(Rolling Out) — African Americans have traditionally valued and reinforced the importance of education, but recent generations serve to show the opposite. Not to abrogate personal responsibility for the lack of many African Americans noting the significance of reading and math, or even having a semblance of comprehension of the economic crisis confronting the nation, the reality is that young African American males are disproportionately the target of systematic forms of exclusion. The state of Texas provides a prime example of this and is a general reflection of practices prevalent across the nation.  The Council of States Government Justice Center just released a report on outcomes of disciplinary procedures in the school systems across the state of Texas.

Read More…

(Rolling Out) —  The six-year study looked at the effect of zero tolerance policies in Texas public schools and found:

• One million students were suspended or expelled, and those students who were disciplined this way were also more likely to drop out or have to repeat a grade.
• 83 percent of black males had at least one disciplinary action on their record which ended with them being removed from school compared to 59 percent of white males. 70 percent of black female students and 37 percent of white female students had been disciplined. ( White females were often not disciplined for identical offenses committed by black females.)

Read More…