The Black Informant

Linking School Suspensions to …Poverty?

At least that is what Des Moines school board member Jonathan Narcisse believes as reported in the following article.

Hoover seen reflecting state in black student suspensions
By RACHAEL STERN • CO-EDITOR, HOOVER CHALLENGER

Statistics from the Iowa Department of Education released earlier this year told a story familiar to elected officials who are black: The Des Moines school district, like the state collectively, has a disproportionately high number of black student suspensions.

Hoover High School Principal Doug Wheeler wasn’t surprised by the reports, and said that the same trend is present at Hoover, one of five Des Moines high schools.

“I’m sure that our percentage of suspensions here is probably predominantly African-American. The one thing that needs to be considered is that one-fourth of our school is African-American,” Wheeler said. “That being said, I’m sure there’s still a disproportionate number of African-American suspensions.”

Des Moines school board member Jonathan Narcisse was among those immediately concerned by the outcome of the studies. Narcisse, who is black, said that high levels of poverty in Des Moines could be one of the causes of the high suspension number for black students, and said in an interview that 80 percent to 90 percent of students in the district live in poverty.

“The economic and social conditions facing African-Americans in Iowa are brutal and coming out of that brutality is a presence, a behavior, an interaction, an engagement in our schools that often leads to suspensions and expulsions,” Narcisse said, “particularly as it relates to the lack of safety and security many African-American children feel as they experience acts of bullying, acts of intimidation, acts of inter-community violence.”

Now check this out.

Narcisse gave a conflicting opinion of his views on poverty causing problems within the district in a Feb. 28 e-mail, in which he stated: “Poverty is not the reason we are failing so miserably as a district.”

In an interview, Narcisse said that he didn’t believe low income played a part in suspensions.

“If we’re saying that poor kids are more violent or disruptive, I don’t think you can draw that,” he said.

Narcisse also claimed a different statistic for students living in poverty in an article he posted online March 8 at www.accountabledesmoines education.com. It said that 60 percent of Des Moines students live in poverty.

[Link]

The article goes on to quote another school faculty member who not only believes in the poverty-suspension link, but goes on to add that two parents working in Black, low-income homes may not have the time to help their children with schoolwork.

I guess what tires me about that excuse (because that is what it is) is that the same explanation rarely applies to other races. Also, this explanation relies too heavily on the assumption that many of these kids are coming from a TWO-parented home.

Parents who really care about their kids will make the time to help them. That applies to everyone, regardless of economic status. This dumbing-down of poor Black people by linking bad behavior to poverty has got to stop.

The end of smart T.V.

Many years ago, before I was married I bought the anniversary collection of Schoolhouse Rock DVDs for nostalgic purposes. Right smack in the middle of watching my usual lineup of Saturday morning cartoons as a child, I fondly remember seeing these short educational clips of cartoons with a catchy tune that to this very day is still buried deep in my brain (perhaps part of a secret scientific government conspiracy?).

When Schoolhouse Rock became a thing of the past in my high school years, I remember taking a history test which asked me to write down the Preamble. After freaking out for a few minutes, my brain slowly began to recall the lyrics and tune of the Preamble song from Schoolhouse Rock:

Hey, do you know about the U.S.A.?
Do you know about the government?
Can you tell me about the Constitution?
Hey, learn about the U.S.A.

In 1787 I’m told
Our founding fathers did agree
To write a list of principles
For keepin’ people free.

The U.S.A. was just startin’ out.
A whole brand-new country.
And so our people spelled it out
The things that we should be.

And they put those principles down on paper and called it the Constitution, and it’s been helping us run our country ever since then. The first part of the Constitution is called the preamble and tells what those founding fathers set out to do.

We the people,
In order to form a more perfect union,
Establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,
Provide for the common defense,
Promote the general welfare and
Secure the blessings of liberty
To ourselves and our posterity
Do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America

Yes, I passed!

Miraculously, that same DVD set I bought years ago has survived and my kids are now in their second honeymoon with this collection. Unfortunately, some of the scratches made some of the clips impossible to watch, so I just paid the $12-13 and bought them a brand new copy the other day.

As your body grows bigger
Your mind grows flowered
It’s great to learn
Cause knowledge is power!

It’s Schoolhouse Rocky
That chip off the block
Of your favourite schoolhouse
Schoolhouse Rock!

Related link(s)

Schoolhouse Rock Lyrics
Schoolhouse Rock (home)

But you will make them feel bad if you tell the truth

Official apologizes for black student meeting on test scores
The Associated Press

RIO LINDA, Calif.—A Sacramento area school official has issued an apology after an elementary school principal summoned black students to a meeting to urge them to improve their test scores.

Gloria Hernandez, educational services director for the Rio Linda School District, said Friday that the district offered “sincere apologies to all students and families who were offended” by principal Jana Fields’ decision to convene a meeting of fourth, fifth and sixth grade black students to discuss their test scores.

One parent, Marie Townsend, says Fields should have met with all students, regardless of race, who were performing poorly on state tests rather than singling out blacks.

A meeting that Fields planned to have with Hispanic students to discuss their test scores has been canceled. (source)

=====

Apparently, this director was already planning on meeting with other students regarding their test scores. While it is very true that Black and Hispanic students have shown some improvement over the years, it is still very true that these groups still make up a significant percentage of low test scores. If we cannot even acknowledge that fact without the fear of being called out by the PC police, these kids are really being set up for disappointment in the future.

I remember the same thing happened in Colorado some time ago. Unfortunately I was unable to find the article.

I may have posted this next article a while back (Orig. published in 2006), but it is certainly worth mentioning again.

States omitting minorities’ test scores
By Nicole Ziegler Dizon, Ben Feller and Frank Bass, Associated Press Writers | April 18, 2006

Laquanya Agnew and Victoria Duncan share a desk, a love of reading and a passion for learning. But because of a loophole in the No Child Left Behind Act, one second-grader’s score in Tennessee counts more than the other’s. That is because Laquanya is black, and Victoria is white.

An Associated Press computer analysis has found Laquanya is among nearly 2 million children whose scores aren’t counted when it comes to meeting the law’s requirement that schools track how students of different races perform on standardized tests.

The AP found that states are helping public schools escape potential penalties by skirting that requirement. And minorities — who historically haven’t fared as well as whites in testing — make up the vast majority of students whose scores are excluded.

The Education Department said that while it is pleased that nearly 25 million students nationwide are now being tested regularly under the law, it is concerned that the AP found so many students aren’t being counted by schools in the required racial categories.

“Is it too many? You bet,” Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said in an interview. “Are there things we need to do to look at that, batten down the hatches, make sure those kids are part of the system? You bet.”

The plight of the two second-graders shows how a loophole in the law is allowing schools to count fewer minorities in required racial categories.

[…]

Overall, the AP found that about 1.9 million students — or about 1 in every 14 test scores — aren’t being counted under the law’s racial categories. Minorities are seven times as likely to have their scores excluded as whites, the analysis showed.

Less than 2 percent of white children’s scores aren’t being counted as a separate category. In contrast, Hispanics and blacks have roughly 10 percent of their scores excluded. More than one-third of Asian scores and nearly half of American Indian scores aren’t broken out, AP found. (more…)