Talk about déjà vu! When I read the account written by Tunette Powell recently in the Washington Post, that her two pre-school sons had been suspended a combined total of 8 times for behavioral problems, it was eerily reminiscent of my own son’s experience some 30 years ago. Ms. Powell writes that her sons have been suspended for such infractions as throwing a chair, spitting on another student, and hitting a staff member on the arm. Ms. Powell admitted that these behaviors were inappropriate but she questioned whether they were severe enough for suspension.
At a parent gathering she learned from some of the white mothers that their children had also “acted out” in similar ways that did not lead to suspension. As a matter of fact, these other mothers expressed shock that Ms. Powell’s sons had been disciplined with suspension. One mother told Ms. Powell, “my son threw something at a kid on purpose and the kid had to be rushed to the hospital. All I got was a phone call.”
Well I could certainly relate to Ms. Powell’s situation. When my son Joe was in pre-school, I was called numerous times to pick him up early due to some type of disruptive behavior. Joe was expelled from Montessori school and in desperation his father and I sought professional help from a child psychologist. Joe’s pre-school teachers described him as “aggressive”, “bigger than the other kids, so he is more likely to be able to hurt them.” It was not until his White male 4th grade teacher surmised that the only thing that was wrong with Joe was that he was really bright, a label that before that time, was not one ever used to describe him. That was the turning point. Joe was the valedictorian of his all-male Jesuit high school, graduated from Harvard and Duke with honors and earned a Ph.D. from Princeton. He is currently an assistant professor of religion at University of North Carolina.
I often wonder what would have happened to Joe if other’s perception as well as his own self-perception had not changed.
Ms. Powell said that she has asked herself what she is doing wrong. I asked myself that same question over and over again. I think she now knows as I came to learn after a great deal of pain and anguish, that we were not doing anything wrong. We as African American parents and our children are victims of an ingrained, extremely damaging system of bias that has been perpetuated from generation to generation.
While Black children represent only 18 percent of preschool enrollment they account for 48 percent of preschool children receiving more than one out-of-school suspension, according to a study released by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights in March.
Ms. Powell says that she does not believe that the teachers are racist, but rather are not aware of their own biases and receive very little training to address them. I know I sound like a broken record, but this is why cultural competence education is of vital importance. While teachers may not intend to discriminate, the impact is disastrous for Black boys in particular, leading to what is known as the “school to prison pipeline”.
I hope that by continuing to put a spotlight on this national problem we will see change. As employers would you not rather have a pipeline of technically trained graduates who can fill the impending skills gap? Luckily my son’s story had a happy and positive outcome but there are too many for whom the opposite is true. As Ms. Powell urges, “We can no longer put a Band-Aid on our nation’s school to prison pipeline which pushes children out of the education system and criminalizes relatively minor offenses.”
