Illinois Disparities
(Sept. 1, 2018)
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, Maryland Disparities, Massachusetts Disparities, Minnesota Disparities, Oregon Disparities, Rhode Island Disparities, Utah 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. Readers of the pages may also find useful my “Discipline disparities in Md. Schools,” Daily Record (June 21, 2018), which discusses a study showing that generally 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, 21 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 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).
***
A July 8, 2018 article in the Chicago Reporter titled “As school discipline disparities worsen, Illinois has yet to require reforms,” discussed efforts in Illinois since 2014 to reduce racial disparities in school discipline that involved substantial reductions in discipline rates. After noting that between the 2015 and 2017 school years, the number of suspensions had dropped by about one-third, the article stated:
But that progress isn’t happening equally. Discipline rates fell more quickly for white students than black students, making existing disparities worse. An analysis by The Chicago Reporter shows that in 2015, black students were about four and a half times more likely than white students to be suspended or expelled from school. Two years later, they were about six times more likely to be suspended or expelled. (The Reporter looked at students in kindergarten to 12th grade because very few preschool students were suspended and none were expelled.)
Thus, Illinois presents another situation where policies that those implementing them expected to reduce relative racial differences in discipline rates in fact increased those differences (just as predicted in the 2012 Amstat News and 2013 Baltimore Sun articles).
The parenthetical at the end of the quoted material the Chicago Report warrants note. In the Preschool Disparities subpage of the Discipline Disparities page and in “Race and Mortality Revisited,” Society (July/Aug. 2014) (especially the discussion regarding Table 8) I discuss the substantial attention give to seemingly huge racial disparities in preschool suspensions by observers who fail to understand that the relative differences in suspension in preschool tend to be large because suspensions are so rare in preschool. The mistaken perception about the large relative racial differences in preschool suspensions (or the related high proportion blacks make up of suspended preschool students) prompted the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services to issue as Dear Colleague letter furthering that mistaken perception. See my Letter to the Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Education (Aug. 24, 2015).
Thus, the same factors that caused the federal government agencies (and many commentators) to regard discipline disparities in preschool to be a great problem caused the Chicago Reporter to regard the matter to be insignificant. Further regarding the (worldwide) failure to understand that relative differences in adverse outcomes tend to be high where the outcomes are comparatively uncommon, in addition the aforementioned "Race and Mortality Revisited," see my “It’s easy to misunderstand gaps and mistake good fortune for a crisis,” Minneapolis Star Tribune (Feb. 8, 2014), “United States Exports Its Most Profound Ignorance About Racial Disparities to the United Kingdom,” Federalist Society Blog (Nov. 2, 2017), and the abstract to my November 2014 University of Massachusetts Medical School seminar titled “The Mismeasure of Health Disparities in Massachusetts and Less Affluent Places.”