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123rf.com
Education Dive
Watchdog report challenges Trump administration school safety recommendations
Naaz Modan
July 13, 2020
Dive Brief:
The Government Accountability Office released a report calling into
question the Trump administration's overturning of Obama-era "Rethink
School Discipline" guidance meant to curb the disproportionate impact
of punitive school discipline policies on students of color. The
guidance favored the social, emotional and behavioral needs of students
over suspensions and expulsions in order to make school environments
more equitable.
In 2018, the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of
Justice axed the "Dear Colleague" letter, shortly after President
Donald Trump's Federal Commission on School Safety released a report
saying the Obama administration's efforts to address racial disparities
in school discipline policies made schools unsafe.
The GAO report debunks that claim, finding most school-targeted
shootings take place in higher-income, low-minority areas, and that
there was no research from 2009-2019 examining any connection between
school discipline policies and school shootings.
Dive Insight:
While the report found school-targeted shootings tend to occur in
high-income, low-minority areas, it also found schools in urban,
low-income and high-minority areas faced more shootings overall and
were often committed by nonstudents or unknown shooters in response to
disputes.
However, suburban and rural, wealthier and low-minority schools had
higher rates of suicide and school-targeted shootings, which had the
highest fatalities per incident. More than half of the 166 fatalities
studied were the result of such shootings.
Prior to the Education Department's decision in 2018 to rescind the
Obama-era guidance, more than 80 prominent state and district leaders,
as well as education organizations, sent a letter to Secretary of
Education Betsy DeVos and then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions
requesting the federal guidance be left in place. The signatories,
which included New York City Department of Education Chancellor Richard
Carranza and the American Federation of Teachers, among others, said
that based on studies, the decision to roll back protections would
disproportionately impact students of color instead of making schools
safer.
In response to the GAO report's findings, Rep. Bobby Scott
(D-Virginia), chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor,
confirmed a similar notion in a statement, saying the Education
Department’s "refusal to fully enforce federal civil rights law is
based on rhetoric, not facts.” He added the Trump administration sent
"the wrong and baseless message that schools are safest when they
discriminate against students of color" when it overturned the 2014
guidance.
The Trump administration's decision faced similar backlash from
education organizations in 2018. “Unfortunately, the rescission is
likely to foster the growth of racially discriminatory practices where
implicit bias and other negative factors disproportionately impact
students with disabilities and students of color, including the use of
abusive practices such as seclusion and restraint," said Denise
Marshall, executive director of the Council of Parent Attorneys and
Advocates, in a statement at the time.
But despite the department's decision to overturn the protections for
students of color in 2018, a movement on the local level to end
punitive disciplinary practices continued. That push has gained
additional momentum in the wake of protests following George Floyd's
death, which is leading many districts to reexamine their disciplinary
policies as well as relationships with school resource officers.
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