Remember Kanye’s West 2004 album, ‘College Dropout’? A little ‘Jesus Walks’ and the melody of ‘All Falls Down’. We all miss the old Kanye but that’s besides the point. In his first studio album release he tells the world specifically why he dropped out of college.
Society often frowns upon those individuals who choose to drop out of college or high school but, have we ever thought to ourselves that maybe students aren’t dropping out but rather being pushed out of the educational system?
A dropout is a student who leaves on their own accord rather than through the action of the school. But, a pushout – that’s a student who leaves before graduation through the encouragement of the school.
Over the years, the number of African American girls being pushed out of the educational system has consistently increased becoming a large but unacknowledged issue within the Black community.
The issues that Black women face are often swept under the rug or not acknowledged at all. Specifically, in the educational system Black women and girls are simply not paid attention to as much as Black men and boys are.
Recently, a six year old girl was arrested in Florida for throwing a tantrum. According to CNN, last week the officer arrested 6-year-old Kaia Rolle at the Lucious and Emma Nixon Academy in Orlando after she reportedly had a temper tantrum at school. On Thursday, Kaia’s grandmother was contacted by the school, being told that Kaia was being arrested and charged with battery for kicking someone.
According to the news source, CNN, Kaia’s grandmother Meralyn Kirkland had stated that sometimes her granddaughter experiences side effects from sleep apnea and that the family is working to get that resolved. Kirkland claims that her granddaughter was arrested, fingerprinted, and had mugshots taken but, police say that she was not processed.
The poor treatment of African American girls in the educational system ranges from how they are over sexualized, the criminalization, high explosion rates, high suspension rates, and the low percentage of Black girls that make up the education system.
In Monique Morris’s Novel Pushout, she mentions the high suspension rates for Black girls, “nearly 48 percent of Black girls who are expelled nationwide do not have access to educational services. Black girls are 16 percent of the female student population, but nearly one-third girls referred to law enforcement and more than one-third female school-based arrests.”
African American girls are often suspended for not displaying the white American norms that are expected of them. The consistent suspension of the student does not have the positive impact that most people think – the majority of people will think that just because a student is suspended that they will learn their lesson causing them to not want to be in that same predicament again.
In all actuality, for African American girls, it has a negative impact on them due to the high number of suspensions. The more that black girls are suspended and missing school, the more disconnected they are from learning.
Black Girls are being pushed out of education and society needs to put a stop to it. A stop to marginalizing, over sexualzimg, and criminalizing them!