Our country recently witnessed the profound and life-altering consequences students face when engaging punitive disciplinary systems. Sitting quietly at her desk at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina, Shakara 1 âa Black female teenagerâwas grabbed, thrown on the ground and then dragged across the classroom and arrested by a White male school resource officer for failing to comply with instructions to put away her cell phone (Jarvie, 2015; Savali, 2015). The incident, which was captured on video, left Shakara facing misdemeanor charges for âdisturbing schools,â a charge that carries a $1000 maximum fine and up to 90 days in jail, as well as a broken arm and injuries to her face, neck, ribs, back, and left shoulder (Love, 2015).
While Shakaraâs case sparked national outrage, including an investigation from the US Department of Justice, it is one of many examples of the excessive and racialized overuse of punitive discipline common in schools (Ferris, 2015). Data from the US Department of Education show that Black students, who comprise 16% of overall student enrollment in US public schools, make up more than a quarter of students referred to law enforcement from schools and 31% of those arrested for school-related incidents (CRDC, 2014). Nationally, 3.45 million students were suspended from school during the 2011â2012 school year; among those students, Black students were three times more likely to be suspended and expelled than their White peers. Students with disabilities also face increased risk of exclusionary discipline; in 2012, they were twice as likely to be suspended as those without disabilities and represented a quarter of students arrested and referred to law enforcement, although they represented only 13% of the nationâs student population (CRDC, 2014).
Data like these have been the subject of increasing concern to policymakers, civil rights advocates, parents, students, and scholars. Reflecting this growing national awareness, one news report on Shakaraâs case observed: âThe aggressive discipline [in Spring Valley] is just one example of the school-to-prison pipeline phenomenon, in which Black children are more likely to be criminalized for their behavior than their White peersâ (Bellware, 2015). Professional associations such as the American Psychological Association (APA, 2008) have issued reports on the ineffectiveness of and risks associated with disciplinary exclusion, particularly for Black students. Prominent school districts, such as the Los Angeles Unified School District (Jones, 2013), San Francisco Unified School District, and the New York City Department of Education (Blad, 2014), and states such as Colorado (Marcus, 2012), Maryland (St. George, 2014), and California (Public Counsel, 2014) have revised their codes of conduct to focus on preventive alternatives to suspension and expulsion and curb the inequitable use of exclusionary discipline. At the federal level, the US Departments of Justice and Education led a national initiative on school discipline that resulted in federal civil rights guidance aimed at reducing the use of, and disparities in, suspension and expulsion, as well as expanded data collection and monitoring of disciplinary exclusion nationally. Federal agencies are also providing new funding for school-climate interventions, research on best practices, and judicially led multi-stakeholder coalitions to reform policy and practice (U.S. Department of Justice/Department of Education, 2014).
Yet, despite this growing sense of the need for a change and initial steps in some places to address the issue, the field lacks comprehensive analysis of why disciplinary exclusion and disparities have become so prevalent, and what can be done to reverse this trend. Why are some students subjected to harsher discipline than others, and why are suspensions, expulsions, and arrests so widely used? What should we do to change these patterns in schools?
This book intends to answer those questions by providing the most up-to-date and authoritative information on what has been learned from research, data, and practical experience about disciplinary disparities, and the latest findings regarding disparity-reducing approaches. We argue that there is a need to examine the roles of bias and inequality in educational and societal opportunities in the creation of disciplinary disparities in schools. In a context of increasing stakes for educational achievement, the work of disparity reduction could not be more important. Moreover, in light of growing evidence of disparate treatment by law enforcement authorities on the basis of race, we must explore how school-based authoritiesâ perception of and response to youth behavior contribute to large and continuing disparities in school punishments.
The Discipline Disparities Collaborative
The chapters in this book draw from and were commissioned by the Discipline Disparities Research-to-Practice Collaborative (hereafter, Collaborative). The Collaborative is an inter-disciplinary, multi-sector, and highly diverse group of 28 nationally recognized researchers, advocates, content experts, and practitioners. Launched by the Equity Project at Indiana University and The Atlantic Philanthropies, with additional support from the Open Society Foundations and anonymous donors, the purpose of the Collaborative has been to explore and fill gaps in knowledge specific to disparities in school discipline, and to grow the evidence-base on effective practices, policies, and approaches that substantially reduce or eliminate disparities in discipline.
Initiated in 2011, the Collaborative engaged in more than seven multi-day face-to-face meetings with diverse stakeholders from across the country. That effort was intentional: we believed that such meetings would facilitate a deeper understanding of the context in which disciplinary disparities occur, ensure that our work was grounded in the lived experiences of key stakeholders, and also increase the likelihood that the Collaborativeâs research efforts would have real-world applicability and usefulness. The Collaborative met with (1) educators, including parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, and school board representatives; (2) state and national policymakers and policy analysts; (3) community-based organizations operating disciplinary and juvenile justiceâreducing interventions; (4) local and national advocacy organizations; (5) juvenile justice specialists; and (6) researchers and equity trainers.
In addition to grounding the work, those meetings identified key areas in need of additional research. The Collaborative subsequently funded a set of research projects and produced briefing papers and forums to address the important questions and needs of practitioners, parents, advocates, and policymakers, and in particular, expand the availability and knowledge base of promising interventions that could reduce disparities in school discipline for students of color, girls, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth.
This volume presents findings from the Collaborativeâs multi-year work. The chapters that follow document the continuing overuse of exclusionary discipline and law enforcement interventions for vulnerable students, and present evidence showing how removal from school for disciplinary purposes contributes to a range of negative school and life outcomes, including grade retention, school dropout, and involvement with the juvenile justice system. In addition to adding to the knowledge base on disparities for students of color and those with disabilities for whom the overuse of exclusionary discipline is increasingly recognized, the book also examines patterns and consequences of exclusionary discipline for students who are gender non-conforming or identify as LGBT, about which comparatively little is known. Finally, the book offers new strategies that policymakers and practitioners can use to reduce disparities.
School Discipline and Educational Equity: False Narratives on the Need for Exclusionary Discipline
School exclusionâout-of-school suspension, expulsion, and arrestâhas become a central component of discipline in our nationâs schools over the past several decades, and both its implementation and consequences fall disproportionally on certain groups. Some studies have suggested that at least a third of all students are now likely to experience an out-of-school suspension or expulsion at some point in their school career (Fabelo et al., 2011). The use of such measures is even higher for Black males, with one estimate suggesting that nearly 70% of these students experience at least one suspension or expulsion during their K-12 academic careers (Shollenberger, 2015).
Chapter 2 of this volume details the substantial negative consequences of the frequent and inequitable use of school exclusion in discipline. In brief, exclusionary discipline is associated with student and teacher perceptions of a more negative climate (Steinberg, Allensworth, & Johnson, 2015); lower levels of academic achievement (Arcia, 2006) and civic and voter participation (Kupchik & Caitlaw, 2013); and an increased risk of negative behavior over time (Tobin, Sugai, & Colvin, 1996), school dropout or failure to graduate on time (Suh & Suh, 2007), and contact with the juvenile justice system (Fabelo et al., 2011). Indeed, the perceived and actual linkage between exclusionary discipline and justice system involvement led youth and civil rights advocates to coin the term âSchool-to-Prison Pipelineâ that is now widely used (Mediratta, 2012).
But despite the growing evidence of the harms of exclusionary discipline and its ineffectiveness in increasing safety and academic success, belief in the efficacy of the approach is steadfast among wide-ranging sectors of the public. While the arguments for exclusionary discipline are varied, at least three meta-narratives appear to anchor its support among public school parents, poli...