To answer your question, no, they do not see the solution as suspending white kids for no reason just to make the numbers look less disproportionate. They see the solution as NOT suspending the black kids even when it’s merited. The thing about these numbers is that these are even with teachers and administrators being reluctant to suspend the black kids for fear of the blowback.
For 25 years, I have worked in public ed or in partnership with public ed. I have seen it with my own eyes. My sister taught public school for 20 years. My mom taught public school for 40+ years. I feel pretty comfortable in my opinion that has been based on all the above experience in this area.
Part of the discrepancy can be attributed to socio-economic conditions, for sure. Part of it can be attributed to parents’ education levels. Parents who faired well in school are more likely to instill the same in their children. However, neither of those are the biggest factor. The biggest factor here is the culture. Whereas white families instill a sense of remorse with their children when caught breaking rules, blacks are much more likely to teach (probably more “role model” than actually instruct) their kids to resist authority. We see this in interactions with law enforcement. Same thing here. There’s an element of “street cred” when blacks buck the system. BecAuse they’ve been told the system is inherently racist or oppressive and therefore to resist it is righteous. For example, both a white kid and black kid put a tack in a teacher’s chair. Once caught, the white kid will sob and say how sorry he is (even if that’s not the case) and how he needs to do better in making good decisions. A black kid may indicate no remorse and even heighten the tension by saying “f*ck that bitch anyway.” It’s easy to see how an administrator would view the remorse from the white kid (even if not real) versus the anger (maybe even justified) from the black kid and how those differences would play a part in the level of consequences.
As to the article, what a piece of trash that was. Why write an article if you’re too lazy to actually look into the reasons for each groups’ suspensions? Because they can insinuate that blacks are being treated unfairly when most likely, that’s not the case. From my experience, blacks suspensions are more likely to be for violent acts/threats whereas white kids are more likely to be suspended for cheating or other non-violent behavior. Neither are good but only one compromises the safety and the ability to learn for other students.
Author Colin Flaherty (RIP) examined this kind of stuff in his books titled “Don’t Make The Black Kids Angry” and “White Girl Bleed A Lot” if you want to learn more.
yeah, yeah, tl;dr