There have been some inequities within school in the area of discipline issues for quite some time and have been overlooked. In this article, the numbers presented are quite staggering when comparing racial groups. The national middle school suspension rates in 2006 varied from Black males receiving the highest rate of 28.3% to the lowest group of Asian females at 2.1%. These numbers are not a positive reflection on these students, particularly the ones that are receiving harsher punishments. There are many factors that play into these statistics and immediate change must occur in order to not feed into the current trends of playing into stereotypes.
One solution that was brought up in the article takes place in a Denver school district where they've implemented a "discipline ladder" that covers the lesser disciplinary issues. They've stressed that only larger and more serious issues such as fighting require the attention of local law enforcement.
In my opinion, schools and the surrounding community need to build relationships with one another by educating each other in cultural immersion classes and seminars and be able to teach to understand different approaches to each group so that they are more aware of the underlying reasons to the surface behaviors that seem to "cause chaos" for the learning environment and eventually reduce the number of suspensions so teachers can focus on the teaching and learning process.
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