots can be traced back to some Southern states’ attempts to avoid integration, perpetuate segregated education and are nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt to cut off funds to public schools. It gets even worse. Some communities have simply seceded from the larger school district, as we’ve seen in Alabama and Tennessee, to keep from integrating their schools. Since 2000, the U.S. Justice Department has released 250 communities from their desegregation orders and consequently facilitated their financial and administrative secession from their school districts.
After all those factors lead to a dip in school performance, students and their communities are stigmatized as “failing.” Schools close. Quality of life drops; economic prospects dwindle; public safety decreases; and the cycle repeats, so that higher needs populations receive even fewer resources.
I know. I’ve lived through it. It’s time to back up the big talk of “opportunity for all” with policies that don’t ask parents to compete for a few spots, but instead, make public dollars work for every child.
We’ve embraced this mission in my home of Prince George’s County, Maryland where I serve as County Executive. Though we know our best days are to come, we’ve seen incredible progress: increased enrollment; higher graduation rates; an increase in innovative academic programs; and more students receiving college scholarships.
The debate over how we improve public education can’t begin with state-funded segregation, which harms communities and students, especially our most vulnerable. Let’s secure our children’s futures and the future of America by making a meaningful investment in quality public schools for all.
Rushern Baker, a graduate of Howard University, is the county executive in Prince George’s County, Maryland. You can follow him on Twitter at @CountyExecBaker.
With just a handful of weeks left in this presidential administration, the U.S. Department of Education released a final rule Monday that could have a major impact on how districts spend their federal special education money.
The department’s regulation creates a standard approach that states must use in determining if their districts are over-enrolling minority students in special education compared to their peers of other races. If the disparities are large enough, districts are required to use 15 percent of their federal allotment under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act on “coordinated, early intervening services” aimed at addressing the issue.
The new rule also requires states to use a standard approach to determine whether minority special education students are in segregated settings more than peers of other races, or if they face more suspensions and expulsions than their peers. Disparities in those areas would also trigger the requirement to use federal money to fix the problem. Though the 15 percent set-aside is for what the law calls “early intervening” services, districts could use that money for students from age 3 through 12th grade, the regulations state.
The requirement will go into effect no later than the 2018-19 school year…
On Tuesday, the House education committee will hold a hearing on how the Every Student Succeeds Act is unfolding in states and districts. On this general issue, much of the focus (rightly) has been on how Republicans like Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the Senate education committee chairman, are reacting to what U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her team are doing on ESSA oversight. Importantly, Alexander isn’t happy, and says the department seems to be ignoring the law.
And a GOP aide said Monday that Rep. Virginia Foxx., R-N.C., the chairwoman of the House committee, has put DeVos’ department “on notice” about concerns lawmakers have as far as federal feedback to states’ plans. “Department of Education overreach will play a role in the hearing, not just [coming] from the chairwoman but from other members,” the GOP aide said…
By Rep. Bradley Byrne,who is in his second full term representing Alabama’s First Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. A Fairhope resident, he serves on the House Education and the Workforce, Armed Services, and Rules committees.
Much has been made recently about the new Secretary of Education, Besty DeVos, and the future of our nation’s education system. As a lifelong education reform advocate, I welcome the focus on education and the conversation about ways to improve educational opportunities for our students.
Education reform has been a key component of my career in public service. I served on the Alabama State School Board for eight years and later served as chancellor of Alabama’s two-year college system. In Congress, I am the only member from Alabama on the House Education and the Workforce Committee.
In each of these roles, I have had opportunities to visit with the teachers, support staff, and administrators that keep our schools running. I always leave these visits with a greater appreciation for the work our teachers do and the challenges they face day in and day out.
As such, I have concerns with the perception that the focus on education in America is moving away from public schools. The reality is that the overwhelming majority of students in Alabama and across the United States are in public schools. That fact is very unlikely to change.
To be clear, I support school choice efforts and remain open to finding ways to give students greater opportunities to escape failing schools. That said, we cannot lose sight of the most important responsibility when it comes to education in America: supporting public education.
My top priority when it comes to public education is to get the federal government out of the way so our teachers, administrators, and school board members can do their jobs. The heavy hand of the federal government only seems to complicate matters and takes the focus away from educating students.
For example, only about 10 percent of the funding for K-12 education is from the federal government. Yet, the Government Accountability Office found that 41 percent of the paperwork comes from the federal level. These numbers highlight the fact that Washington does more harm than good when it comes to education.
Time spent filling out paperwork and complying with federal mandates is time a teacher cannot spend working with at-risk students or planning future lessons. Sadly, many times a large chunk of the federal money is also caught up in bureaucracy and never even reaches the classroom.
In December of 2015, Congress passed, and the President signed, the Every Student Succeeds Act. This bill replaced No Child Left Behind and paved the way toward greater state and local control over education. The Wall Street Journal called this bill “the largest devolution of federal control to the states in a quarter-century.”
The Every Student Succeeds Act is an example of how Washington should work. After numerous hearings and debates, we arrived at a truly bipartisan bill that brought Republicans and Democrats together around a bill designed to get Washington bureaucrats out of our classrooms.
The focus now turns to the implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act. Congress must work closely with the Department of Education to ensure the law is working and the burden is being lifted off our local public schools. Teachers deserve and need the flexibility to innovate and try new methods instead of being stuck in the failed, Washington-knows-best system.
So, as the public debate over school choice and charter schools continues, I want to ensure you that my top focus remains on improving public education in our country.
Ultimately, a strong, vibrant public education system is vital to our economic success and the health of our democracy.
Educators are doing something right inside our public school buildings. While it’s not often reported, indicators of disciplinary problems have been showing steady declines in recent decades, including for such serious infractions as gang activity, physical threats of violence, and weapons carried on school property. But it’s too early to start high-fiving. A new study further reveals that the overall picture is hiding disturbing and persistent inequities in how discipline is administered.
By Rushern Baker (County Executive, Prince Georges County, Md.)
