How US schools punish Black kids | 2020 Election — Transcript

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1. 0:00in september of 2019 a six-year-old
2. 0:03student named kaya
3. 0:04was sitting in her school's office okay
4. 0:07she's gonna have to come with us now
5. 0:08that's a police officer this video comes
6. 0:11from his body camera
7. 0:12at first it seems like kaya doesn't know
8. 0:15what's happening
9. 0:17[Music]
10. 0:25earlier that day kaya had a tantrum
11. 0:27three school employees said that she had
12. 0:29kicked them
13. 0:30the school called the police who
14. 0:32arrested kaya
15. 0:33on charges of misdemeanor battery
16. 0:39the police dropped the charges after
17. 0:42kaya's grandmother sent this video to
18. 0:44the orlando sentinel
19. 0:47kaia's case isn't an isolated incident
20. 0:50[Music]
21. 0:53a five-year-old girl being handcuffed by
22. 0:55police in florida
23. 0:56for a year he could not sleep alone he
24. 0:59put handcuffs on me
25. 1:00tossed to the ground by a school
26. 1:02resource officer
27. 1:06what you're seeing are the effects of a
28. 1:08larger problem in american schools
29. 1:11the u.s doesn't treat all students
30. 1:13equally
31. 1:15but if we wanted to we could do
32. 1:17something about that
33. 1:19the next president could decide if that
34. 1:24happens
35. 1:25[Music]
36. 1:27in 2016 researchers at yale showed
37. 1:30teachers
38. 1:31this video clip of four preschool
39. 1:33students
40. 1:34their instructions look for misbehavior
41. 1:37and click when you see it the study was
42. 1:41kind of deceptive
43. 1:42none of the kids in the video actually
44. 1:44misbehaved
45. 1:46the researchers were using eye tracking
46. 1:48software
47. 1:49what they actually wanted to study was
48. 1:52who the teachers
49. 1:53were watching both black and white
50. 1:56teachers
51. 1:57spent significantly more time watching
52. 2:00the black boy
53. 2:01in the video this study showed that even
54. 2:04preschool teachers
55. 2:05can treat kids differently based on
56. 2:07their race without even realizing it
57. 2:12look elsewhere in the u.s school system
58. 2:14and you'll see this show up in other
59. 2:15ways
60. 2:16like at this middle school in bryan
61. 2:18texas
62. 2:20they gave students tickets for offenses
63. 2:22like disrupting class
64. 2:24or using profanity black students were
65. 2:27four times more likely than white
66. 2:29students
67. 2:29to receive those tickets nationwide
68. 2:33black boys miss way more school due to
69. 2:36suspensions
70. 2:37than any other group and this can start
71. 2:40a kind of chain reaction
72. 2:42missing weeks of school due to
73. 2:43suspensions makes students much more
74. 2:45likely to drop
75. 2:46out without a diploma you're much less
76. 2:49likely to earn a living wage
77. 2:51and much more likely to be incarcerated
78. 2:54all this missing school is helping to
79. 2:56drive the highest poverty and
80. 2:58incarceration rates in the developed
81. 3:00world
82. 3:01so it's worth asking how'd we get here
83. 3:05in 1964 president lyndon johnson created
84. 3:08a new federal office
85. 3:10accountable to the president the office
86. 3:12for civil rights
87. 3:14its first task was to desegregate public
88. 3:17schools in the south
89. 3:18but soon they started noticing that some
90. 3:20schools were segregating their students
91. 3:22without actually
92. 3:23calling it segregation a lot of the
93. 3:25black students would be labeled
94. 3:27disabled and removed from the mainstream
95. 3:29classroom
96. 3:30so they wound up segregated daniel
97. 3:32lowson studies school discipline
98. 3:34for years he's been sounding the alarm
99. 3:36about how much school black students are
100. 3:39missing
101. 3:39due to suspensions the data he uses in
102. 3:42his reports
103. 3:43comes from the office for civil rights
104. 3:45in the 1970s
105. 3:47they started requiring schools to report
106. 3:49how many students they classified as
107. 3:51disabled
108. 3:52plus suspensions and expulsions all
109. 3:55broken down by race
110. 3:56and gender over the next few decades
111. 3:59those numbers went up
112. 4:00as more punitive ideas about discipline
113. 4:03took hold in american schools
114. 4:06well in some schools gangs and drugs
115. 4:09have taken over our streets and
116. 4:11undermined our schools the idea that if
117. 4:13you don't
118. 4:14you know throw the book at kids when
119. 4:16they're young for every little thing
120. 4:17that they're going to turn into
121. 4:18criminals
122. 4:20it's never any research to show that it
123. 4:21actually worked you never see that
124. 4:24in schools serving mostly white kids
125. 4:28but in 2011 a new report out of texas
126. 4:31started to cast doubt on that approach
127. 4:34the study looked at discipline records
128. 4:36for almost a million students
129. 4:38attract the same kids from seventh grade
130. 4:41all the way through high school
131. 4:43the results were stunning nearly 60
132. 4:46percent of students had been suspended
133. 4:48or expelled
134. 4:48at least once the study also showed that
135. 4:52black students facing school discipline
136. 4:53for the first time
137. 4:55tended to get harsher punishments than
138. 4:57white students
139. 4:58and the more disciplinary violations a
140. 5:00student received
141. 5:01the more likely they were to drop out
142. 5:04clearly texas had a big problem the
143. 5:07question now
144. 5:08was if the problem was bigger than texas
145. 5:12to figure that out the obama
146. 5:14administration turned to the data set
147. 5:16that the office for civil rights had
148. 5:17built
149. 5:18that's how they learned this was a
150. 5:20nationwide problem african american
151. 5:22students are over three times
152. 5:24more likely than their white peers to be
153. 5:26suspended or expelled
154. 5:28often for very similar offenses they
155. 5:30also discovered that the vast majority
156. 5:32of suspensions
157. 5:33were for behaviors like talking back
158. 5:35using profanity or violating the dress
159. 5:37code
160. 5:38non-violent student behaviors many of
161. 5:40which once meant a phone call home
162. 5:43the administration started investigating
163. 5:45school districts where the numbers were
164. 5:47the most damning
165. 5:49one of those districts was bryan texas
166. 5:52home of the discipline tickets in 2013
167. 5:55a woman named marjorie holman filed a
168. 5:58complaint
169. 5:59after her 12 year old son was suspended
170. 6:01for defending himself from a bully
171. 6:03and had to appear in adult criminal
172. 6:05court
173. 6:07the office of civil rights opened an
174. 6:08investigation in brian
175. 6:10along with hundreds of other school
176. 6:12districts if you can't justify what
177. 6:14you're doing and it's having a harmful
178. 6:16impact on one group more than others you
179. 6:18have to
180. 6:18replace it with something else but we
181. 6:21don't
182. 6:22actually know if those changes made a
183. 6:24difference
184. 6:25because the most recent data on the
185. 6:28office of civil rights website
186. 6:30is from the 2015-2016 school year
187. 6:33the year after that things started to
188. 6:36change
189. 6:38the 51-50 vote to confirm betsy devos
190. 6:41the vice president votes
191. 6:42in the affirmative and the nomination is
192. 6:45confirmed in 2017
193. 6:46the office of president trump's new
194. 6:48education secretary
195. 6:50betsy devos sent a memo to the staff at
196. 6:52the office of civil rights
197. 6:54this one super jargony line in the memo
198. 6:57signaled a huge
199. 6:59shift ocr will only apply
200. 7:02a systemic or class action approach
201. 7:04where the individual complaint
202. 7:06allegations themselves raise systemic or
203. 7:09class-wide issues
204. 7:11translation no more looking for patterns
205. 7:14in the data
206. 7:15if the office got a complaint like
207. 7:17marjorie holman's they would look for
208. 7:19one
209. 7:19thing written or verbal proof that an
210. 7:22individual
211. 7:23teacher or administrator had punished
212. 7:25marjorie's son
213. 7:27more harshly because he was black we're
214. 7:30not going to
215. 7:30question that unless there's the
216. 7:33smoking gun of intentional racism
217. 7:36that's what happened in bryan texas when
218. 7:39betsy devos took office
219. 7:41the investigation into bryan's schools
220. 7:43was close to wrapping up
221. 7:44the final report concluded that black
222. 7:46students were subject to disparate
223. 7:48treatment when compared to white
224. 7:50students engaged in the same or similar
225. 7:52conduct
226. 7:54they had dozens of recommendations for
227. 7:56the district revise their discipline
228. 7:58code hire mentors and social workers
229. 8:01extra training for teachers devos's team
230. 8:04scrapped the report and closed the
231. 8:06investigation with no finding of
232. 8:08wrongdoing
233. 8:09and no suggestions for improvement
234. 8:14if you look closely at this clip you can
235. 8:16see joe biden
236. 8:17standing right behind president clinton
237. 8:19as he signs the 1994 crime bill
238. 8:22that bill ushered in new tough on crime
239. 8:25policies
240. 8:26that devastated black communities as a
241. 8:28senator
242. 8:29biden played a key role in getting the
243. 8:31bill passed
244. 8:32we have predators on our streets they
245. 8:35are beyond the pale
246. 8:36many of those people and since then he's
247. 8:39had to confront that history
248. 8:41i haven't always been right the
249. 8:43systematic racism that
250. 8:44most of us whites don't like to
251. 8:46acknowledge even exist it's been built
252. 8:48into every aspect of our system
253. 8:50this policy plan comes from the biden
254. 8:52campaign
255. 8:53in the section titled school discipline
256. 8:56it says that biden would reinstate
257. 8:58obama's discipline guidelines
258. 9:00and would push for every state to submit
259. 9:02a plan
260. 9:03for reducing the use of policies and
261. 9:05practices that push kids out of school
262. 9:09some people believe that all racism is
263. 9:11explicit
264. 9:12a nasty slur a whites only sign a
265. 9:15burning cross
266. 9:17it's unmistakable and it's on purpose
267. 9:20but there's another way of understanding
268. 9:22racism
269. 9:23that laws and policies can have racist
270. 9:25outcomes
271. 9:26even if they don't mention race at all
272. 9:30that you don't always need a smoking gun
273. 9:33to do a whole lot of damage
274. 9:39thanks for watching this episode of our
275. 9:422020 election series
276. 9:44for this series we asked you what you
277. 9:46wish the candidates would talk about
278. 9:48more
279. 9:49we got more than 12 000 responses
280. 9:52and we made this video because a lot of
281. 9:55you mentioned
282. 9:56education racial justice and mass
283. 9:58incarceration
284. 9:59holly writes that she wants the
285. 10:01candidates to talk about racial
286. 10:02inequality in
287. 10:04education sylvan wants to know how can
288. 10:07the candidates address systemic
289. 10:08discrimination in our country
290. 10:10and agnes wants the candidates to answer
291. 10:12the question how will you address
292. 10:14mass incarceration and school to prison
293. 10:16pipelines that specifically target
294. 10:18communities of color
295. 10:19it's not too late for you to tell us
296. 10:21what you think the candidates should be
297. 10:23talking about
298. 10:24tell us at vox.com election videos
299. 10:28also i want to send a special shout out
300. 10:30to propublica and thank
301. 10:32them for sharing their reporting on the
302. 10:34office of civil rights with us for this
303. 10:36video
304. 10:36they have done some incredible
305. 10:38investigative work on how things have
306. 10:40changed there under betsy devos
307. 10:42so check it out at propublica.org
308. 10:46[Music]