Pushed out: Trends and disparities in out-of-school suspension

Abstract

During the 1990s and early 2000s, federal and state policies encouraged the implementation of zero-tolerance policies across the country, which helped fuel an overall increase in the use of suspension and expanded racial disparities in suspension. Recent changes in policy and practice have begun to shift educators away from exclusionary discipline, and we review those changes and trends in this report. We examine out-of-school suspension data from the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), tracking trends over time. We also assess differences in suspension rates of students based on their race and ethnicity, school level, and disability status. We present data at national and state levels, and because out-of-school suspensions are concentrated in secondary schools, we focus our state-level findings on secondary school students. We explore the ways in which changes in suspension rates may be related to changes in policy, and we make recommendations for additional strategies to reduce school exclusion for all students, and in particular for those who have disproportionately experienced its negative effects.

Juvenile School Discipline and Well-Being Among College-Educated Emerging Adults

“…Such policies, as well as other presumed school security measures like metal detectors and school law enforcement, expanded through the early 2000s. Not surprisingly, the overall suspension rate among U.S. students nearly doubled from 4% in 1973to 7% in 2009(Leung-Gagné et al, 2022.…”

“…The use of exclusionary discipline, that which removes a child from the classroom or school, is common in American schools (Leung-Gagné et al, 2022; Office for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education, 2021b). Its use increased sharply in the late 1980s and 1990s following a proliferation of zero-tolerance policies in response to federal mandates to curb gun violence via the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994 (Leung-Gagné et al, 2022). Many states took leeway so that their zero-tolerance policies applied to many more forms of misconduct than bringing a weapon to school (Kang-Brown et al, 2013).…”

“…Exclusionary school discipline, its unequal application, and its implications for young people's future chances have received much attention in the criminological, educational, and developmental literature in recent decades. We have focused much of this attention on zero-tolerance policies, adopted by schools en masse amidst the increase in juvenile crime in the late 1980s and 1990s (Kang-Brown et al, 2013;Leung-Gagné et al, 2022). Because these policies mandate discipline, typically exclusionary in nature, for certain conduct violations regardless of context, they have been charged with fueling the school-to-prison pipeline.…”

Policy for Civic Reasoning

“…We see the symptoms of this dynamic in national statistics on school suspensions and expulsions. many students-disproportionately Black, Indigenous, other students of color, and students with disabilities-miss an alarming number of instructional days due to out-of-school suspensions in a single academic year (Leung-gagné et al 2022). moreover, the effect is cumulative: students receiving one or more suspensions are less likely to graduate from high school or make successful transitions to postsecondary education opportunities.…”

Creating identity-safe schools and classrooms

“…For example, in the 2017-18 school year, Black students were suspended at about 4 times the rate of white students, students with disabilities were suspended at 3 times the rate, and Native American students were suspended at about twice the rate. 18 This is not necessarily a function of greater misbehavior. Studies show that these students are punished more harshly for the same offense, and most of these exclusions are associated with minor transgressions.…”