Friday, March 21, 2014
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
Even preschoolers are getting suspended from U.S. public schools — and they’re disproportionately black, a trend that continues up through the later grades.
Data to be released today by the Education Department’s civil-rights arm finds that black children represent about 18 percent of children enrolled in preschool programs in schools, but almost half of the students suspended more than once. Six percent of the nation’s districts with preschools reported suspending at least one preschool child.
Advocates have long said that get-tough suspension and arrest policies in schools have contributed to a “school-to-prison” pipeline that snags minority students, but much of the emphasis has been on middle school and high school policies. This data show the disparities starting in the youngest of children.
Overall, the data show that black students of all ages are suspended and expelled at a rate that’s three times higher than that of white children. Even as boys receive more than two-thirds of suspensions, black girls are suspended at higher rates than girls of any other race or most boys.