Discipline Disparities Briefing Paper Series

Presented to the Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

Quarterly Meeting

U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs

Washington, D.C.

April 9, 2014

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Systemic, long-standing issue in our nation’s schools

Critical short- and long-term consequences for students, schools, communities, and economies

Urgent need for practical and evidence-based interventions to address disparities

Framing the Issues: Why Attending to Disparities is Critical

Systemic, long-standing issue in our nation’s schools

Critical short- and long-term consequences for students, schools, communities, and economies

Eliminating inequity is not a quick or easy task – will take all key stakeholders

Solutions are beginning to emerge; more are needed

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The National Context: Recent National Efforts & Federal Guidance 

 U.S. DOJ/DOE (January 8, 2014)

Federal Guidance on School Discipline Policies and Practices.

CDF/ AASA (January 21, 2014)

Partnership to Reform School Discipline Policies/Practices

President’s My Brother’s Keeper Initiative (February 27, 2014)

Discipline Disparities RTP Collaborative (March 13, 2014)

Disciplinary Disparities Briefing Paper Series 

USDOE Office for Civil Rights (March 21, 2014)

CRDC National Release

CSG Justice Center (Late Spring, 2014)

The School Discipline Consensus Project Release

There has been a lot of activity around school discipline happening of late, with more to come:

1) USDOE/DOJ: On Jan. 8, 2014, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education issued federal guidance on school discipline policies and practices, outlining the civil rights obligations that all school systems face in administering discipline.  The departments also published a document of “guiding principles” that details research and best practices to improve school climate.  The Collaborative strongly supports that work and the Discipline Disparities Briefs delves even deeper.

2) CDF/AASA - The two organizations selected 10 school districts across the country to participate in a public/private initiative to explore effective discipline alternatives to suspension and expulsion.

3) We anticipate releasing our work and the briefing papers in March of 2014.  We believe it represents the most comprehensive compilation and analysis of American research on exclusionary discipline ever attempted.

4) USDOE Office of Civil Rights: Nationwide data and data by individual schools and districts are estimated to be released sometime in March although this is not confirmed as of yet.

5) CSG Justice Center-  The Consensus Project has brought together experts in school safety, behavioral health, education, juvenile justice, social services, law enforcement and child welfare to offer comprehensive guidance on how best to minimize reliance on exclusionary discipline.  The CSG Justice Center played a key role in highlighting the discipline issue with a ground-breaking 2011 study that found more than half of the public school students in Texas experienced at least one suspension or expulsion before graduating from high school.

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Background on the Discipline Disparities Research to Practice Collaborative

Funded by Atlantic Philanthropies, OSF

Quarterly meetings w/ stakeholder groups

Goal:  Improved research & practice, esp. intervention

Activities and Accomplishments

Funding new research

Closing Discipline Gap Conference & Book

Briefing Paper Series & Recommendations

What is the Collaborative?

Disparities in school discipline have received some increasing attention from researchers and advocacy groups for at least 10 years.  But there has been little coordination of these efforts and certainly no consensus reached among educators as to how to address the issue.

So in hopes of helping to develop an effective policy agenda, two philanthropic groups funded the formation of a “Discipline Disparities Research-to-Practice Collaborative.”  This is a group of 26 nationally recognized experts from the social science, education and legal fields who were given the freedom to compile and analyze existing research on this problem, and to offer recommendations for school discipline practice, policy and additional research. This work represents the most comprehensive compilation and analysis of American research on exclusionary discipline ever attempted.

In order to ensure that what we are recommending is based in evidence and grounded in the everyday lives of folks, we have met quarterly with educators, community organizations, parents, policymakers and others.

The results of this work thus far have been (a) funding a set of new research projects that continue to progress; (b) a national conference, Closing the Discipline Gap, where new cutting edge research was presented and many of those papers will be included in a Book – Closing the School Discipline Gap – edited by Dan Losen, under contract with Teachers College Record, and due for publication in 2014 or 2015; and (c)what we are talking about today, our briefing paper series.

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  Discipline Disparities Series: Overview

  How Educators Can Eradicate Disparities in School Discipline: A Briefing Paper on School-Based Interventions

  New & Developing Research on Disparities in Discipline

  Eliminating Excessive and Unfair Exclusionary Discipline in Schools: Policy Recommendations for Reducing Disparities

Supplementary Materials:

Are Disparities in Discipline Due to Differences in Behavior?

Implicit Bias: Does it Play a Role in Discipline?

Myths and Facts About Disciplinary Disparity

Discipline Disparities Series:   Four Papers

During this meeting we will be focusing on getting into some details on three content briefs: Interventions, New Research, and Policy.

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Effective schools address disparities in context.  They consider the conditions for learning and the school climate more broadly.

Effective schools offer equity-oriented prevention and intervention to “resolve and educate” not “deport and discipline.” 

Preventing discipline disparities:

Offer supportive relationships, academic rigor, culturally relevant and responsive teaching, and bias-free classrooms and respectful school environments 

Intervening when conflict occurs: 

Problem-solve, engage youth and families, and reintegrate students after conflict.

Engage promising practices re: objective decision-making for disciplinary referrals.

School-Based Interventions for Reducing Disparities

Designed primarily for educators, advocates, and others interested in school- and community-based interventions, this briefing paper describes approaches schools and communities are using across the country to reduce disparities.

It cannot be assumed that efforts to improve schooling overall will change differential treatment in discipline or change differential access to learning opportunities.  Indeed it is possible to reduce exclusionary discipline without changing disparities.  

Under-resourced schools face tremendous challenges in providing an exceptional education for all students.  Real barriers to providing such an education for all students exist when schools and students have unequal access to quality teaching, a rigorous and meaningful curriculum, funding, or other factors related to positive student outcomes. 

Even given the most effective preventative strategies and approaches, conflict will still occur in schools. When conflict among students or between students and staff occurs, schools need tools to be able to respond in a constructive and equitable manner. Rather than merely applying consequences

If schools see it as part of their educational mission to teach appropriate behavior and work to develop and maintain a trusting relationship between teacher and student, then punitive discipline can be dramatically reduced.

Prevention programs can be applied school-wide to reduce the likelihood of conflict.  And when misbehavior does occur, it can be addressed through constructive “restorative justice” policies that reduce unnecessary discipline.

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Disciplinary Disparities Briefing Paper Series

Four Briefing Papers 

Executive Summaries

Supplementary Papers

http://rtpcollaborative.indiana.edu/briefing-papers

Discipline Disparities Research to Practice Collaborative

Resource Digest

Additional Publications

News on Other Initiatives

http://rtpcollaborative.indiana.edu

Disciplinary Disparities Briefing Papers:   

Where to Find Them

--Use some data to describe the extent of the problem – millions of kids being suspended or expelled each day; number of students suspended or expelled in one year is more than enough to fill every NFL and Major League Baseball stadium in the country; economic and civic consequences

--approximately 8,000 secondary schools from nearly 4,000 districts suspended fewer than 10% of every major subgroup enrolled; Site examples of states and districts that are making changes (e.g. Connecticut, Denver, LAUSD, Chicago, Maryland etc.)

-Policy changes at federal, state, and district level should include (three items listed; see below for language from policy brief executive summary):

1) Federal policy should require states and districts to publicly report disaggregated data annually. Data on disparities in discipline are the

kind of evidence needed to determine if policies or practices are effective or promising. The public’s right to know, and important input

from community groups, researchers and other education reformers are constrained if disaggregated data are not reported each year.

These data should include: the number of students suspended, the number of suspensions, reasons for out-of-school suspensions, and

days of lost instruction, at each school level (elementary, middle, and high). The reported data should be disaggregated by race/ethnicity,

gender, English Language Learner status, and disability status, and enable cross-sectional analysis (e.g., Black female students with

disabilities).

2) Current federal requirements are limited to annual state reports of racially disaggregated

discipline data, and only for students with disabilities, at the state level, pursuant to IDEA U.S.C. Section 1418 (a). The law also calls

for states to compare, in each district, the discipline of students with disabilities to those without. To ensure states have the capacity to

fulfill the statutory obligation to make comparisons, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education should require annual reporting of

students without disabilities as well and expand the reporting to include school and district level reports. Similarly, the Secretary should

use his authority pursuant to civil rights statutes to require schools and districts to annually report the discipline data collected by the civil

rights survey that is currently conducted every other year.

3) Collect data on the discipline of students by sexual orientation: For all the same reasons, it is imperative that the federal government

annually collect and report discipline data on youth willing to self-identify their sexual orientation. Although it does not yet satisfy these

important collection and reporting needs, the Department of Education’s new requirement to report data on bullying and sexual orientation

is a tremendous first step in the right direction.

Encourage Alignment of Discipline Policies with Educational Mission and Goals

Ensure the new guidance pertaining to “disparate impact” is used to spur improvements in policy and practice: The Departments of

Education and Justice’s guidance calls attention to the disparate harm that results from disparities in discipline, and the possibility that

failure to change harsh policies and practices in the face of more effective alternative approaches could constitute a violation of civil

rights. The goal of civil rights law under the “disparate impact” approach is to ensure that schools shift to more effective and educationally

justifi-able practices. To ensure optimal use of the new guidance the federal government should commit more funds for federal monitoring

and enforcement in this area. Those funds could be used to hold regional webinars on what the guidance means, add analysts to enhance

the capacity of the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to enforce current requirements, increase technical

assistant support to districts, and increase staffing to respond to the interest in discipline reform on the part of schools and districts.

Similarly, the

current IDEA requires (20 U.S.C. 1418(d)) states to analyze the racial data on disparities in discipline for each district and large disparities

may trigger support for coordinated early intervention services. Recently, however, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) criticized

the U.S. Department of Education for allowing states to use such a high bar to define “significant disproportionality” that, in many states,

no districts are ever required to take action to address racial disparities. Consistent with OCR’s new guidance, the Department of Education

should ramp-up enforcement of these existing IDEA requirements.

Codify the priority of addressing excessive discipline and disparities when the ESEA is reauthorized: The Elementary and Secondary Education

Act has no safeguards against excessive discipline. When this omnibus education act is reauthorized, all agree that the accountability

structures will be revised. Many reformers have called for a better balance between test scores, graduation rates, and other outcomes.

The new accountability structure should also safeguard against incentives to “push out” low achievers on disciplinary grounds. Therefore,

suspension rates should be among the factors schools and districts use to measure the performance of secondary schools and also be

included in “early warning” systems to target supportive interventions. To the extent that multiple indicators of progress are developed,

discipline levels and disparities should be included. Additionally, “turn-around” schools should be required to include safeguards against

excessive and disparate exclusionary discipline.

Leverage federal competitive grants to promote remedies to excessive discipline. It should be noted that important conditions have

been added to the requirements for the 16 school districts that received Race to the Top-District grants. More should be done to leverage

competitive grants to incentivize revisions of school discipline codes to align with effective and promising disciplinary practices.

Use the numerous improvements in state laws and regulations as models. Maryland now requires interventions when suspension rates

and disparities exceed a threshold. Connecticut legislators passed a law meant to ensure that out-of-school suspension was always a measure

of last resort. In Colorado, state policymakers directed state education dollars to Denver that enabled the district for system-wide

implementation of restorative practices. Similarly, reductions in suspensions and disparities in Virginia prompted the state to require the

use of threat assessment and a protocol designed to prioritize prevention over punishment. Other states should pass similar legislation

or regulation.

Replicate state and district school codes of conduct that restrict the use of suspensions to a measure of last resort: Some administrators

have testified that their efforts to eliminate suspensions as a way to deal with minor misbehavior in school can improve attendance and

the overall school environment. For example, in Baltimore City, Executive Director of Student Safety and Support, Karen Webber-Ndour

recently stated that ending suspensions for attendance and other minor code violations helped prioritize improvements in school climate.

In Los Angeles, California—the nation’s second largest school district—the school board ruled out the use of suspension in response to

the catch-all and highly subjective category of “disruption or willful defiance.” Given research showing that the disparities by race and

disability status are largest in the minor misconduct categories, efforts to restrict suspension to only the most serious misconduct are

expected to help reduce suspensions generally as well as disparities in their use.

Provide Support and Funding for Evidence-based Alternatives

Invest in research on remedies: The Institute for Educational Sciences has already begun to support these efforts and they should be

expanded, including funds for research on how to scale up successful models. States should also provide greater support for research on

promising, evidence-based interventions and targeting more funds for systemic improvements in approaches to school discipline.

Provide funding to expand evidenced-based practices: These should include funding for restorative practices, social-emotional learning,

tiered interventions and positive protocols. Our research indicates that funding for evidence-based teacher training and preparation

programs and professional development aimed at promoting higher levels of student engagement and improved relationships between

teachers and students is also warranted.

Condition support for School-wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports on remedying discipline disparities: The Individuals

with Disabilities Education Act currently provides grants to states and districts to invest in School-wide Positive Behavioral Interventions

and Supports (SWPBIS). SWPBIS is a well-established systemic and data-driven approach to improving school learning environments,

emphasizing changing the underlying attitudes and policies of school staff concerning how student behavior is addressed. Research has

shown that this approach can reduce rates of student referrals to the office on disciplinary grounds. However, the most recent research

findings suggest that schools and districts will be more effective in reducing both suspensions and racial disparities if they revise their

school codes to align with the positive and constructive framework of PBIS and adapt the PBIS framework to pay specific attention to the

data on race and ethnicity and take measures to ensure that the systems of discipline are multi-culturally responsive. Federal and state

grants to districts to support positive behavioral approaches should include incentives to ensure that implementation and monitoring

also includes attention to disparities.

Ensure that new funds for school police or counselors do not prioritize police before counselors: Ensure that schools and districts seeking

to use these funds for policing and security demonstrate adequate counseling, mental health support, teacher training in classroom

and behavior management, as well as general improvement in school climate.

Provide safeguards against problems with over-reliance on alternative schools: Alternative disciplinary schools, in theory, might help

persistently misbehaving students stay in school if they receive academic instruction and interventions that teach successful behaviors.

This is one reason that advocates for children in states like Massachusetts have successfully pressed for required alternative instruction

for students. However, disciplinary alternatives that cluster misbehaving students and lack necessary supports and engaging curricula

could also contribute to long-term negative outcomes. One longitudinal analysis of data from alternative schools in a large urban district

documented their

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