Obama asks public schools to ignore bad behavior by black students

Kyle Rogers:

Back in 2007 I had two white female public school teachers tell me why Barack Obama was desperately needed as president. They said that black male students have no male role models. If only Obama was elected, black male students would improve their behavior and academic performance, they claimed.

In many major cities, black academic performance has actually gotten worse since Obama took office. We have also seen the dramatic nationwide rise of black teen mob violence under the Obama administration.

On July 26th Obama signed an executive order titled the “African American Education Initiative.” The order essentially gives a green light for black students to misbehave in public schools. In two places, Obama’s executive order calls on schools to reduce the number disciplinary actions taken against blacks students. The order specifically calls on schools too “not rely on methods that result in disparate use of disciplinary tools.”

To comply, public schools would have to engage in a racial quota system of discipline. The executive order will create a new Federal bureaucracy to pressure school systems to comply with the president’s demands. The executive order makes no mention of any effort to get black students to improve behavior.

There is a reason why blacks are more likely to be disciplined in school. Black students are more likely to misbehave. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that there is a huge crime rate disparity between blacks and other racial groups.

Based on those disparities, one should expect that there would be a disparity in frequency of bad behavior between black and white school students in the public schools.

The DOJ reports that the homicide rate in the black community is nine times greater than in the white community. Between 1976 and 2005, the DOJ reported that blacks averaged 13 percent of the population, but accounted for 59 percent of felony homicide charges and 53 percent of non-felony manslaughter charges. It also might come as no surprise that 93-95 percent of black homicides victims are killed by a black perpetrator. Most of the rest are killed by a Latino perpetrator.

In reality, blacks are already less likely to be suspended for bad behavior than whites. Often, white teachers and administrators are afraid to discipline black students for fear of being called “racists.” Even some black school officials are afraid of being labeled a “sell-out” by black students.

The executive order also states that black students “lack equal access” to education. This statement, by the White House, is outrageous and easily disproved. Across the nation, majority black public schools routinely receive more funding per pupil than majority white public schools.

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