Do Teachers Punish According to Race?

By JON D. HULL/CINCINNATI

In the basement of Dater Junior High, just next to the boiler room and marked off by thick prison bars, school officials have crafted a fate worse than algebra class. Teachers at the school, part of the Cincinnati, Ohio, public school district, simply call it "the dungeon." Students have more descriptive -- if unprintable -- names for the small windowless cell. Though the prison bars are just painted on the cinder-block entrance, the punishment is real. Delinquent students must remain in the room -- absolutely quiet -- all day, even eating at their desks. "It's so hot and so boring," moans a seventh grader named Lance, 12, serving day two of a three-day sentence for tardiness. His pencil is worn to the nub from writing "I will follow school rules" 200 times. (The record is 500.) "This place is just terrible."

The dungeon is the center of a debate over not the effectiveness of pedagogic hard labor but the race of the punished and the race of the punishers. Black students are twice as likely to end up in the dungeon as white students; in fact, black students are twice as likely to end up disciplined throughout the entire Cincinnati public school system. It is a particularly awkward statistic for a school district mired in a 20-year-old desegregation suit. So awkward, in fact, that the board of education has agreed to an explosive remedy: if a judge concurs, the Cincinnati public schools (CPS) will soon start tracking the race of the teacher as well as the student in each discipline case. More important, those statistics will be factored into the teacher evaluation. Though the board insists that it is simply gathering relevant information to understand the racial disparity, teachers are receiving a far different message. "We're very worried," says art teacher John Rodak. "Do we have to start thinking about race now every time we discipline a student?"

Many teachers and administrators say, often barely above a whisper, that black students are much more trouble prone. Superintendent J. Michael Brandt, who is white, says that in some circumstances, "blacks tend to be more boisterous." John Concannon, a white attorney for the district, blames a "complicated mix of reasons," including the possibility that "some black males are more physical."

But twice as boisterous and twice as physical as white students? "That's ridiculous," says attorney Trudy Rauh, who represents parents and students in the bias suit against CPS that began in 1974. Eager to end the costly suit, the school board last fall acceded to the plaintiffs' demand for racial data to be collected on teachers as part of a broad new plan to hold them more accountable for students' behavior. The settlement warned that "staff members who are deficient in student-behavior management will not be retained in their positions if they fail to improve."

And what exactly does this mean? teachers ask. Are white teachers deficient if they spend more time disciplining blacks than whites? What if black teachers discipline a disproportionate number of whites -- or a high number of blacks, for that matter? And if the intention is to eliminate the racial disparity, will that be achieved by disciplining blacks less or whites more?

School officials insist that the racial data are just one small element in a comprehensive plan to help Cincinnati teachers deal with discipline problems. "It is a time-honored method of enforcing civil rights laws to keep statistics," says William Taylor, another attorney for the plaintiffs. "There is no reason to believe that the information will be misused." Brandt says "an administrator needs good info." He has a point. Even assuming that teachers are justified in sending twice as many blacks as whites to the assistant principal -- nationwide, black students are disciplined in disproportionate numbers -- what about the teacher who disciplines five or even six times as many black students? Shouldn't administrators be able to identify such egregious examples of racial bias? Moreover, Superintendent Brandt says, offending teachers -- meaning those instructors whose racial- discipline patterns are grossly out of whack with those of their colleagues -- will first be offered counseling to improve their management skills.

The national teachers' union warns that the proposed settlement will lead to discipline quotas. "It will have a chilling effect," predicts Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers. "Basically, teachers will throw in the towel and say, 'Why should I get into trouble?' " He compares the proposal to requiring police to make racially balanced arrests. Kathy Nemann, a seventh-grade history teacher at Crest Hills Middle School in north Cincinnati, agrees. "Teachers will simply stop referring students for discipline," she says. "They'll handle the problem in the classroom"-at the expense of all students. Donald Mooney Jr., attorney for the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, says, "Whether you call it p.c. or whatever, it is still a form of intimidation. Teachers are worried that they are now going to have to balance their discipline referrals by race rather than calling it the way they see it. It'll be like, 'If this week I've disciplined three black students, then next week I'd better find three whites.' "

Many teachers feel overwhelmed by classroom chaos. Last month the CPS started using metal detectors in the schools. "Kids are just more aggressive now," says teacher Arthur Leahr. "You're always nervous because you wonder if the kid might have a gun." The union says teachers started to lose control in 1988, when the district abolished corporal punishment while directing administrators to reduce suspensions. "Before long, the students were running the schools," complains Tom Mooney, Don's brother and president of the Cincinnati teachers' union.

In 1991 the union pushed the CPS to impose a tough new discipline policy, which included mandatory suspension for fighting, forgery, fraud and profanity. Suspensions promptly jumped 77%. In the 1991-92 school year, more than 10,000 students -- 20% of the total enrollment -- were suspended from school. Many parents were infuriated, complaining, correctly, that the new policies only increased the racial discipline gap. Concedes Brandt: "We had people being suspended for looking at someone the wrong way."

Pressured by parents, the district changed course again last fall and enacted a progressive code, which offers more options short of suspension, including in-school detention. Yet the nettlesome racial disparity persists, along with the smoldering debate over whether black students are getting fair treatment. Indeed, the 1974 case that is at the root of the controversy was supposedly settled 10 years ago when the Cincinnati board of education agreed to a laundry list of remedies to desegregate the schools. But there was one caveat: After seven years, the courts would review compliance. In 1991 a judge found that the schools remained deficient in three areas, including discipline, and ordered a study, which confirmed that black males were twice as likely to be suspended. Thus the controversy and the CPS offer of statistical monitoring.

A court decision on the proposed settlement is expected within weeks. Will the ruling finally put an end two decades of acrimonious legal wrangling? Perhaps some of it -- but not all. If the settlement is approved, the teachers' union has threatened to sue.