Black Kids at LAUSD Suspended at Alarming Rate: Are Teachers, Principals Guilty of Racial Profiling?

This post overlooks the work on the impact of adverse childhood experiences led by San Francisco physician Nadine Burke. I found a good commentary by the estimable teacher-blogger John Thompson that summarizes it. Here Thompson is responding to a March 2011 New Yorker article about Burke’s work by Paul Tough (the full article isn’t available online, so I’m linking to Thompson’s description instead).

Burke and Tough suggest an explanation of why this widely shared trauma has become so damaging in neighborhoods with intense concentrations of poverty. Adversity in early life can disrupt the brain circuits that are needed for literacy. Young students who have been traumatized often find it harder to sit still and follow directions. When a poor child who has endured trauma enters a neighborhood school class of thirty, he or she might join another nine who suffer from the same damage due to stress. Those survivors help “create in a classroom a culture of hitting, of fighting — not just for the ten kids but for all thirty.” In schools with so many suffering children, the “flight or fight” syndrome becomes a “cultural norm.” At-risk teens may over-react to confrontation. Or they might do the opposite and fail to recognize the risks that go along with being caught up in the school’s “drama.”

Too many suffering kids then beat their own children and, again, it becomes a cultural norm where “it’s like, oh, black people beat our kids. That’s what we do.” [Note from Caroline: This is a quote from Dr. Burke, who is African-American.] Finally, the physiological effects of stress undermine immune systems, increase cardio-vascular disease, and cancer, as well as depression, further undermining the health of families further creating a downward cycle. Then, when our lack of an adequate health insurance system is thrown into the mix…

It has been nearly five decades since liberals condemned Daniel Patrick Moynihan for “blaming the victim,” by articulating an admittedly crude theory of culture and poverty. The blame game remains as destructive as ever; the big difference is that today it is teachers who are demonized.

Sometimes, I wonder whether it would better to take an attitude of “if you can’t beat them, join them.” For instance, what if this post was written without mentioning race, class, family, alcohol, drugs, or depression? Even then, a cost benefit analysis of the damage done by stress would still be astounding. Even if we ignore all issues that could be remotely considered to be “blaming the victim,” we could still make a powerful case that turning up the stress on educators is not a good way of addressing the legacies of trauma.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

With the money blacks take to church every weekend across the nation we could build seven comprehensive schools a week and teach our own youth to deal the sociopolitical war waged on them. Black boys should be taught to be black men by black men ...not white and hispanic women that inwardly fear them in a system propagates fear of black men. Blacks must stop "giving their children away" to a system that purposefully miseducates them to create continuous fodder for a for-profit jailing system. To quote Dr. Amos Wilson "there's is NO such thing as EQUAL EDUCATION" - the same education given to a white child that makes them an asset to their community, will be the education that surely teaches (socializes) a black child AWAY from their community -Hense the of fallacy blacks of merely celebrating civil rights movement without observing it as a "case study" ( successes AND failures). The blind faith willfully practiced by blacks that we can (or worse...should) try everything to blend into a system that STILL has blacks listed as being only "partially human" within its most beloved documents is destroying us. "why are black kids acting out more than every other race?" ...Why the hell do you think?!!!...we've given them NOTHING but  the same "pie in the sky equality" multiculturalism schtick... when none of that "equality" reaches them in the streets or the classroom. They see no "equality" in who owns the stores in their neighborhood, who controls the water flowing to their house, or who makes the shoes on their feet. The movie "Bad teacher" was really revealing (though it may not have tried to be) a great deal of the teachers wind up teaching inner-city blacks as a result of there being less room for employment at more "plush" institutions. So they bring an attitude wrapped in a sense of "failure" with them before they even get in front of a child. This "nasty attitude" spills into practically every way they deal with the child. When the child senses these often subtle and blatant "attacks" on him/her -and being a (child) that can not articulate what they're dealing with.....they act out......and are punished.  Basically saying "Either take my abusive, racist, negligent, dismissive treatment of you like a good little n!gger, or i will have you punished... because you are ALREADY a bad person and not worth the time the state wants me to spend on you"  Please, please, please, STOP GIVING YOUR BABIES AWAY TO THIS SYSTEM, black people.

The authors of this article are actively lobbying for black people in general to be immune from discipline regardless of whether they deserve it or not (according to social norms).  I see this every time a person of color is shot by law enforcement.  I amazes me, to see a blatant criminal while in the conduct of a felony crime be shot down, and the black community goes to his/her defense saying "what a wonderful person this was and how the death of this criminal was racially motivated"  You are trying to change the culture of Americans and we are not buying it.  I would hope for the same death of a White, Asian, Latino, etc... Let the punishment fit the crime for all.  Please note that I have no agenda other than not falling for the BS that the authors of this article are trying to pass.  Just because a person is black does not give them the inherent right to misbehave and get away with it.  I am not afraid of the word racist even though that is your only weapon in your arsenal.

To me this article is a joke.  This article promotes racial tension, and I am sure it was meant to.  Simply due to the fact that more black children violate the established rules of the school and society you claim racism.  Do you really want black children to have a different standard of conduct that all other races?  Why should schools and society as a whole change their rules?  It never ceases to amaze me how people claim racism every time they do not get their way.  Everyone has to abide by the social norms, rules and policies, what makes blacks any better?

As a former teacher in NYC Public Schools, and a college professor in Los Angeles, I can say that the problem is multi-layered. You have bad family structures that don't value education, you have teachers from upper-middle class backgrounds (usually White) who don't know how to relate to their students, and you have extremely racist people throughout the system who assume that all Black male students (even the good students) are prone to negative behavior. LAUSD has the problem of having an extremely high number of children of illegal immigrants and a large group of Latinos with strong anti-Black sentiments. Some of those people are also teachers and administrators. It's a major mess that needs to be tackled on many different levels. The best thing to do is to hire more native-born Black American males as teachers in the system. It's difficult to do in LAUSD because of the Latino problems and the ingrained racism of the people of LA.

 The article should be "why are black kids acting out more than every other race?", not trying to make it a racial issue.

black, white, brown, yellow, purple, red, orange...whoever it is, if they act out they should be punished...does not sound likes the superintendents problem...