Researchers point to racial disparities in school suspension, spotlight new practices
Two months after federal officials brought new attention to how students are disciplined in the nation’s schools, a group of 26 researchers, educators and advocates released findings Thursday that underscored racial disparities in suspension and pointed to promising school practices.
African Americans and students with disabilities are suspended at “hugely disproportionate rates,” said leaders of the group, called the Discipline Disparities Research-to-Practice Collaborative. They also noted higher levels of suspension among Latinos and students who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.
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“We need to pay close attention to not only to the fact that suspension and expulsion are overused but that they affect certain groups much more than others,” said Russell J. Skiba, a professor at Indiana University and director of the collaborative.
The effort follows a broader push to rethink how schools punish student misconduct. In early January, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. jointly announced the first discipline guidelines for the nation’s schools. More recently, Maryland adopted sweeping new discipline regulations intended to keep