PERVASIVE

Black Pre-Kers Punished More Than Whites

Twice as likely to be expelled.

U.S. schools are suspending minority students, including preschoolers, at much higher rates than their white peers, according to a new national survey. The study, conducted by the U.S. Department of Education, looked at 50 million students at more than 95,000 schools. Black girls make up only 20 percent of preschool enrollment, but fully 54 percent of those who have been suspended from school. Black preschool children of both genders were nearly three times as likely to be suspended as white children. Black students throughout all grades were almost four times as likely to be suspended. They were nearly twice as likely to be expelled as white students. Liz King, a senior policy analyst at the Leadership for Civil and Human Rights, called the findings “startling” and admitted that they don’t “paint a very good picture.”