Seeking Direct Accountability for Disproportionate Discipline and Dis/ability Classification

Abstract

Accountability for racially disproportionate discipline and dis/ability classification has conventionally spotlighted the disparate impact on students. Typically, findings such as “x% of African American students were suspended” or “y% of Latinx students were misidentified as having learning dis/abilities” reinforce this pattern. Our qualitative study sought the outlines of a different framing that locates accountability in practices, policies, and patterns of adult actors that produce those unjust outcomes. Practitioners, policy makers, researchers, and activists participated in this interview study by giving their perspectives on that reframing. Although their analyses fell short of directly holding the educational system accountable, they did highlight reforms such as increasing student agency in discipline and classification processes, expanding those processes to include a holistic analysis of students’ lives, and acknowledging that current accountability measures evade and obscure structural racism in discipline and dis/ability classification.