Besides the basic oversight of subject-verb disagreement, didn’t anyone editing the story ask the obvious question?
But while black students make up just 5.9 percent of the student population, they were the subject of 12.7 percent of the discipline cases, up from 11.7 percent five years ago. White students, who were about 61 percent of the population, were the subject of 46.8 percent of discipline cases.
Latino students make up 28.4 percent of the population and were involved in 37 percent of discipline cases, another persistent gap.
The obvious question (at least to me) is: What do these numbers really prove? Not a whole lot, as far as I can see. It may be our society’s obsession with race. But, for example, how do the data correlate with socioeconomic data? Do poorer kids tend to get into more trouble? What other student characteristics correlate with bad behavior and discipline cases? What factors contribute to first offenses, or to repeat offenses?
The data would be meaningful if evidence also were offered that Colorado school administrators were applying discipline standards differently to students based on their racial identity with any sort of regularity. For example, are black and Hispanic students getting harsher punishments for the same infractions that their white counterparts commit?
But as it stands, readers have no idea how much of the discipline “gap” can be attributed to actual differences in behaviors versus inequitable treatment based on group identity.
Certainly, we should focus on bringing down theneedfor stronger measures of discipline across the board. Tough love, character education programs and the like have their place. And we can debate the merits of the “positive-behavior approach” discussed in thePoststory.
Yet in any case, both students and society at large would be better served with a greater emphasis on individual character and personal responsibility, and less on group identity and collective victimhood.
Let’s not lower the standards, nor apply them unfairly or improperly. Let’s communicate clear expectations — for academic performance as well as for behavior. Let’s address students as individuals with individual strengths and needs. Let’s push the doors of opportunity wide open. But let’s not navel gaze over pieces of data that by themselves tend to obscure rather than enlighten.
