Black History Month celebrates the countless ways Black people and communities have made our nation stronger. It is also a time to reflect on ways systemic racism and bias have harmed Black people and the potential solutions to eradicate these harms and eliminate disparities. One way that Black children—including very young children, ages zero to three—experience inequity is through disproportionate rates of expulsion, suspension, or other harsh forms of discipline.  

In a new report, CLASP experts explore inequitable discipline in child care and early learning settings. It shows that:  

• The lack of data on harsh discipline experienced by very young children in child care limits our ability to develop polices to end this practice;
• Programs such as the Child Care and Development Block Grant and Head Start are well positioned to begin collecting these data and disaggregating them by race, a prerequisite to changing policy; and
• Since bias is built into early childhood survey practices and data collection systems, equitable data practices and community engagement can root out bias while also centering and shifting power to Black families and communities.    

In addition to highlighting innovative efforts in California, Colorado, and other states to eliminate inequitable discipline, CLASP experts urge state and federal policymakers to:  

• Increase funding to identify and eliminate harsh and inequitable disciplinary practices to manage young children’s behavior;
• Pass legislation at the state level to limit or prohibit suspension, expulsion, or pushing children out of programs that are licensed or funded by states and provide necessary supports to implement these laws equitably;
• Directly link continuous quality improvement and health and safety initiatives to reduce and end harsh disciplinary practices;
• Ramp up data collection and analysis to understand the scope of harsh discipline in early childhood settings and adopt equitable data practices that use community engagement and shift power to Black families and communities; and
• Establish a federal office devoted to protecting the civil rights of very young children.  

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with report authors Tiffany Ferrette at [email protected] or Alycia Hardy at [email protected] to learn more.

>>Tweet This<<