Reforming School-Based Discipline

The expert testimony, research, scholarship, and lived experience collected by the Commission revealed the following:

• In 2011-2012, nearly 3.5 million public school students were suspended out of school at least once (Morgan, et al., 2014). Recent estimates suggest that one in three students will be suspended at some point between kindergarten and 12th grade (Schollenberger, 2015).
• In 2015, UCLA’s Center for Civil Rights Remedies published a study examining the “discipline gap,” or the inequalities in discipline received by different subgroups of students (Losen, Hodson, Keith, Morrison, & Belway, 2015). For both primary and secondary education, the study ranked each state according to the difference between the percentage of Black children suspended and the percentage of White children suspended. In this study, Missouri ranked last among primary school-aged children: 14.3% of Black students were suspended in 2011-2012 compared to 1.8% of White students. Missouri also had the highest suspension rate for Black elementary school students in the country (Losen et al., 2015). When looking at secondary-school-aged children, Missouri ranked 47th out of 50 states: 20 more Black secondary school students than White students were suspended in Missouri per 100 students enrolled in 2011-2012 (Losen et al., 2015).
• As reported by the St. Louis Post Dispatch, nearly one out of five of the 3,989 total suspensions in the St. Louis school district last school year was for ‘insubordination/disrespect,’ an inherently subjective category that can include a student stomping his foot or putting her head down on her desk (Crouch, 2015).
• Several studies suggest suspending students does not necessarily allow the remaining students to thrive as one might expect.
  • One such study found that, when controlling for poverty and race, schools that used suspension infrequently had higher achievement rates (Skiba, Chung, Trachok, Baker, Sheya, & Hughes, 2014).
  • Similarly, another large and rigorous study found no academic benefits in schools with higher suspension rates (Fabelo, Thompson, Plotkin, Carmichael, Marchbanks & Booth 2011).
  • Notably, the Denver Public Schools made a concerted effort to improve the school climate systemically by implementing restorative practices that focus on rehabilitation and reconciliation and a community-based model of discipline that deemphasizes zero-tolerance policies in favor of the empowerment of students to solve problems. The schools witnessed a decrease in suspension rates, a narrowing in the discipline gap, and an increase in test scores at all grade levels in nearly every subject for six consecutive years (Gonzalez, 2015).

These findings prompted the Commission to draft a recommendation that calls for changes to school policies, practices, and leadership as well as teacher training with the hope that this call will help eliminate excessive disciplinary exclusion and thereby improve the short- and long-term wellbeing of children.

To that end, the Commission issues the call to action below.