Unit 4 Addressing Pushout

What is "pushout" and how can it be addressed in Unit 4 schools? From Tuesday's News-Gazette:

Unit 4 admins brainstorm ways to push back against 'pushout' of black girls
In one word, the problem is referred to as "pushout."

In more words, pushout is a term for a phenomenon in which young black girls and women are devalued because of deeply entrenched misconceptions, ones that usually relate to appearance or behavior.

It's not unique to Champaign, and it's not unique to schools — it happens everywhere — but some Unit 4 administrators wanted to see it addressed on both levels, so they called for a brainstorming session Monday night to push back against that cycle within the district...

Some women called for improved mentoring opportunities and experiences through school, ones that include matching multigenerational black women and girls. Others noted a need for relationship advice, like knowing the signs of abuse. Others focused on the classroom, pointing to a need to celebrate black women's achievements more often...

While several ideas operated on a personal-relationship level, such as mentoring, Pasha Trotter said she hopes systemic change is also in order.

"I think it's important that while we ask black women to do the labor, the system does the work," she said. "Is the system thinking about, 'What are the ways that we create or put burdens on black girls or on black educators?' What are the ways that schools are involved in creating the tensions and problems that surface through how we engage with our students, how we engage with our faculty and why black girls need to find someone in school to relate to."

More at the full article here. More on the concept of pushout in this article at The Atlantic:

The “good girl” and “bad girl” dichotomy, as chronicled by Monique W. Morris in Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, is a condition that has plagued black girls and women for time immemorial. Society’s deeply entrenched expectations of black girls—influenced by racism and patriarchy—has led to a ritual whereby these young women are often mischaracterized, and mislabeled because of how they look, dress, speak, and act. In short, black girls are devalued based on how others perceive them.

As evidence, Morris offers the historical account of a black teen named Claudette Colvin, who refused to relinquish her bus seat to a white passenger in March 1955 before Rosa Parks made history with the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Colvin was seemingly an ideal role model against segregated busing—she was an A student who had studied Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Jim Crow racial injustices. Yet Colvin was feisty and argued with the white policeman before getting arrested. She was also working-class, dark-skinned, and pregnant. According to elders within Montgomery’s black community and others, these factors, taken all together, made Colvin unsuitable as a standard-bearer for the civil-rights movement.

This inclination to judge and condemn black girls is also seen in recent examples that sparked national outrage, including Kiera Wilmot, the 16-year-old Florida girl expelled for a harmless science experiment; Dajerria Becton, the 15-year-old girl tossed and pinned to the ground by a McKinney, Texas, police officer during a pool-party squabble; and Shakara, the 16-year-old girl dragged out of her seat and thrown across a South Carolina classroom over a cell phone.

As Pushout documents, these are hardly isolated cases. The stigmas many attach to black girls has far-reaching and damaging consequences, Morris writes, with devastating effects on their academic, social, and emotional lives. A veteran education, civil-rights, and social-justice scholar, Morris is the co-founder of the National Black Women’s Justice Institute, a group dedicated to combatting disparities affecting black women, girls, and their families. She recently shared some thoughts with The Atlantic on interventions to help black girls in schools. The interview that follows has been edited lightly and condensed for clarity.

The full article at The Atlantic is available here. Local school discipline and racial disparity data is available at a recent Cheat Sheet post here.