By KIMBERLY HEFLING and JESSE J. HOLLAND
Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Black students are more likely to be suspended from U.S. public schools – even as tiny preschoolers.
The racial disparities in American education, from access to high-level classes and experienced teachers to discipline, were highlighted in a report released Friday by the Education Department’s civil rights arm.
The suspensions – and disparities – begin at the earliest grades.
Black children represent about 18 percent of children in preschool programs in schools, but they make up almost half of the preschoolers who are suspended more than once, the report said. Six percent of the nation’s districts with preschools reported suspending at least one preschool child.
Advocates long have said get-tough suspension and arrest policies in schools have contributed to a “school-to-prison” pipeline that snags minority students, but much of the emphasis has been on middle school and high school policies. This was the first time the department reported data on preschool discipline.
Earlier this year, the Obama administration issued guidance encouraging schools to abandon what it described as overly zealous discipline policies that send students to court instead of the principal’s office. But even before the announcement, school districts have been adjusting policies that disproportionately affect minority students.
Overall, the data show that Black students of all ages are suspended and expelled at a rate that’s three times higher than that of white children. Even as boys receive more than two-thirds of suspensions, Black girls are suspended at higher rates than girls of any other race or most boys.
The data doesn’t explain why the disparities exist or why the students were suspended.
“It is clear that the United States has a great distance to go to meet our goal of providing opportunities for every student to succeed,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement.
“This critical report shows that racial disparities in school discipline policies are not only well documented among older students, but actually begin during preschool,” Attorney General Eric Holder said. “Every data point represents a life impacted and a future potentially diverted or derailed. This administration is moving aggressively to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline in order to ensure that all of our young people have equal educational opportunities.”
Nationally, 1 million children were served in public preschool programs, with about 60 percent of districts offering preschool during the 2011-2012 school year, according to the data. The data show nearly 5,000 preschoolers were suspended once. At least 2,500 were suspended more than once.
Daniel Losen, director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies for the Civil Rights Project at UCLA, said the findings are disturbing because the suspended preschoolers aren’t likely presenting a danger, such as a teenager bringing a gun to school.
“Almost none of these kids are kids that wouldn’t be better off with some support from educators,” Losen said. “Just kicking them out of school is denying them access to educational opportunity at such a young age. Then, as they come in for kindergarten, they are just that much less prepared.”
Losen said it’s appropriate to discipline a 4-year-old, but a more appropriate response might be moving them to a different educational setting with additional services.
“Most preschool kids want to be in school,” Losen said. “Kids just don’t understand why they can’t go to school.”
Judith Browne Dianis, co-director of the Advancement Project, a think tank that specializes in social issues affecting minority communities, said the findings didn’t surprise her.
“I think most people would be shocked that those numbers would be true in preschool, because we think of 4- and 5-years-olds as being innocent,” she said. “But we do know that schools are using zero tolerance policies for our youngest also, that while we think our children need a head start, schools are kicking them out instead.”
Kimbrelle Lewis, principal of Raleigh-Bartlett Meadows Elementary School in Memphis, said she’s never suspended a child in her school’s preschool program and would only consider it in an “extreme circumstance.” She said her district provides behavior specialists and other services to children with discipline problems so strategies can be worked out with teachers and parents if preschoolers need additional support.
If there are racial disparities among preschoolers disciplined, “I do think it’s something to look at. I think it’s a conversation to have,” said Lewis, who served on a committee with the National Association of Elementary School Principals looking at issues affecting younger school children.
Dennis Van Roekel, the president of the National Education Association teachers’ union, said in a statement that the findings show that “too many children don’t have equitable access to experienced and fully licensed teachers.”
“The inequities detailed in this report have been caused, at least in part, by policies that disregard the professionalism of teaching and create a revolving door of under-prepared and under-supported novices who leave before they’ve reached the levels of mastery required to truly make a difference,” Van Roekel said.

(Photo Source: PR Photos)

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — The star of the television show “Judge Joe Brown” has been arrested and charged with five counts of contempt of court in Tennessee, court officials in Memphis said Monday.
Shelby County Juvenile Court officials said the 66-year-old Brown was sentenced to five days in jail after causing an outburst Monday in a child support hearing. Brown is running in the Democratic primary for Shelby County district attorney general.
Magistrate Judge Harold “Hal” Horne charged the former TV judge with contempt of court, said Dan Michael, chief magistrate judge of the Shelby County Juvenile Court.
“He darn near caused a riot in the courtroom, he had people so inflamed,” Michael said of the former TV judge.
Brown could not be reached for comment. Neither jail officials nor juvenile court officials knew whether he had retained a lawyer. WREG-TV was reporting that Brown had been released from jail.
The former TV judge was representing a woman who had been brought in on a warrant in a child support case, Michael said. Brown, he said, was yelling and repeatedly challenging Horne’s authority and even addressing his comments to a crowd of people inside the courtroom.
Brown’s nationally syndicated TV show was canceled last year.

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON — They were heroes who didn’t get their due.
On Tuesday, 24 mostly ethnic or minority U.S. soldiers who performed bravely under fire in three of the nation’s wars finally received the Medal of Honor that the government concluded should have been awarded a long time ago.
The servicemen were identified following a congressionally mandated review to ensure that eligible recipients of the country’s highest recognition for valor were not bypassed due to prejudice. Only three of the 24 were alive for President Barack Obama to drape the medals and ribbons around their necks.
“Today we have the chance to set the record straight,” Obama said. “No nation is perfect, but here in America we confront our imperfections and face a sometimes painful past, including the truth that some of these soldiers fought and died for a country that did not always see them as equal.”
The three surviving recipients — Vietnam veterans Jose Rodela, Melvin Morris and Santiago Erevia — received a prolonged standing ovation at Obama’s side, their faces set in somber acknowledgement of the honor.
Rodela, now of San Antonio, was a 31-year-old company commander of a Special Forces strike group on Sept. 1, 1969, in Phuoc Long Province, Vietnam, when he and his company of Cambodian soldiers whom he had helped recruit came under fire from North Vietnamese Army troops.
According to his Medal of Honor citation and supporting documents, the battle lasted 18 hours and 11 men in his company were killed and 33 others wounded.
The citation states that late in the battle, Rodela “was the only member of his company who was moving and he began to run from one position to the next, checking for casualties and moving survivors into different positions in an attempt to form a stable defense line. Throughout the battle, in spite of his wounds, Rodela repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire to attend to the fallen and eliminate an enemy rocket position.”
In an interview with the Army News Service last December, he said simply, “We trained for this and I would have done it again.”
Morris of Cocoa, Fla., was a staff sergeant during combat operations on Sept. 17, 1969, near Chi Lang, South Vietnam. According to the Pentagon, Morris led soldiers across enemy lines to retrieve his team sergeant, who had been killed. He single-handedly destroyed an enemy force hidden in bunkers that had pinned down his battalion. Morris was shot three times as he ran with American casualties.
Morris received the Distinguished Service Cross in April 1970. That same month, he returned to Vietnam for his second tour.
“I never really did worry about decorations,” Morris told The Associated Press last month. But he said he fell to his knees when he received the surprise call from Obama with news that he was to be honored.
Erevia, also of San Antonio, was cited for courage while serving as a radio-telephone operator on May 21, 1969, during a search-and-clear mission near Tam Ky, South Vietnam. He was a specialist 4 when his battalion tried to take a hill fortified by Viet Cong and North Vietnam Army soldiers. The Pentagon says he single-handedly silenced four Viet Cong bunkers.
“I thought I was going to get killed when I started to advance because when you fight battles like that you don’t expect to live,” the 68-year-old retired postal worker told The Associated Press last month.
Among those who received a posthumous medal was Leonard Kravitz, an assistant machine gunner in the Korean War who is credited with saving his platoon by providing cover for retreating troops. He died in the attack. He is the uncle of singer and actor Lenny Kravitz, who attended Tuesday’s ceremony.
Obama singled out a childhood friend of the elder Kravitz, Mitchel Libman, for making a mission of upgrading medals for deserving soldiers.
“He and his wife Marilyn spent years writing letters and working with Congress and our military to get this done,” Obama said.
Tuesday’s mass ceremony, the largest since World War II, was the result of an Army review conducted under a directive from Congress in the 2002 National Defense Authorization Act. The law required that the record of each Jewish-American and Hispanic-American veteran who received a Service Cross during or after World War II be reviewed for possible upgrade to the Medal of Honor. Of the two dozen, 18 are Latinos.
The Pentagon said the Army reviewed the cases of the 6,505 recipients of the Distinguished Service Cross from World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars and found an eligible pool of 600 soldiers who may have been Jewish or Hispanic. The Army also worked with the National Museum of American Jewish Military History, the Jewish War Veterans of the USA and the American GI Forum, the largest Hispanic-American veteransgroup, to pinpoint potential medal recipients.
During the initial review, investigators found that other soldiers who had received the Distinguished Service Cross appeared to meet the criteria for a Medal of Honor and the directive was expanded to permit them to be considered for the upgraded honor.