{"id":1249,"date":"2012-12-10T20:00:02","date_gmt":"2012-12-11T04:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kqed.org\/americangraduate\/?p=1249"},"modified":"2012-12-10T20:00:02","modified_gmt":"2012-12-11T04:00:02","slug":"huffington-post-oakland-schools-to-allow-federal-monitoring-of-black-student-discipline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/americangraduate\/2012\/12\/10\/huffington-post-oakland-schools-to-allow-federal-monitoring-of-black-student-discipline\/","title":{"rendered":"Huffington Post: Oakland Schools To Allow Federal Monitoring Of Black Student Discipline"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>December 10, 2012<\/p>\n

The Oakland Unified School District and the U.S. Department of Education agreed last week to allow for\u00a0at least five years of federal monitoring\u00a0as the district attempts to reduce the disproportionately high black student suspension rate, the\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/em>\u00a0reports.<\/p>\n

The resolution, of which the Oakland school board voted 6-0 in favor, concludes an investigation by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights into whether discipline of black students was harsher and more frequent and harshly than for their white peers.<\/p>\n

Data released by the\u00a0Department of Education in March showed that\u00a0black students are three-and-a-half times as likely to be suspended or expelled\u00a0as their white classmates.<\/p>\n

Under last week’s agreement, federal officials will keep watch on 38 Oakland schools and oversee the district\u2019s five-year plan to address students\u2019 needs by offering mentoring services to at-risk students, providing training for teachers and staff and combatting disciplinary issues without resorting to suspensions.<\/p>\n

According to the\u00a0San Francisco Chronicle<\/em>, almost 20 percent of Oakland\u2019s black males were suspended at least once last year \u2014\u00a0six times the rate of white students. In middle school, one out of every three black students was suspended at least once. Furthermore, research conducted during the 2010-11 school year found that\u00a0more than half of African American male students\u00a0in the Oakland Unified School District are at risk of dropping out.<\/p>\n

Russlynn Ali, the Education Department\u2019s assistant secretary for civil rights, told theLA Times<\/em>\u00a0that last school year, African American students comprised about 39 percent of the district’s total enrollment but\u00a0accounted for 63 percent of students with at least one suspension\u00a0and 61 percent of those who were expelled.<\/p>\n

“Historically, they have been the whipping boys in our district,” Chris Chatmon, executive director of the district’s African-American Male Achievement Office, told the Oakland school board. “We are here today to ante up and reclaim our children.”<\/p>\n

Federal education officials say they are hopeful\u00a0Oakland can serve as a model for other districts\u00a0that are seeking to address disproportionately high rates of suspensions of minority students, the AP reports.<\/p>\n

“Disparities in disciplinary procedures are inherently wrong and all too common,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement. “I commend Oakland for being the first district to directly confront this challenge.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

December 10, 2012 The Oakland Unified School District and the U.S. Department of Education agreed last week to allow for\u00a0at least five years of federal monitoring\u00a0as the district attempts to reduce the disproportionately high black student suspension rate, the\u00a0Los Angeles Times\u00a0reports. The resolution, of which the Oakland school board voted 6-0 in favor, concludes an … Continue reading Huffington Post: Oakland Schools To Allow Federal Monitoring Of Black Student Discipline<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[77,80,99],"coauthors":[],"series":[],"affiliates":[],"programs":[],"collections":[],"interests":[],"class_list":["post-1249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kqed_research_local_ag","category-kqed_research_national_ag","tag-kqed","tag-kqed-american-graduate","tag-oakland"],"acf":{"template_type":"standard","featured_image_type":"standard","is_audio_post":false},"template_type":null,"featured_image_type":null,"is_audio_post":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/americangraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/americangraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/americangraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/americangraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/americangraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/americangraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/americangraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/americangraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/americangraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1249"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/americangraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1249"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/americangraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=1249"},{"taxonomy":"affiliates","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/americangraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/affiliates?post=1249"},{"taxonomy":"programs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/americangraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/programs?post=1249"},{"taxonomy":"collections","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/americangraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collections?post=1249"},{"taxonomy":"interests","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/americangraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/interests?post=1249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}