Pubdate: Mon, 02 May 2005 Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (KY) Copyright: 2005 Lexington Herald-Leader Contact: http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/240 Author: Roger Guffey Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/racial.htm (Racial Issues) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?225 (Students - United States) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/women.htm (Women) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration) POVERTY, NOT RACE, CAUSE OF DISCIPLINE DISPARITY Like Explosives, Statistics Should Be Kept Out Of The Hands Of The Unqualified. Unfortunately, user-friendly statistical packages now let anyone take a data set and crunch a few numbers to reach a misleading and inflammatory conclusion. The user understands neither the difference between correlation and causation nor the critical distinctions between independent and dependent distributions that may account for the results. So it was when the Herald-Leader recently stirred the Fayette County schools' black-white disciplinary pot in an article about the Kentucky Center for School Safety's 2004 report and the so-called racial disparity in discipline rates. The report's obvious shortcoming is that it does not take repeat offenders into account. For instance, this school year the Lafayette High School staff has written 2,271 referrals to the office for offenses ranging from skipping class to fighting. The 157 students who accumulated five or more referrals accounted for 70 percent of the total, and the 103 repeaters who receive free or reduced lunch (the poverty indicator) accounted for 48 percent. Thus, 5.6 percent of the student body accounted for nearly 50 percent of all referrals. Sorting the data by race reveals a second flaw in the report: Minority students are disproportionately represented in the poverty category: 12 percent of whites, 66 percent of blacks and 91 percent of Latinos. Given this underlying mitigating factor, attributing differences in disciplinary rates to race is ludicrous. The real culprit is poverty. Of the repeat offenders, 30 whites, 42 blacks and 33 Hispanics were on free-reduced lunch, while 35 whites, 13 blacks, and four Hispanics were not. Within their respective peer groups, the percentage of poor white students referred to the office is about 4.5, the same percentage as poor black students. Any teacher can tell you that money will not fix the problem when students suffer a poverty of hope as much as poverty of finance. Children learn more than 90 percent of what they will ever know before first grade. They learn to talk and walk -- and they learn not to hope or dream. Today's breakdown of families, which forces women and children into poverty, can be traced to several factors: . Divorce and illegitimacy: In 1947, women headed 3,410,000 households in America. The number reached 12.9 million in 2000. As sociologists know, children in households headed by women suffer if for no other reason than women are paid less than men for the same work. Out-of-wedlock births climbed from 7.7 percent in 1965 to 33 percent in 1999. The 1999 rate for whites was 22 percent, with 69 percent for blacks and 44 percent for Hispanics. Children born out of wedlock are in poorer health overall, are more likely to fail a grade, are seven times more likely to be poor than their counterparts and are far more likely to marry in their teens and have children out of wedlock. . Drugs and incarceration: Patterns of drug abuse and incarceration mirror the family trends dramatically. The incarceration rate was fairly stable from 1925 to 1975, at about 110 prisoners per 100,000 population. Between 1975 and 2000, the rate jumped to 500 prisoners per 100,000. The overwhelming reason for this increase is drugs. The incarceration rate for black males is more than five times the rate for white males, greatly diminishing the chances of a successful two-parent black family. Even if parents who are drug users manage to avoid jail, their habits drive the family into poverty, often accompanied by abuse. . AIDS: This fatal disease and its devastating effects on families have exacerbated the other destructive forces. Even when AIDS does not kill its host quickly, the cost of medicine is so exorbitant that a family must choose between medication or food and clothes. In the black community, where AIDS is rampant, far too many children wind up in foster care and acquire the problems associated with having no permanency in their lives. All these sources of poverty are based on the narcissistic viewpoint expressed in the common parlance of the day: It's all about me. The sexually promiscuous, the drug user or pusher, the unfaithful spouse all think that their actions take place in a vacuum, that they don't affect anyone else. Today's poverty, unlike that at the turn of the last century, could be decreased if more people assumed responsibility for their actions. Isn't that what we are trying to teach children by applying discipline standards in school? That actions have consequences, and we will be held accountable when we break the rules? The behavior of children of any race won't improve until adults' behavior does. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin