Minneapolis Disparities
(May 16, 2014)
Prefatory note: This subpage is related to the California Disparities, Maryland Disparities,Los Angeles SWPBS, Denver Disparities, and St. Paul Disparities subpages and the DOE Equity Report subpage of the Discipline Disparities page of jpscanlan.com. The former five subpages address studies showing that when discipline rates were reduced in the referenced jurisdictions, relative racial/ethnic differences in discipline rates increased. The sixth subpage addresses a Department of Education study showing that relative differences in expulsions are smaller in districts with zero tolerance policies than in districts without zero tolerance policies.
According to an April 11, 2013 Minneapolis Public Radio article, “Mpls. Tackles high rates of African-American student suspensions,” Minneapolis school officials concerned about large racial differences in suspensions rates expressed the view that the solution to the problem lay in generally reducing discipline rates. Such view accords with the views promoted by the Departments of Education and Justice.
In fact, however, reducing discipline rates tends to increase, rather than reduce, relative differences in discipline rates, as I have recently explained in many places, including “Misunderstanding of Statistics Leads to Misguided Law Enforcement Policies, ” Amstat News (Dec. 2012); “The Paradox of Lowering Standards,” Baltimore Sun (Aug. 5, 2013); “Things government doesn’t know about racial disparities,” The Hill (Jan. 28, 2014); “The Mismeasure of Discrimination,” Faculty Workshop, University of Kansas School of Law (Sept. 20, 2013). The underlying statistical pattern is also explained in my commentary “It’s easy to misunderstand gaps and mistake good fortune for a crisis,” Minneapolis Star Tribune (Feb. 8, 2014).
A chart in the article showed that between 2010 and 2011 suspensions declined from 14.6 to 13.7 percent for blacks and from 2.4 to 2.1 percent for whites. But that means the ratio of the black suspension rate to the white suspensions rate had climbed from 6.1 in 2011 to 6.5 in 2012.
The chart showed suspensions to be generally down since 2007, though not with a completely consistent trend. In 2007, the black rate had been 16.34 percent and the white rate had been 2.97 percent, which means that the black to white ratio had been 5.5. So from 2007 to 2012 the ratio had increased from 5.5 to 6.5.