Nashville Disparities
(Dec. 13, 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 of this site. Those pages discuss 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, Evansville (IN) 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, Seattle 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.
This page, however, differs somewhat from those pages in that by letter of February 14, 2018 to leadership of Metro Nashville Public Schools (Feb. 14, 2018) I explained this issue to leadership of Metro Nashville Public Schools.
Recent discussions of this subject may be found in my “COPAA v. DeVos and the Government’s Continuing Numeracy Problem,” Federalist Society Blog (Sept. 12, 2019), which discusses the continuing failure to understand this issue by the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Education. See also the discussion in the Appendix to “Usual, But Wholly Misunderstood, Effects of Policies on Measures of Racial Disparity Now Being Seen in Ferguson and the UK and Soon to Be Seen in Baltimore,” Federalist Society Blog (Dec. 4, 2019), which discusses the way the restorative justice community increases demand for its programs by leading participants to believe that policies will tend to reduce relative racial differences in suspensions when in fact they will increase those suspension.
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). A fuller discussion of all pertinent issues may be found in my “Race and Mortality Revisited,” Society (July/Aug. 2014). A good summary of the current state of understanding of this issue may be found in my August 9, 2019 letter the Department of Justice handling the appeal of COPAA v. DeVos, which is the subject of the September 12, 2019 Federalist Society Blog post. That the government proceeded to dismiss the appeal in the case is discussed at the tend to the December 4, 2019 Federalist Society Blog post.
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An October 13, 2019 Nashville Tennessean article titled “Racial gaps in Nashville Public Schools: 5 takeaways from our investigation” discussed that during a period of reductions in suspension between the 2013-14 and 2018-19 school years the ratio of the black suspension rate to the white suspension rate increased from 2.7 to 3.1. The article states: “’At this time, we cannot definitely say why the disparity has increased," an email from the district said in response to questions posed to Adrienne Battle, who was hired in April as interim director of schools.’”
Interim Director Battle was not one of the recipients of the February 14, 2019 letter. If she reads that letter and the above references, however, she could cause Nashville Public Schools to be one of the first school districts in the country to understand that issue.
The Tennessean article notes the white suspension rate dropped faster than the black suspension rate, by which it means a larger relative decrease for whites than blacks. (The absolute difference presumably decreased more for blacks than whites, as also typically happens.) This should not be read as some sort of “reason” for the increase in the disparity. The pattern whereby when an outcome decreases in frequency the group with the lower baseline rate tends to experience a larger proportionate decrease in the outcome while the other group tends to experience a larger proportionate increase in the opposite outcomes is simply a corollary to the pattern whereby the rarer an outcome the greater tends to be the relative difference in experiencing and the smaller tends to be the relative difference in avoiding it. See, e.g., “Race and Mortality Revisited,” Society (July/Aug. 2014), and University of Maryland Workshop (2014).