(*originally published on March 25, 2013*)

“We have a crisis in public education especially for black males,” according to St. Catherine’s University Professor Nancy Heitzeg. Zero tolerance policies, born out of the language of the war on drugs which created the Gun Free Schools Act of 1994, resulted in kids being suspended and expelled at much higher rates, with “incredible racial disparity,” she said. “What we see nationally and in Minnesota is that African American males are six times more likely to be suspended from school, but there’s no indication that they have more disruptive behavior than white students.” She also suggested that No Child Left Behind era policies encourage schools to push out students who are dragging down test scores, which, combined with a growing police presence in schools, have pushed up incarceration rates for young people.

Heitzeg was one of the panelists at the sixth annual “How are the Children” symposium held at the University of St. Thomas School of Law on March 20. In a panel called “The Black Boys’ Burden: Educational Equity and Cultural Challenges in the Classroom,” Heitzeg said young black men are locked out of well resourced schools, gifted and talented programs and postsecondary options and pushed out into the prison pipeline.

Read the full article here.