KEEPING CALIFORNIA’S KIDS IN SCHOOL
Recently the California Department of Education released new data on school discipline. This report compares this year’s data release covering 2012-13 to the data released last year covering 2011-12. We find a reduction in the use of out-of-school suspension for every racial/ethnic group. Specifically, based on the statewide averages for 2011-2012 and 2012-2013, progress was made for every racial/ethnic subgroup toward reducing the rate of out-of-school suspensions (OSS) per 100 students enrolled from the prior year.
Data source and limitations: The state and district level data used to construct this report and compare years, include data on every district in California collected by the state and available on the state’s Department of Education website. We have conducted the additional analysis on racial gaps and trends over time. We provide that information for every district in a sortable spreadsheet that accompanies this report. The state has discouraged comparisons with reported data from earlier years because the definitions, collection methods and other inconsistencies make such comparisons unreliable.
The reduction in state averages suggest that some progress has been made toward reducing the reliance on out-of- school suspensions and the racial gap in disciplinary exclusion is narrowing in California. This report only provides a summary of some of the more significant state and district level improvements.
See the attached full report and spreadsheet.
In compliance with the UC Open Access Policy, this report has been made available on eScholarship: