Black students have been disciplined more harshly than their white peers in New Jersey schools, federal data shows, despite studies demonstrating they don’t misbehave at higher rates.

Now state lawmakers say they want to investigate school disciplinary practices in New Jersey, which ranks 16th among states with the highest racial disparities.

Black students make up just 16 percent of the Garden State’s student population, but they received 44 percent of suspensions in the 2013-2014 school year, the most recent period for which data was available.

Lawmakers and education advocates say things have not improved in years since.

“We cannot stand by and allow students of color to be adversely affected by potentially unfair policies that could impact their entire educational career,” said Assemblywoman Angela McKnight, D-Hudson, one of the sponsors of a bill that would launch a task force inquiry.

The measure, advanced by the Assembly Education Committee earlier this month, would create a 10-person task force to “analyze the effectiveness” of the status quo in school discipline and determine whether they were contributing to racial imbalance.

Experts and education advocates told NJ Advance Media the driving forces behind the racial punishment gap were complex, ranging from the implicit biases of individual teachers to district and state policies that hurt students of color more.

Fred Fogg, a regional director for Youth Advocate Programs, said schools "never really looked at the root causes" for students who break school rules. "Lateness, absences, what kinds of things are behind that?" he said, adding, "Zero tolerance policies are one of the biggest issues with the school to prison pipeline."

The task force measure has the backing of New Jersey’s largest teachers union and the state’s association of school administrators, both of which called the racial disparities troubling and worthy of review.

Disparate discipline for students of color

Research from the Equity Project at Indiana University has shown that despite the disparate rates of punishment, black students are no more likely to misbehave in school than their white peers.

Yet here in New Jersey, black boys received more than 40% of out-of-school suspensions while their white counterparts were given just under 27%.

Among girls, the gap was even larger. More than half of disciplined girls were black while 19 percent were white, according to the data, part of the U.S. Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection.

Advocates say the implicit biases of teachers and other school employees are just one part of a much larger problem.

Nina Peckman, a staff attorney for Advocates for Children of New Jersey, said in her experience, black students in predominantly white schools get treated much more harshly and disciplined for smaller violations than those who go to more diverse schools.

Mary Coogan, the Vice President of Advocates for Children of New Jersey, said the data was troubling, but not surprising. She said teachers and schools are becoming aware that black and brown students are disciplined more harshly than their white peers, but that change has been slow.

“People are becoming more aware of their own biases but we’re not there yet,” she said.

Money and language barriers also play a role in the disparate treatment, Coogan and Peckman said.

Poor parents don’t have the time or resources to advocate for their children like wealthier parents do. Advocating could mean meeting with teachers or school officials to address issues a child is having or enrolling them in therapy to address underlying issues. On top of that, if a student’s parents don’t speak English as their primary language, advocating for their children to receive better treatment is that much more difficult.

“In my case, the majority of the black families that I help are also struggling because they’re low income and they haven’t been able to effectively advocate for their rights,” Peckman said. “So they come to me when their kids have already been suspended a number of times.”

She added: “If you’re poor parent and you get a termination notice, what are you going to do? What are you going to do in the immediate aftermath of that decision? You still have to go to work."

Schools, police look for solutions

The New Jersey Education Association, the state teachers union, has come out in favor of a statewide inquiry into racial disparities in discipline, saying in a policy statement provided to NJ Advance Media that such a probe "will ensure that such policies are not causing disproportionate racial disparities or impacts.

“What’s more, the task force can bring forward critical recommendations to rectify disparities in the current system,” the statement said.

Richard Bozza, the executive director of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators, said his organization also supports the proposed investigation and expects to have one of its members on the task force.

He said New Jersey schools and districts are beginning to have “frank conversations” about students of color being disciplined more harshly. In addition, Bozza said, the group is surveying its members about existing discipline policies to help guide the inquiry.

Fred Fogg, a regional director of operations with Youth Advocate Programs in Northern New Jersey, said other causes include “zero tolerance” polices for drugs or violence, the increasing presence of police officers in schools and a lack of mental health or behavioral services.

Fogg said that when he was in school, a fight between students could lead to a trip to the principal’s office. Now, though, zero tolerance policies mean students fighting can result in police arresting them and charging them with assault.

School resource officers, too, he said, can lead to harsher discipline for students.

“I know what the intention was,” he said. “But kids end up with formal charges for things that would be school based offenses.”

Advocates pointed, however, to changing attitudes among law enforcement. Both Fogg and Coogan pointed to the work of acting Middlesex County prosecutor Chris Kuberiet who has taken efforts to divert youth from the juvenile justice system. And in Gloucester County, Coogan said, several police departments have received de-escalation training for situations involving students.

Fogg’s group piloted “opportunity rooms” in some schools where a child who was having behavioral issues in class could go to receive one-on-one attention. After a few hours or a day in the opportunity room, Fogg said, the student could be re-acclimated into the classroom.

“That’s the direction where we need to head,” he said. “A one-stop shop where we can be supportive to kids and families and…have the school as part of the community.”

The task force bill, first introduced last year, was approved last month by the Assembly Education Committee. It has yet to get a hearing in the Senate, which would also need to approve it before it heads to Gov. Phil Murphy’s desk.

About the data: The data comes from the state and national estimations of Civil Rights Data Collection, a repository on some of the most important education and civil rights issues in public schools across the country.

Disha Raychaudhuri may be reached at disha@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @Disha_RC.

J. Dale Shoemaker may be reached at jshoemaker@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JDale_Shoemaker.

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