The Injustice Schools Ignore

Philadelphia, PA
From 2005-06 through 2009-10, the district reported 30,333 serious incidents, including 19,752 assaults, 4,327 weapons infractions, 2,037 drug- and alcohol-related violations, and 1,186 robberies. Students were beaten by their peers in libraries and had their hair pulled out by gangs. Teachers were assaulted more than 4,000 times.

So how has the School Reform Commission responded? By easing its student code of conduct and other disciplinary policies. In particular, the commission wants to cut down on out-of-school suspensions.

William H. Hite Jr., the School District's incoming superintendent, shares these goals. He has argued that zero-tolerance policies can't create a school culture free of violence, saying, "We can't arrest or suspend our way to safer schools."

The School District's discipline policies have been criticized as unfairly punishing black and Latino students and creating a pipeline to prison. The activist group Youth United for Change's 2011 report "Zero Tolerance in Philadelphia" made that claim, saying that "every year, tens of thousands of young people - and especially youth[s] of color and students with disabilities - are being criminalized in Philadelphia schools or are being pushed out of school by the use of out-of-school suspensions, disciplinary transfers to alternative schools, and expulsions."

According to a recent study by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, black students are more than three times as likely as their white peers to be suspended or expelled. This is especially noteworthy given that 84 percent of America's public-school teachers are white.