Safe and Orderly Schools: Updated Guidance on School Discipline. Report

Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017. Tel: 212-599-7000; Fax: 212-599-3494; Web site: http://www.manhattan-institute.org

N

16

School Safety; Educational Environment; School Policy; Discipline Policy; Student Behavior; Expulsion; Suspension; Racial Differences; Racial Bias; Risk; Racial Discrimination; Disproportionate Representation; Juvenile Justice; Minority Group Students; Elementary Secondary Education; Teacher Attitudes; Public Schools

In December 2018, the Trump administration rescinded the Department of Education's 2014 "Dear Colleague Letter" (DCL), thus returning to local school districts and boards their traditional authority to set discipline policy. Although it was frequently described as "nonbinding guidance," the DCL was anything but. Instead, the letter advised school districts that they could be found in violation of the Civil Rights Act if students of different groups were disciplined at different rates--even if their rules governing suspensions and expulsions were written and administered fairly. Based on that notion, the Department of Education opened investigations that compelled hundreds of school districts serving millions of students to change their school discipline policies. The basis for this sweeping federal policy intervention was a set of claims: First, that racial disparities in school discipline--in particular, suspensions and expulsions--were not a function of differences in student behavior. Instead, these disparities were largely driven by adult bias, i.e., by discrimination. Second, that suspensions and expulsions, so-called exclusionary discipline, substantially harm students and fuel a school-to-prison pipeline; and third, that exclusionary discipline can safely be replaced by "restorative" or "positive" methods. While the DCL is no more, the various claims that Obama administration officials made about school discipline and racial discrimination, including the suspicion cast on public school teachers, are still widely circulated and believed. This is unfortunate, because almost all these claims are based on weak or flawed empirical evidence. As school leaders revisit the rules that they maintain to ensure orderly classrooms and safe learning environments, it is essential that they understand why the federal government's involvement with local school disciplinary policies was ill-advised--and be guided by better and more rigorous research published after the DCL. Key Findings: (1) The most rigorous social science suggests that adult bias plays, at best, a minimal role in disciplinary "disproportionality." Differences in discipline are driven largely by differences in student behavior, and these differences are driven largely by social and economic factors; (2) Recent, robust research has substantially revised downward reasonable estimates of the negative effects that school suspensions have on students; and (3) There is little basis for claims that "restorative" or "positive" approaches to student misbehavior work, and there is a growing cause for concern that the recent shift away from traditional discipline is doing more harm than good. Local education leaders now must decide what to do with the authority that Washington has restored to them. Several recommendations can be drawn from the research literature, many of which are at odds with contemporary conventional wisdom on school discipline. They include: (1) Do not target disciplinary disparities; (2) Focus on improving, not decreasing, suspensions; (3) Respect the rights of students who want to learn; (4) Do not expect restorative justice to work; (5) Reject the false choice between discipline reform and "zero tolerance;" (6) Listen to teachers and students; (7) Roll back failed policies; and (8) Give students priority over statistics.

As Provided

2019

ED594263