A new study by a liberal “civil rights project” of data collected by the liberal Department of Education provides prima facie proof that the liberal National Education Association, the union representing most of the nation’s teachers, is racist.
Here are the stunning facts.
Nearly one in six African-American students was suspended from school during the 2009-10 academic year, more than three times the rate of their white peers. That compares with about one in 20 white students, researchers at the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, based at the University of California, Los Angeles, conclude. They use data collected from about half of all school districts in the nation for that year by the U.S. Department of Education’s office for civil rights.
But it gets worse.
For black children with disabilities, the rate was even higher: One in four such students was suspended at least once that year. In some districts, as many as one out of every two black students was suspended.
“These numbers show clear and consistent racial and ethnic disparities in suspensions across the country,” said John H. Jackson, the president of the Schott Foundation for Public Education, based in Cambridge, Mass., which supports equity in schooling for all students and efforts to improve outcomes for African-American boys. “We are not providing [these students] a fair and substantive opportunity to learn. Any entity not serious about addressing this becomes a co-conspirator in the demise of these children.”
So who is to blame here?
For practical purposes liberals have 100 percent control over public schools in America – between Barack Obama’s Department of Education and the NEA.
Who is it that is disproportionately suspending black kids for no good reason at these rates?
After all, isn’t this the kind of statistical evidence that liberals use to indict the private sector for racism and sexism?
Who is it that sends kids to the principal’s office for punishment? Teachers, most of whom belong to the NEA. Who is it that suspends the kids? Principals and administrators, most of whom once belonged to the NEA and now belong to its administrative association. Who is it that created the statist education bureaucracy and oversees it at the local, state and federal level? Liberals!
It would seem the show is now on the other foot. An institution that is a virtual creation of the “progressive” mindset has been caught red-handed, by their own standards of evidence, racially profiling and victimizing black kids.
I think I have the solution.
It’s time to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education and break up the NEA, first by removing its unique congressionally approved tax-exempt status.
By the way, guess which state has the worst record for suspensions of black students?
Illinois – the liberal state that gave us Barack Obama.
In fact, there’s almost a direct correlation between how liberal a state is and how disproportionately they suspend black and Hispanic students.
In the report, “Opportunities Suspended: The Disparate Impact of Disciplinary Exclusion From School,” the director of the Civil Rights Project’s Center for Civil Rights Remedies, Daniel J. Losen, and research associate Jonathan Gilliespie analyzed the 3 million suspensions reported to the Department of education as part of the biennial collection of civil rights data.
So what are they going to do with this data? What’s their recommendation? Do they agree with me that liberalism is 100 percent to blame for the racism so evident in these statistics?
Unfortunately, the authors of the study do not draw my conclusions. Instead, they suggest treating the problem, as liberals always do, with (surprise, surprise) more money, more education staff and more bureaucracy.
But I think what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. When police departments arrest and prosecute and incarcerate minorities at disproportionate rates, the federal government sues them. Why won’t the Department of Education sue states and school districts who suspend minorities at disproportionate rates?
The answer is obvious.
