A series of state laws meant to reduce the number of kids getting kicked out of school appears to have worked.But, they also seem to have magnified racial disparities in school discipline.
The good news is: Suspensions and expulsions in Illinois public schools are way down, ever since the legislature passed a series of reforms beginning in 2014. The bad news is: They haven’t fallen nearly as fast for black students as they have for whites.
Kalyn Belsha covers education for the Chicago Reporter, and she analyzed three years worth of discipline data from the State Board of Education.
“If you reduce the overall number, obviously black students are being suspended and expelled less often, but if when you compare them to their white classmates to see who gets suspended and expelled more, black students are being expelled at even more disproportionate rates than they were in the past.”
Belsha found that when discipline decreased, it decreased more for white students than black.
"I knew that nationally, when suspensions and expulsions start going down, that racial disparities often get worse. But I didn’t quite expect it to get as bad as it did for black students. For Hispanic students, the gap barely widened at all, but for black students, it was substantial.”
Before the new laws were passed in 2014, black students were only four-and-a-half times more likely to be disciplined than whites.
