School Discipline

Research related to the racial disparities in policies and practices related to school discipline.

Lost Instruction: The Disparate Impact of the School Discipline Gap in California

This report is the first to analyze California’s school discipline data as measured by days of missed instruction due to suspension.

Suspended Education in Massachusetts: Using Days of Lost Instruction Due to Suspension to Evaluate Our Schools

This study uses percentages reported by the state to estimate the total days of missed instruction per 100 students enrolled. The authors argue that this school-level analysis is an ideal indicator for the state’s proposed new accountability system because it gives meaningful information to the public about school climate with regard to how much lost instruction is incurred by students, an area that schools have a great deal of control over.

The Hidden Cost of California's Harsh School Discipline

The new report calculates the financial consequences of suspending students in each California school district with more than 100 students, and for the state as a whole.

The High Cost Of Harsh Discipline And Its Disparate Impact

This report carefully and conservatively quantifies the costs of suspension in two highly populated states, Florida and California, and for the nation.

Charter Schools, Civil Rights and School Discipline: A Comprehensive Review

This report, along with the companion spreadsheet, provides the first comprehensive description ever compiled of charter school discipline. In 2011-12, every one of the nation’s 95,000 public schools was required to report its school discipline data, including charter schools. This analysis, which includes more than 5,250 charter schools, focuses on out-of-school suspension rates at the elementary and secondary levels. The report describes the extent to which suspensions meted out by charter schools for each major racial group and for students with disabilities are excessive or disparate.

Are We Closing the School Discipline Gap?

The main body of this report documents gross disparities in the use of out-of-school suspension experienced by students with disabilities and those from historically disadvantaged racial, ethnic, and gender subgroups. The egregious disparities revealed in the pages that follow transform concerns about educational policy that allows frequent disciplinary removal into a profound matter of civil rights and social justice. This implicates the potentially unlawful denial of educational opportunity and resultant disparate impact on students in numerous districts across the country.

Nationwide Survey of State Education Agencies’ Online School Disciplinary Data for Students with Disabilities (Summer 2014)

School Disciplinary Data reported by SEAs online.