The Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. States Department of Education has released a new report. The Civil Rights Data Collection survey includes data on student access to courses, programs, instructional and other staff, and resources — as well as school climate factors, such as student discipline and bullying and harassment — that impact education equity and opportunity for students.
The report includes important data such as:
- Black preschool children are 3.6 times as likely to be suspended as are White preschool students.
- In kindergarten through the 12th grade, Black students are nearly four times as likely to be suspended as are White students. Black students also are nearly twice as likely to be expelled — removed from school with no services — as are White students.
- Only a third of high schools with high Black and Latino enrollments offer calculus, compared to 56 percent of those that serve low numbers of Black and Latino students.
- Less than half the high schools with high Black and Latino enrollments offer physics, while two in three high schools that have low numbers of Black and Latino student offer physics.
- 10 percent of the teachers in schools with high numbers of Black and Latino students are in their first year of teaching, compared to only 5 percent in schools with low numbers of Black and Latino students.
John B. King Jr., secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, stated that “the CRDC data are more than numbers and charts—they illustrate in powerful and troubling ways disparities in opportunities and experiences that different groups of students have in our schools.”
