Charter Schools, Civil Rights and School Discipline: A Comprehensive Review
Author: Losen, Daniel J.
Date: 2016-03-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Charter Schools,Civil Rights,Discipline,Secondary Schools,Elementary Schools,Suspension,Disproportionate Representation,Racial Differences,Disabilities,Incidence,Student Rights,Minority Group Students,Punishment,Educational Legislation,Federal Legislation,Geographic Location

This report, along with the companion spreadsheet, provides the first comprehensive description ever compiled of charter school discipline. In 2011-12, every one of the nation's 95,000 public schools was required to report its school discipline data, including charter schools. This analysis, which includes more than 5,250 charter schools, focuses on out-of-school suspension rates at the elementary and secondary levels. The report describes the extent to which suspensions meted out by charter schools for each major racial group and for students with disabilities are excessive or disparate. There is a wealth of research indicating that the frequent use of suspensions is harmful to all students, as it contributes to chronic absenteeism, is correlated with lower achievement, and predicts lower graduation rates, heightened risk for grade retention, delinquent behavior, and costly involvement in the juvenile justice system (Balfanz, Byrnes, &amp; Fox, 2015; Marchbanks III et al., 2015; Noltemeyer, Ward, &amp; Mcloughlin, 2015; Shollenberger, 2015). The well-documented harm to students associated with suspensions also translates into wasted tax dollars, as there are numerous non-punitive--and less costly--approaches to improving learning environments that do not rely on excluding students from school. Part I of this report provides additional data on the excessive and disparate use of disciplinary exclusion by individual charter schools, especially those with large discipline gaps, by race and by disability status. Part I also provides a comprehensive overview of the full spectrum of discipline rates found at the nation's charter schools. The concerns raised by the data are especially relevant in light of the fact that the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the federal law that replaced No Child Left Behind, has added several provisions that address school discipline, including a requirement that every state review its schools and districts for the &quot;overuse of suspension.&quot; As this report highlights, it is important to remember that, like non-charter schools, most charter schools are not high-suspending. From a civil rights perspective, this is also evidence that less discriminatory alternatives are available to charter schools that currently suspend children of color and those with disabilities at high and disparate rates. The report infers that many lower-suspending charter schools likely use effective alternative approaches to out of- school suspensions and only turn to exclusion from school as a measure of last resort, which the data suggest is also true among non-charter schools. In other words, while some charter schools are contributing to the school-to-prison pipeline, others may provide excellent examples of non-punitive approaches that could help plug the pipeline. Part II of this report provides a deeper exploration of the question, how do charter school suspension rates compare with rates for non-charter schools? The following are appended: (1) Table A. Charter Schools with the Largest Disability Discipline Gap; and (2) Description of Data Source, Cleaning, and Methods.