Evansville, Indiana Disparities
(May 4,28, 2019)
Prefatory note: This is one of the many pages on this site discussing that, contrary to the belief promoted by the Departments of Education, Justice, and Health and Human Services (as well as the social science community) that generally reducing discipline rates will tend to reduce relative racial and other demographic differences in discipline rates, generally reducing discipline rates tend to increase such differences. This page is similar to the following subpages of the Discipline Disparities page on this site, which discuss like situations where (in the jurisdictions indicated in the titles of the subpages) general reductions in discipline rates were in fact accompanied by increased relative racial/ethnic differences in discipline rates: California Disparities, Colorado Disparities, Connecticut Disparities, Florida Disparities, Illinois Disparities, Maryland Disparities, Massachusetts Disparities, Minnesota Disparities, North Carolina Disparities, Oregon Disparities, Rhode Island Disparities, Utah Disparities, Virginia Disparities, Allegheny County (PA) Disparities, Aurora (CO) Disparities, Beaverton (OR) Disparities, Denver Disparities, Henrico County (VA) Disparities, Kern County (CA) Disparities, Los Angeles SWPBS, Loudoun County (VA) Disparities, Milwaukee Disparities, Minneapolis Disparities, Montgomery County (MD) Disparities, Oakland (CA) Disparities, Portland (OR) Disparities, St. Paul Disparities, South Bend Disparities, Urbana (IL) Disparities. Some of the subpages may provide substantial detail, while others simply present statements describing the situations. See also my “Discipline disparities in Md. Schools,” Daily Record (June 21, 2018), which discusses a study showing that general reductions in suspension in Maryland schools between the 2008-09 and 2013-14 school years had been accompanied by an increase in the ratio of the statewide black suspension rate to the statewide white suspension rate, and that, during that period, 20 of the 23 Maryland school districts for which data on black and overall suspension rate reductions could be analyzed there occurred an increase in the ratio of the black suspension rate to suspension rate for other students.
Other useful related readings regarding the pervasive misunderstanding of this issue include my December 8, 2017 testimony explaining the issue to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, my letters explaining the issue to the United States Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice (July 17, 2017), Comptroller General of the United States (Apr. 12, 2018), Minnesota Department of Human Rights (May 14, 2018), and Maryland State Department of Education (June 26, 2018), as well as my “Misunderstanding of Statistics Leads to Misguided Law Enforcement Policies,” Amstat News (Dec. 2012), “The Paradox of Lowering Standards,” Baltimore Sun (Aug. 5, 2013), “Innumeracy at the Department of Education and the Congressional Committees Overseeing It,” Federalist Society Blog (Aug. 24, 2017), “The Pernicious Misunderstanding of Effects or Policies on Racial Differences in Criminal Justice Outcomes,” Federalist Society Blog (Oct. 12, 2017).
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In September 2018, the Evansville, Indiana Commission on the Social Status of African American males issued a report regarding racial disproportionality in school suspensions in the Evansville Vandenburgh School Corporation. Tables at pages 9-10 of the report showed that in the 2014-15 school year the suspension rates were 38% for blacks and 9% for whites and in the 2015-19 school years the rates were 33% for blacks and 7% for whites. Thus, there occurred the usual pattern observed when suspensions generally decline. The ratio of the black rate to the white rate increased from 4.22 to 4.71, while the ratio of the white rate of avoiding suspensions to the black rate of avoiding suspension decreased from 1.46 (91%/62%) to 1.38 (93%/67%). The EES (probit d') value (see “Race and Mortality Revisited,” Society (July/Aug. 2014))
remained essentially unchanged (1.0352 in the first year compared with 1.0359 in the second year.
The report also stated (at 3) that while arrests declined, the ratio of the black arrest rate to the rate of other students increased from 4.2 to 6.0. This pattern is also to be expected. But missing data on arrests in the former period in the table on page 8 does not allow a black/white comparison of the type shown above for suspensions.