Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Blog

The Opportunity Gap: Racism in Education

By Julie Landsman

Instead of looking at the difference in test scores between white students and African-American and Latino students as part of an achievement gap, how about thinking about it as a reflection of an opportunity gap. It seems to me that all students are entitled to an opportunity to have an education that reflects their lives and cultures, their literature and history. Everyone has a story. Everyone has their own rituals, their own world-view. If students do not feel visible, if they are not reflected in the curriculum, on the walls, in the media centers, in the visitors who come to speak to them, then they are not receiving the same opportunity to learn as white students, who still find their lives visible in the texts and lessons taught by an overwhelmingly white teaching force.

Combining the unwelcoming, and discouraging effect of a classroom that excludes them, with the lack of resources many students of color possess given our history of racism and its connection to present day poverty, there must be no question that many students of color today are working without the same opportunities as many white students. To compare test scores of a young man with a family computer at home, a college education provided for by his parents, a school with a full science lab and many AP courses, a building that is clean and safe and with teachers who look like him, to those of a young man who goes to school in a building with no computer lab, few books in the media center, (if there is a media center) and class sizes of over 40 students per hour, is a false comparison. Combining racism and poverty, it seems self-evident, that the problem is not in the child, but rather in the system that perpetuates the lack of opportunity many urban students of color experience.

I believe every student must have the opportunity to attend a school where she sees herself everywhere in the building and in the readings and in the high expectations of demanding classes and firm teachers. In order to close the gap white teachers need to begin by thinking of each of these children as their own child, not as someone else’s child, and thus seeing each of their students as someone who has the same brilliant potential to achieve as their own.

In order to close the real gap, gifted programs. AP and IB classes must reflect the population of each school system and not continue to be white enclaves. Such a move would go long way to eliminating the re-segregation of students once they are enter the school room door. Each student, white, black, poor, rich, middle class, must have the opportunity for small class sizes, resources, textbooks, science equipment, in order to provide comparable opportunities for all students. When we can put the onus of the problem on the system that continues to disenfranchise students of color through institutional racism and economic disparity instead of on the low test scores of the children, then we will be one step closer to closing the real gap in education—the opportunity gap.

Julie Landsman is a retired public school teacher and consultant on multicultural education and building inclusive classrooms and is the author Growing Up White: A Veteran Teacher Reflects on Racism.

Racial Disparity in Discipline Contributes To Drop-Out Problem

By Martha R. Bireda, Ph.D.

The recent report labeling many American high schools as “dropout factories” is troubling indeed.  According to Johns Hopkins University researchers, of one in 10 high schools across the nation, no more than 60 percent of students who start as freshmen receive a diploma four years later (Balfanz and Legters, 2004). Not surprisingly, schools in large cities, high-poverty rural areas, and those with high proportions of minority students are most represented as “dropout factories”. As we react and rush to find solutions to the dropout problem, the way that discipline is meted out cannot be overlooked as a possible cause.   A common reason that students give for dropping out is that they had been suspended or expelled. The excessive and often unwarranted suspensions and expulsions of minority students, especially African American males must be examined if we are seriously seeking solutions to the dropout problem.

National studies (The Advancement Project, 2000; the Civil Rights  Project 2000), found that: Black and Latino students were more likely to be referred for disciplinary action; to be disciplined for minor conduct; and to receive punishments disproportionate to their conduct. In addition, zero tolerance policies are more likely to exist in predominately Black and Latino school districts.  It appears that Black students, especially males, fare worse than any other group in our schools when it comes to discipline issues. Black students, though they make up only 17 percent of the enrollment nationally, are 32 percent of the out-of-school suspensions and Black males are disciplined more often and more severely than any other group( The Office of Civil Rights, 2001; The Advancement Project, 2000; the Civil Rights Project, 2000).

Efforts to stem the tide of increasing dropout rates fly in the face of racial disparities in discipline. Evidence shows that students who are repeatedly suspended from school suffer academically and are more likely to drop-out (Dupper, 1997). African American and Hispanic students, in many cases already performing poorly become trapped in a suspension-failure cycle that almost certainly guarantees their non-completion. These students, already behind academically, are punished by being deprived of instruction while suspended. This denial of much needed instruction predisposed African American and Hispanic students to further academic underachievement.  As a result, the students who need school most are pushed away (Noguera, 2003; Fultz, 2002).

According to Deridder (1990), suspension places all of the blame on the student, with the school rarely evaluating whether it has served all of the emotional or academic needs of the student.  Eliminating Racial Profiling In School Discipline: Cultures In Conflict is one of the first books that addresses the school-related factors that contribute to the racial disparities in discipline that ultimately lead to large numbers of African American and Hispanic students dropping out.

In Eliminating Racial Profiling In School Discipline: Cultures In Conflict, I examine the two school-related factors in particular that contribute to disparities in discipline.  The first factor is lack of knowledge, understanding, and sensitivity to the culture of African American and Hispanic students.  The second school-related factor that negatively affects African American students, especially male students, is the set of faulty assumptions and negative expectations for the academic performance and behavior of African American students.

A lack of understanding regarding the culture, especially a lack of sensitivity to the communication styles of African American students, i.e., eye contact, distance, physical contact etc., can create physical tension between the teacher and student and lead to discipline problems. This lack of understanding and sensitivity is significant in escalating incidents between teacher and student.

Although the lack of knowledge and understanding the culture of African American male students places them at risk of disciplinary actions, the problems that they experience in the school setting are equally the result of faulty assumptions and erroneous beliefs based upon historical myths and stereotypes. These myths and stereotypes generate fear and the need to exercise absolute control in the minds of many teachers, especially non-African American female teachers, and create a vicious cycle from which African American male students in particular cannot escape.

In Eliminating Racial Profiling In School Discipline: Cultures In Conflict, I discuss the ten consequences i.e., unrealistic expectations, faulty assumptions, “behavior tracking”, leading behaviors, etc, that result from cultural conflicts and stereotyping in the classroom. Eliminating school-related factors that place African American and Hispanic students at greater risk for disciplinary referrals and sanctions requires that fundamental and significant changes occur in the school culture and environment. Two types of changes on two different levels must take place: changes related to culturally responsive and culturally responsible actions must occur at both the institutional and individual level.

I offer suggestions and provide steps for administrators to change the school climate and for teachers to develop effective communication and relationships with students. Any efforts to reduce the dropout problem must necessarily involve addressing the issue of racial disparity in discipline. This book provides a guide for addressing this issue and to creating a culturally sensitive and responsive school environment, which will ensure student retention.

Martha R. Bireda, Ph.D. is an educational consultant who specializes in racial disparity in discipline and achievement gap issues. She conducts workshops for school administrators related to the topics.

On School Violence

By Elizabeth Berger, M.D., author of Raising Kids with Character

Headlines reporting school violence strike fear into parents and all of our citizens—as well they should. It cannot reassure us to hear that the dramatic assaults which reach national media significance represent the tip of the iceberg, signaling much more pervasive and commonplace problems in our nation’s schools. To respond appropriately to school violence demands that we analyze not only the bizarre and infamous incidents which draw our attention on the news, but also the everyday threats to our children’s safety that give rise to them.

Like most social problems (divorce, drug abuse, crime), school violence has several aspects and a comprehensive approach to solving it will require action on many fronts at once. Perhaps most immediately urgent is the easy availability of guns in our communities. Americans have much higher rates of homicide and suicide BY FIREARMS than other industrialized nations—but the same rates by other means. If we wish to slash these terrible statistics, the most effective means would be to rid ourselves of guns. 

Schools themselves, meanwhile, may gain some traction on the pervasive problem of weapons in the schoolyard through metal detectors, police presence, the installation of alarms, and other measures to “secure” an insecure population. These stop-gap measures may help somewhat. The emotional health of our students is another important and neglected opportunity for intervention, through programs which identify and respond to youngsters presenting academic failure, drug and alcohol use, gang participation, bullying, and other personal crises. To accomplish this, the active involvement of families, youth development agencies, local police, health care providers, religious organizations, and other community structures will be the key to constructive change. 

It is not the make-believe violence in children’s fantasy and amusements (comic books, videos, and television) that inspires violence in schools but the real violence that saturates our actual lives. This is the “bad influence” which we must address. We will see our young people protected from harm only when we truly dedicate ourselves to providing nonviolent solutions to eternal human conflicts which are currently reflected in domestic battery, community assaults, and warfare. This is a more daunting challenge than scanning the lyrics to popular songs and denouncing their author, to be sure, but far closer to the heart of our mission as adults if our genuine aim is to provide a safe and wholesome world for the next generation.

Dr. Elizabeth Berger is a child psychiatrist with thirty years' experience treating children and addressing the needs of families as a policy-advocate.

Aggression in Children: Sealing Off the Fountain

By David A. Crenshaw, Ph.D., ABPP, RPT-S

 

One of the most poignant metaphors for understanding extremely aggressive children comes not from the field of psychology but from literature. C.S. Lewis in his book, The Four Loves (1965) uses this metaphor in an entirely different context but I find it succinctly captures the heart of the pain of many aggressive children. Lewis states, “they seal off the very fountain from which they thirst to drink” (p.65). How sad, how true this is for children who adopt the strategy of keeping others at a distance by their aggressive behavior, thereby protecting from further hurt but “sealing off the very fountain from which they thirst to drink.” They ensure their isolation, their disconnection, thus depriving themselves of what makes life endurable—meaningful closeness with others. James Garbarino (1999) in the Lost Boys observes that so often we do not get close enough to notice the “traumatized child within.” Bruce Perry (2006) observes in his book, The Boy Who was Raised as Dog, that “by conservative estimates, about 40 percent of American children will have at least one potentially traumatizing experience by age eighteen: this includes the death of a parent or a sibling, ongoing physical abuse and/or neglect, sexual abuse, or the experience of a serious accident, natural disaster or domestic violence or other violent crime” (pp. 2-3). Kenneth Hardy and Tracy Laszloffy (2005) in Teens Who Hurt discuss the “invisible wounds” and profound losses aggressive and sometimes violent teens suffer. While violence is never a solution, we must appreciate the complex dimensions to these problems if we wish to address adequately the issue of youth aggression.

Sometimes we don’t see the “traumatized child within”, “the invisible wounds” or the “fawn in the gorilla suit” because we become inducted as parents, teachers, and therapists in the overly punitive climate that permeates our culture. The German poet and philosopher Goethe once said, “We see in the world, what we carry in our heart.” How is it that we don’t notice the inner pain that drives the acting-out behavior of our children? The notion that more punitive approaches, harsher punishment, and longer periods of incarceration will resolve the problem of youth violence ignores the reality pointed out by Anna Freud more than 60 years ago that these approaches are hardly novel. When these children are already broken down in spirit does it make sense to subject them to even harsher and more punitive correctional methods? As Kenneth V. Hardy, Director of the Eikenberg Institute for Relationships in New York City, has stated, “Children need less correction, and more connection. They need less confrontation, and more validation.” Raffi Cavoukian (Cavoukian & Olfman, 2006) writes, “Children who feel seen, loved, and honored are far more able to become loving parents and productive citizens. Children who do not feel valued are disproportionately represented on welfare roles and police records. Much of the criminal justice system deals with the results of childhood wounding (the vast majority of sexual offenders, for example, were themselves violated as children), and much of the social service sector represents an attempt to rectify or moderate this damage, which comes at an enormous cost to society. Most of the correctional work is too little, too late” (pp. xi-xx).

One of the most effective ways to validate children is to recognize and honor what they have to give, to highlight their strengths and talents, to find in them what Robert Brooks describes as “islands of competence” and to build on them. In support of Hardy’s and Brook’s views, sociologist Roger Curry (2004) in his book The Road to Whatever, reported on his interviews with today’s youth. He discovered that a crucial turning point in the lives of these young people was learning or relearning how to care about themselves—to view themselves as people who mattered. Clearly, these turning points are facilitated when “charismatic adults” (a term coined by the late Dr. Julius Segal) are available to the adolescents (Brooks and Goldstein, 2004). Brooks and Goldstein explain that a charismatic adult “is an adult from whom a child can gather strength.” In studies of resilience, the presence of at least one charismatic adult is one of the key factors enabling youth to overcome adversity in their lives.

While our culture is oriented toward punishment and correctional approaches, the research consistently shows that it is meaningful connections between youth and the key adults in their lives that enable young people to turn their lives around in a positive way. In the absence of healing relationships with committed adults today’s lonely and alienated youth will continue in their desperate attempts to protect from further hurt, to “seal off the very fountain from which they thirst to drink.”

References:

Brooks, R. and Goldstein, S. (2004). Raising resilient children: Fostering strength, hope, and optimism in your child. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Cavoukian, R. & Olfman, S. (2006). Child honoring: How to turn this world around. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Currie, E. (2004). The road to whatever: Middle-Class culture and the crisis of adolescence. New York: Metropolitan Books.

Garbarino, J. (1999). Lost boys: Why our sons turn violent and how we can save them. New York: Anchor Books, A Division of Random House.

Hardy, K. V., & Laszloffy, T. (2005). Teens who hurt: Clinical interventions to break the cycle of adolescent violence. New York: Guilford Press.

Lewis, C. S. (1960). The four loves. New York: Harcourt Brace.

Perry, B. D. (with Szalavitz, M.). (2006). The boy who was raised as a dog and other stories from a child psychiatrist’s notebook: What traumatized children can teach us about loss, love, and healing. New York: Basic Books.

David A. Crenshaw, Ph.D., ABPP is the founding director of Rhinebeck and Child Family Center, LLC, in Rhinebeck, New York. He is Board Certified in Clinical Psychology and a Registered Play Therapist Supervisor. He is the author of Bereavement, Evocative Strategies in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy and a forthcoming book, Healing Paths to a Child's Soul. Additionally, he is co-author with John Mordock, Ph.D. of A Handbook of Play Therapy with Aggressive Children and Understanding and Treating the Aggression of Children: Fawns in Gorilla Suits, both published by Jason Aronson Publishers.