Of all the blatantly racist policies promulgated by the Obama administration, a "guidance" to public schools issued in 2014 on "racial disparities in discipline" may be the worst.

Basically, if more black students are disciplined – like suspension – than white students on a pro rata basis, the school district has a discrimination problem.

That policy is now about to implemented in Minnesota public schools – on steroids.

Powerline:

[S]tate governments and federal courts that are in liberal hands have taken up the claim that disparate incidence of discipline must be discriminatory, a theory that flies in the face of common observation that misbehavior in school is not randomly distributed in the student population.

In Minnesota, the Department of Human Rights has reportedly sent letters to 43 school districts and charter schools, telling them that they are under investigation because of racial disparities in discipline.  There is an added Orwellian element in that news of the letters has leaked out, but no one knows what 43 school districts have gotten the letters, or what the letters say.  Under Minnesota law, it apparently is difficult if not impossible for the public to get that information.  So the far-left administration of trust fund billionaire Mark Dayton is able to bully school districts in the shadows, without public knowledge or recourse.

Katherine Kersten writing in the Strib:

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Of all the blatantly racist policies promulgated by the Obama administration, a "guidance" to public schools issued in 2014 on "racial disparities in discipline" may be the worst.

Basically, if more black students are disciplined – like suspension – than white students on a pro rata basis, the school district has a discrimination problem.

That policy is now about to implemented in Minnesota public schools – on steroids.

Powerline:

[S]tate governments and federal courts that are in liberal hands have taken up the claim that disparate incidence of discipline must be discriminatory, a theory that flies in the face of common observation that misbehavior in school is not randomly distributed in the student population.

In Minnesota, the Department of Human Rights has reportedly sent letters to 43 school districts and charter schools, telling them that they are under investigation because of racial disparities in discipline.  There is an added Orwellian element in that news of the letters has leaked out, but no one knows what 43 school districts have gotten the letters, or what the letters say.  Under Minnesota law, it apparently is difficult if not impossible for the public to get that information.  So the far-left administration of trust fund billionaire Mark Dayton is able to bully school districts in the shadows, without public knowledge or recourse.

Katherine Kersten writing in the Strib:

We've seen this movie before, most recently in the St. Paul Public Schools.  There, it had devastating consequences for students of all backgrounds.  MDHR bureaucrats must have been the only people in St. Paul who weren't paying attention to this debacle.

In St. Paul schools – as virtually everywhere in the country – black students, as a group, are referred for discipline at higher rates than other students.  Starting around 2012, the district's leaders tried to narrow this gap by lowering behavior expectations and removing meaningful penalties for student misconduct.  For example, they spent millions of dollars on "white privilege" training for teachers, and dropped "continual willful disobedience" as a suspendable offense.

Violence and disorder quickly escalated.  In some schools, anarchic conditions made learning difficult, if not impossible, according to teachers.  In December 2015, after a vicious attack by a student left a high school teacher with a traumatic brain injury, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi labeled the trend of violence a "public health crisis," according to news accounts.

By that time, suspensions – which had initially fallen – had surged to their highest rate in five years.  Black students, about 30 percent of the student body, were 77 percent of those suspended.  The St. Paul teachers' union threatened to strike over safety concerns, and families who valued education began flooding out of St. Paul schools.  In June 2016, the school board voted out the superintendent.

Misbehavior by students is a socio-economic problem, not racial.  Poorer students – many from single-parent households – receive less discipline at home than richer, two-parent homes.  There are also more behavior problems among the poor.  This can also be due to environmental problems, including poor nutrition. 

It's not a cultural or racial problem.  Middle-Class black kids are as well behaved as any white kids.  And this is a problem that has existed for decades.  So why make it a racial problem?

It's a power thing, of course.  Pointing out "racial disparities" allows school authorities to institute feel-good, virtue-signaling policies that are ineffective in addressing the problem but cater to the liberals' sense of "justice."  The fact that these policies breed violence and chaos is secondary to the point that "white privilege" should be battled at any cost.

The next problem that must be solved is terrified parents removing their kids from public schools and either homeschooling them or finding a way to send them to private schools.  Either way, the racial makeup of schools will change, and that will be another problem that must be "solved" by liberals.

We've seen this movie before, most recently in the St. Paul Public Schools.  There, it had devastating consequences for students of all backgrounds.  MDHR bureaucrats must have been the only people in St. Paul who weren't paying attention to this debacle.

In St. Paul schools – as virtually everywhere in the country – black students, as a group, are referred for discipline at higher rates than other students.  Starting around 2012, the district's leaders tried to narrow this gap by lowering behavior expectations and removing meaningful penalties for student misconduct.  For example, they spent millions of dollars on "white privilege" training for teachers, and dropped "continual willful disobedience" as a suspendable offense.

Violence and disorder quickly escalated.  In some schools, anarchic conditions made learning difficult, if not impossible, according to teachers.  In December 2015, after a vicious attack by a student left a high school teacher with a traumatic brain injury, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi labeled the trend of violence a "public health crisis," according to news accounts.

By that time, suspensions – which had initially fallen – had surged to their highest rate in five years.  Black students, about 30 percent of the student body, were 77 percent of those suspended.  The St. Paul teachers' union threatened to strike over safety concerns, and families who valued education began flooding out of St. Paul schools.  In June 2016, the school board voted out the superintendent.

Misbehavior by students is a socio-economic problem, not racial.  Poorer students – many from single-parent households – receive less discipline at home than richer, two-parent homes.  There are also more behavior problems among the poor.  This can also be due to environmental problems, including poor nutrition. 

It's not a cultural or racial problem.  Middle-Class black kids are as well behaved as any white kids.  And this is a problem that has existed for decades.  So why make it a racial problem?

It's a power thing, of course.  Pointing out "racial disparities" allows school authorities to institute feel-good, virtue-signaling policies that are ineffective in addressing the problem but cater to the liberals' sense of "justice."  The fact that these policies breed violence and chaos is secondary to the point that "white privilege" should be battled at any cost.

The next problem that must be solved is terrified parents removing their kids from public schools and either homeschooling them or finding a way to send them to private schools.  Either way, the racial makeup of schools will change, and that will be another problem that must be "solved" by liberals.