Department of Education Highlights Educational Inequities Around Teacher
Experience, Discipline and High School Rigor
March 8, 2012
Minority students across America face harsher discipline, have less
access to rigorous high school curricula, and are more often taught by
lower-paid and less experienced teachers, according to the U.S.
Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
In an event at Howard University attended by civil rights and education
reform groups, federal education officials today released new data from
a national survey of more than 72,000 schools serving 85% of the
nation’s students. The self-reported data, Part II of the 2009-10 Civil
Rights Data Collection (CRDC), covers a range of issues including
college and career readiness, discipline, school finance, and student
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the CRDC findings are a wake-up
call to educators at every level and issued a broad challenge to work
together to address educational inequities.
"The power of the data is not only in the numbers themselves, but in the
impact it can have when married with the courage and the will to change.
The undeniable truth is that the everyday educational experience for
many students of color violates the principle of equity at the heart of
the American promise. It is our collective duty to change that,” Duncan
Among the key findings are:
students, particularly males, are far more likely to be suspended or
expelled from school than their peers. Black students make up 18% of the
students in the CRDC sample, but 35% of the students suspended once, and
39% of the students expelled.
Students learning English (ELL)
were 6% of the CRDC high school enrollment, but made up 12% of students
Only 29% of high-minority high
schools offered Calculus, compared to 55% of schools with the lowest
black and Hispanic enrollment.
Teachers in high-minority schools
were paid $2,251 less per year than their colleagues in teaching in
low-minority schools in the same district.
for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali said that for the first time, this survey
includes detailed discipline data, including in-school suspensions,
referrals to law enforcement, and school-related arrests.
“These new data categories are a powerful tool to aid schools and
districts in crafting policy, and can unleash the power of research to
advance reform in schools,” Ali said.
Part II of the CRDC also provides a clear, comparative picture of
college and career readiness, school finance, teacher absenteeism,
student harassment and bullying, student restraint and seclusion, and
grade-level student retention.