SCHOOL DISCIPLINE MYSTERY?: Nope. A recent school discipline study looks at suspension/expulsion rates among various subgroups of Asian and Pacific Islander K-12 students in Washington State. To no one’s surprise, it finds the rates differ radically within the broad Asian/Pacific Islander category.

For example, it finds that ethnic Cambodian and Vietnamese students are suspended or expelled at rates 2 to 3 times that of ethnic Chinese students. The differences between Pacific Islander and Chinese students were even greater. Samoan students were suspended or expelled at more than 10 times the rate of Chinese students, and Guamanian/Chamorro students at almost 5 times the rate of Chinese students.

Does anyone believe that Washington State teachers are twice as biased against Samoan students as they are against Guamanian/Chamorro students? I doubt it. The real reasons for these differences are a good deal more complicated than that (and they are connected to differences in behavior).

We are not doing students any favors by blaming all this on teacher bias.  School discipline policy is not an issue that the nation can afford to screw up.