Anonymous wrote:MoCo schools are the most Liberal schools I have ever seen, plus the elected positions are unilaterally run by Democrats. Every facet of MoCo school administration and government policy embraces leftist perspectives.

If the schools are racist then it’s makes a compelling argument that liberals and Democrats
have utterly failed us and it’s time to elect conservatives and Republicans to MoCo school and office holding positions.

Anonymous wrote:I sat through a presentation at an MCPS school about restorative justice. One parent turned around and asked an AA administrator, "Why not have AA and HI teachers teach AA and HI students, if there is evidence that WH teachers are racists?." The shocking answer that was given was that Black teachers prefer to have Asian-American students!!!

Asian-American students are highly coveted students by all races of teachers because they are going to excel academically, finish assignments on time and will not have behavioral or disciplinary issues. These students make the working day easier for the teachers. It makes sense to remove them from the study.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sigh....

1. Yes the article is sloppy, poorly articulated and not a quality piece of journalism which pretty much defines anything written in Bethesda Magazine.

2. Just because the article is poorly constructed, it doesn't mean that there is no problem. The author just did a bad job making his point. There was a study in the past within MCPS that found patterns with AA/Latino students being punished more harshly than white/asian students in the same school for the same infraction. This is meaningful data and does show racial bias playing a factor in discipline. Several years ago, Blair students did a piece several years ago about a day in the life at Blair. They showed how a black kid walking through the halls without a pass got into trouble while a white kid was just told to go back to class. This played out several more times in different examples. It is an issue and can often be much worse in schools where there are large numbers of low performing AA/Latino students and higher performing Whites/Asians.

3. The answer is not to stop enforcing school rules if a AA/Latino breaks them. The answer is not to make up a justice circle to treat bullying victims/attackers the same. The answer is not to pressure schools to not report incidents to take care of "optic". The answer is to address the problem! Institute some bias awareness training. Institute a review board that reviews individual incidents and the corresponding punishments. Do not just reward principals for just reporting out lower numbers of AA/Latino punishments. Don't incentivize the wrong behavior. MCPS principals are experts at giving the central office what they ask for and the central office needs to start thinking before asking for something that doesn't solve the problem.

+1

Anonymous wrote:Sigh....

1. Yes the article is sloppy, poorly articulated and not a quality piece of journalism which pretty much defines anything written in Bethesda Magazine.

2. Just because the article is poorly constructed, it doesn't mean that there is no problem. The author just did a bad job making his point. There was a study in the past within MCPS that found patterns with AA/Latino students being punished more harshly than white/asian students in the same school for the same infraction. This is meaningful data and does show racial bias playing a factor in discipline. Several years ago, Blair students did a piece several years ago about a day in the life at Blair. They showed how a black kid walking through the halls without a pass got into trouble while a white kid was just told to go back to class. This played out several more times in different examples. It is an issue and can often be much worse in schools where there are large numbers of low performing AA/Latino students and higher performing Whites/Asians.

3. The answer is not to stop enforcing school rules if a AA/Latino breaks them. The answer is not to make up a justice circle to treat bullying victims/attackers the same. The answer is not to pressure schools to not report incidents to take care of "optic". The answer is to address the problem! Institute some bias awareness training. Institute a review board that reviews individual incidents and the corresponding punishments. Do not just reward principals for just reporting out lower numbers of AA/Latino punishments. Don't incentivize the wrong behavior. MCPS principals are experts at giving the central office what they ask for and the central office needs to start thinking before asking for something that doesn't solve the problem.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread. SMH

+1000 Seriously.

In a probably futile attempt to add something sensible to this thread ...

I think a major problem with only looking at race is that you don't control for Socio-Economic Status or other impacts such as Special education students, including those coded with emotional disabilities. In my experience as a teacher, there is a correlation between poorer students having more disrupted home lives, which leads to more challenging classroom behaviors. I do not deny that there are studies that show that teachers will tolerate certain behavior more from white students than black/brown students. But there is also likely to be more disrupted behavior from poor students, who are more likely to be black or brown. Whittle this data to show only students from families with HHI >$100k, and the disparity will likely be much less.

This is the belief that so many people point to as an explanation for what is going on. Unfortunately, in studies done throughout the U.S., the discrepancy between discipline rates for the same behaviors holds true when the black students in question are from high-SES families. At that point, I think you need to concede that racism is the explanation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread. SMH

+1000 Seriously.

In a probably futile attempt to add something sensible to this thread ...

I think a major problem with only looking at race is that you don't control for Socio-Economic Status or other impacts such as Special education students, including those coded with emotional disabilities. In my experience as a teacher, there is a correlation between poorer students having more disrupted home lives, which leads to more challenging classroom behaviors. I do not deny that there are studies that show that teachers will tolerate certain behavior more from white students than black/brown students. But there is also likely to be more disrupted behavior from poor students, who are more likely to be black or brown. Whittle this data to show only students from families with HHI >$100k, and the disparity will likely be much less.

This is the belief that so many people point to as an explanation for what is going on. Unfortunately, in studies done throughout the U.S., the discrepancy between discipline rates for the same behaviors holds true when the black students in question are from high-SES families. At that point, I think you need to concede that racism is the explanation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Almost every study shows it's 2 things

1. For the Rs People of color actually do act out more, and objectively perform at a lower level in school

2. For the Ds Most people are still racist and treat people of color differently

I have democrat friend who admit there is a parental and work ethic disparity and black and Hispanic patents need to be more involved

I’ve taught in both high poverty majority minority schools and Ws in this county. A clear disparity in ability, motivation, and parenting doesn’t exist. Sure, you can find enough examples to satisfy your confirmation bias, but there’s just as many non-examples. A white kid goes to California for two weeks, it’s an educational trip and an excused absence. A Latino kid goes to El Salvador for the same amount of time and it’s an unexcused family vacation. I’ve taught plenty of white middle schools whose parents were disengaged and plenty of AA and Latino ones where the parents were a great support.

And I can absolutely tell you that there are racist teachers and admins. When you point out the discrepancy in how they talk about and act towards white vs. minority children, they get angry. MCPS needs to focus on identifying and removing racist staff.

Do black students in a school led by a black principal have less reported suspension? There are a lot of principals are black, most of them were wonderful teachers in classroom before they left classroom. It will be interesting to breakdown data into each HS or MS to see if the race of the principals plays any role in student suspension.

Anecdotally, my experience has been the opposite. Our ES used to have a Black principal before he was promoted out of the school. Our new principal is white and the new principal seems bound and determined to just stop disciplining kids. Now every incident gets a "justice circle" where everyone, including kids clearly being bullied and/or assaulted, has to talk about their actions. So even if a kid did nothing and got beat up on the playground, they have to talk about how they could have handled the incident differently. Then apparently everyone just walks away - no punishment for the perpetrators, no discussion of the impact of their actions on the class. Just an endless round of self-criticism followed by....nothing.