School Discipline: Equity at Issue
Extensive peer-reviewed research has demonstrated that students with frequent suspensions are more likely to become involved in gangs, drop out of school and become part of the juvenile justice system.
Years of suspicions about inequity in school discipline have also been investigated by a spate of reports. One by the UCLA Civil Rights project in 2011 revealed that in 2006, 28 percent of African American male middle school students were suspended at least once, while the rate was just 10 percent for white males.
Following that, another review by UCLA researchers in 2012 pegged suspension rates for African American students at 17.7 percent—more than twice California’s overall rate at 7.5 percent. And African Americans were three times more likely to be suspended than whites.
Probably some of the most shocking statistics I have seen were in the report “Breaking School Rules” which found 83% of African American males and 74% of Latino males in Texas were suspended at least once in grades 7-12.
UCLA Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civvies researchers have argued that excluding students from school while being disciplined causes them to miss important instructional time, and may result in a “greater risk of disengagement and diminished educational opportunities.”
There is data to support that claim: students disciplined more than 10 times have only a 40 percent chance of graduating from high school, School Discipline: Equity at Issue – Cloaking Inequity: