Black students and students with disabilities remain more likely to receive out-of-school suspensions, despite overall declines

• Published in: Policy File 2019
• Main Authors: Harper, Kristen, Ryberg, Renee, Temkin, Deborah
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Subjects: Child Trends; Children & youth/Families & family life; Education; Government

Over the last decade, education officials across the country have worked to reduce the use of suspension, expulsion, and other disciplinary approaches that remove students from schools. New legislation and codes of student conduct have spread in the wake of high-profile studies linking such practices to harmful student outcomes, including school dropout and contact with the juvenile justice system. Meanwhile, federal data has raised public awareness of wide disparities by race and disability in the administration of discipline. Some states have enacted legislation that would increase public transparency regarding the use of discipline (e.g., Arkansas), limit suspensions and expulsions for young children (e.g., Maryland, New Jersey), and limit suspensions and expulsions for nonviolent behavior (e.g., Tennessee). Other states have enacted legislation that directs education officials to review discipline data for subgroup disparities and address inequity (e.g., Rhode Island). Further, the nation's most prominent K, the Every Student Succeeds Act, requires states and school districts to develop strategies to reduce the use of harmful discipline practices. These efforts emerged amid widening consensus between policymakers, educators, and researchers that suspension and expulsion should be replaced whenever possible with evidence-based practices shown to address the underlying causes of student misbehavior.