These Are The States That Suspend Students At The Highest Rates
Schools in the Sunshine State may not rank at the top as far as SAT scores or high school graduation rates, but they did suspend students at the highest rate in the country during the 2011-2012 school year, according to a report released Monday by UCLA's Center for Civil Rights Remedies.
Using the latest data from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, the report and an accompanying research tool analyzes which states and school districts handed out the most out-of-school suspensions and whom these suspensions most affected.
Overall, while suspension rates for black, white and Latino students were similar in 2011-2012 to suspension rates in the early and mid-2000s, they were still significantly higher than they were in the early 1970s, when the federal government began collecting such data. Black students, Latino students and students with disabilities are still significantly more likely to face this type of punishment.
"The question we're asking here is, 'Are we closing the school discipline gap?'" Daniel J. Losen, the director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies, said in a press release. "For the first time, we can answer that question in a really meaningful way. And the answer is, 'A lot of school districts are closing the gap in a profound way, but not enough to swing the national numbers.'"
Florida posted the highest suspension rate in the country for elementary and secondary school students. At the elementary school level, Florida suspended 5.1 percent of young students overall, as shown in the map below. The average national suspension rate for elementary school students, on the other hand, was only 2.6 percent, according to the report. Notably, state-level data were not presented for New York and Hawaii because of errors in how data was reported by school districts in the states.
Florida suspended 19 percent of its secondary school students -- a category that includes middle, junior high and high schoolers -- during this time period. Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina suspended 16 percent of those students. North Dakota, at the opposite end of the spectrum, suspended only 3 percent of its secondary school students.
School suspensions put students at greater risk for dropping out and contribute to the so-called school-to-prison pipeline, which pushes students away from school and into the criminal justice system, research shows. Representatives for the Florida Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment regarding the state's high suspension rates.
Racial disparities in suspension were especially present in Missouri -- a trend that is notable given recent, racially charged protests in the state. At the elementary school level, Missouri had the highest gap in school suspension rates between black and white students. At the middle school, junior high and high school level, Missouri landed in the top five in terms of suspension disparities.
Two of the 10 school districts with the highest secondary school suspension rates in the country were located in the greater Ferguson, Missouri area, including the school district attended by black teen Michael Brown. At age 18, Brown was fatally shot by white Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson in August. His death set off weeks of unrest in the area.
"The Normandy school district in Missouri, where Michael Brown attended, is among the highest suspending districts in the entire nation with an overall suspension rate These Are The States That Suspend Students At The Highest Rates:
