Why Schools Over-Discipline Children With Disabilities
Despite the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act 25 years ago, students with disabilities are still punished at disproportionate rates.
A quarter-century ago, on July 26, 1990, Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act to give people with disabilities equal access to services like public education. But the rate at which special-needs students are disciplined raises questions about how equal that access truly is. In public schools today, children with disabilities are far more likely than their classmates to be disciplined, removed from the classroom, suspended, and even expelled.
A report by UCLA’s Civil Rights Project released earlier this year found that just over 5 percent of elementary-school children with disabilities were suspended during the 2011-12 school year, more than double the overall suspension rate. Among secondary-school students, 18 percent of kids with disabilities were suspended, versus 10 percent overall. Even more striking, a third of all K-12 children with emotional disabilities—such as anxiety or obsessive compulsive disorder—were suspended at least once, according to Daniel Losen, the lead author of the UCLA report.
These discrepancies amount to what some researchers and advocates call “the discipline gap,” and it potentially matters for tens of millions of K-12 students with conditions such as oppositional defiant disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, and depression. These are often kids who can’t sit still, who challenge their teachers, or who struggle with social interactions, among other behavioral challenges—all of which can look like deliberate misbehavior or defiance and, in turn, lead to disciplinary action. The disparity widens when race is added to the mix: More than one in four black boys and one in five black girls with disabilities will be suspended in a given school year, according to Department of Education data.
In addition to suspension, disciplinary policies can include having a child sent to the principal’s office, barred from recess, or verbally scolded. And in some cases—typically ones involving uncooperative students with severe behavioral challenges, such as those with autism, and educators who aren’t trained in proper protocol—kids are pinned down or isolated against their will, a practice known as restraint and seclusion. A 2014 Propublica investigation of federal data found that restraint and seclusion was used more than 267,000 times nationwide in the 2012 school year, and that three-quarters of the students restrained—often by being tied up or strapped to a chair with materials such as bungee cords and duct tape—had physical, emotional, or intellectual disabilities. Some school officials say these practices are a necessary last resort to protect other students’ and teachers’ safety. Nonetheless, they have resulted in injuries ranging from bloody noses to broken bones—and at least 20 deaths as of 2009, according to a Government Accountability Office report cited by Propublica. Yet as of last year, only about half of states had laws prohibiting schools from using restraint.
Not only does this disciplinary imbalance appear to run counter to the law, it also seems to challenge some of America’s core values: that all people are born equal and that anyone can succeed with hard work and determination. “You can’t shun or banish kids with disabilities from public education,” Losen said. “It’s so detrimental to our society as a whole, for economic reasons as well as for our understanding of how all sorts of people can be successful. To be persisting in The Discipline Gap: Despite the ADA’s Passage 25 Years Ago, Schools Disproportionately Suspend and Punish Special-Needs Children - The Atlantic: