Classroom Chaos in the Name of Racial Equity Is a Bad Lesson Plan
May 13, 2021
What should take priority in K-12 education, the physical safety of students or racial balance in school suspension rates? Barack Obama and Donald Trump had different answers to that question, and it probably won’t surprise you where President Biden comes down.
In 2012, the Education Department released a study showing that black students were more likely than their white peers to be suspended and expelled from school. This disparity was taken as evidence of racial bias, and two years later the department issued threatening “guidance” letters to school districts across the country. The letters essentially warned that schools would face federal civil-rights investigations if black suspension rates didn’t come down. Schools were pressured to discipline students, or not, based on race rather than behavior, and many administrators and teachers obliged.
