Where Does Disproportionality in Discipline Statistics Come From?
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses the complex origins of racial disproportionality in school discipline data, distinguishing between bias and upstream inequality.
Key Takeaways
- Both bias and inequality play a role - Disproportionality comes from both systemic bias in discipline decisions and upstream inequalities in student experiences
- It's not all one thing - Attributing all disproportionality to teacher bias ignores the broader societal factors that affect student behavior
- Address both causes - Reducing bias and addressing upstream inequality are both necessary for equitable discipline
Transcript
Where does disproportionality in school discipline statistics come from?
There are two sources, and we have to understand the specific contribution of each of those sources if we want to eliminate disproportionality.
And those two sources are bias and inequality.
Now, bias is, of course, the one that we focus on the most in education because it's the one that happens inside of education, and it's the one that we can eliminate.
And if you read this report from the Department of Education that I've mentioned before, a resource on confronting racial discrimination in student discipline, you can read lots of case studies of districts that did get caught or detect bias in their policies and in their application of those policies.
So that is absolutely one source of disproportionality in discipline statistics.
If, you know, to whatever extent bias is present, it needs to be eliminated and it can be eliminated.
But even after you eliminate bias that happens within education, you're still going to have disproportionality in your discipline statistics.
And this is very troubling to us and very awkward and very difficult to think and talk about.
So I wanted to talk a little bit about exactly where this remaining contribution to disproportionality comes from.
And I think the answer is basically everywhere, but it can be boiled down to the idea of inequality.
We live in a profoundly unequal society in virtually every measurable way, right?
If we measure income, wealth, higher education, housing, access to nutrition, access to prenatal care, lead exposure, like anything you can measure, our society is unequal on that basis.
And of course, all of those inequalities have consequences.
It's not just statistical.
It's not just, oh, according to this data, you know, something is unequal.
Like all of those inequalities have real consequences, especially on students' education.
And one of those manifestations is around behavior.
We see the result of societal inequality in our discipline statistics.
And that bothers us.
And we try to take responsibility for it.
But because it is the result of upstream inequalities, things that happen outside of school, this is not something we can fix inside of school.
We can fix the bias part.
We can fix unfair policies and unfair applications of those policies on the part of educators.
But we cannot fix lead exposure.
We cannot fix housing discrimination.
We cannot fix income inequality.
There are so many things that we cannot fix within schools because they don't originate within schools.
What do we do if we want to eliminate that remaining disproportionality?
Well, I think we have to look...
at where that inequality is coming from and eliminate it at the source, not try to fix it at the last minute.
You know, if you have inequality in your test scores, it doesn't do any good to just say, well, we're not going to look at the test scores because they tell us something we don't want to hear.
They're measuring something that really exists, and it is an upstream inequality.
So let me know what you think about this.
Let me know what questions you have about upstream inequality and disproportionality.