Foreword. By David Griffith and Amber M. Northern

Transcription

1 Foreword By David Griffith ad Amber M. Norther Over the past thirty years, the school disciplie pedulum much like the crimial justice pedulum has swug wildly from oe extreme to the other, as policymakers have struggled to solve a iheretly difficult problem. Today, the zero tolerace policies that were all the rage at the ed of the last cetury are geerally viewed as heavy-haded ad blut, removig admiistrator discretio ad treatig may differet kids of offeses as equally ijurious. Yet as the tide of elite ad educatio reform opiio has tured agaist oversuspesio, the istictive respose of policymakers has oce agai bee to tie the hads of teachers, pricipals, ad local officials, this time with the explicit goal of reducig the use of suspesios, especially for traditioally disadvataged groups. This ear-total reversal o school disciplie policy was promoted by actios of the federal Office for Civil Rights uder the Obama Admiistratio, where critics of exclusioary disciplie foud a sympathetic ear. Meawhile, i the past five years, at least twety-two states ad the District of Columbia have revised their laws to require or ecourage schools to limit the use of suspesios or expulsios. A 2013 study by the America Associatio of School Admiistrators foud that more tha half of the 464 districts surveyed had revised their studet codes of coduct to iclude chages i the use of o-puitive resposes to misbehavior, out-of-school suspesios, ad expulsios. We support evidece-based efforts to create a positive school culture that reduces the eed for suspesios ad expulsios. But i too may places, the push for alteratives to suspesio has led to empirically uprove strategies such as restorative justice, which seeks to rehabilitate offeders through recociliatio with victims, but which ca also radically uderestimate the severity of the challeges a school faces. Ad the there s the problem of implemetatio: almost ie i te teachers i Califoria where supporters of Seate Bill 607 are tryig to permaetly ba suspesios for defiat behavior through fifth grade ad impose a five-year temporary ba i middle ad high schools say they eed more traiig ad support if they are to deploy alterative disciplie techiques successfully. 1 4

2 Complicatig matters further, the questio of whether or ot suspesios are effective has bee coflated with cocers about discrimiatio ad racial bias. Yes, there are still may schools where large umbers of Africa America ad Latio studets are suspeded or expelled, ad we do ot doubt that some of America s 100,000-plus schools discrimiate agaist miority childre. Yet studies also show that a disproportioate umber of these yougsters face challeges that put them at risk of atisocial behavior. 2 Tragically, they are much more likely Complicatig to be poor, grow up i a sigle-paret family, have a paret matters further, i priso, ad live i eighborhoods where poverty is the questio of whether cocetrated. So it should ot shock us to discover that, or ot suspesios are i some circumstaces ad commuities, miority effective has bee coflated studets misbehave at disproportioate rates. No with cocers about resposible social scietist would attribute America s stubbor racial ad socioecoomic achievemet gaps discrimiatio ad solely to educator bias. Yet the uspoke assumptio behid racial bias. the Secretary Are Duca s decisio to apply disparate impact theory to school disciplie eforcemet policy was that differeces i suspesio rates must be attributable to such bias. Accordig to a 2015 EdNext poll, half of the public ad 59 percet of teachers opposed this approach. 3 Overall, we agree that suspesios are ulikely to beefit suspeded studets. But the problem with the curret debate about disciplie policy is that those are t the oly studets whose futures are at stake. For example, a 2008 study foud that childre from troubled families sigificatly decrease their peers readig ad math test scores ad sigificatly icrease misbehavior of others i the classroom. 4 Ad a 2009 study foud that whe disruptive studets from New Orleas relocated to Housto schools after Hurricae Katria they icreased ative abseteeism ad discipliary Overall, problems. 5 we agree that Yes, oe importat questio about school disciplie is whether suspesios are it helps or harms those beig disciplied. But a secod, equally ulikely to beefit importat, questio is whether the push to reduce the umber suspeded of suspesios is harmful to the rule-abidig majority. Accordig studets. to a 2004 study, 85 percet of teachers ad 73 percet of parets felt the school experiece of most studets suffers at the expese of a few chroic offeders. 6 Ad that was before the push to reduce suspesios. A more recet study by the Mahatta Istitute s Max Ede showed that the percetages of studets ad teachers i New York City reportig drug use, gag activity, ad physical fights rose dramatically i the years followig disciplie reforms iitiated by Mayor 5

3 Bill de Blasio, which require that pricipals obtai writte approval from the city before suspedig a studet for ucooperative/ocompliat or disorderly behavior. To examie these matters further, we elisted Matthew Steiberg, assistat professor of educatio at the Uiversity of Pesylvaia, ad Johaa Lacoe, a experieced researcher at Mathematica Policy Research, both of whom have previous experiece studyig school disciplie. For this study, they examied outcomes i the School District of Philadelphia (SDP), which was gracious eough to share its data despite the sesitive ature of the subject. The SDP made dramatic chages to its code of coduct i the school year. Most otably, it istituted a ew district-wide ba o out-of-school suspesios (OSS) for low-level coduct offeses such as profaity or failure to follow classroom rules ad reduced the legth of OSS for more serious ifractios. To gauge the impacts of these chages, the authors examied data before ad after they were implemeted, ad together, peed two scholarly papers: oe that focuses o the district-level effects of the chage i disciplie policy ad a secod that utilizes studet-level data to explore patters of attedace ad achievemet at the school, grade, ad idividual levels i the wake of the policy chage. For the beefit of our readers, this report combies those papers ad sythesizes their key fidigs. Before turig to that sythesis, we re obliged to poit out that school disciplie is a extraordiarily difficult subject to study, i part because we do ot observe studet behavior directly, but oly documeted resposes to it. So it is difficult to distiguish betwee the effects of a suspesio ad the effects of the behavior or coditios that triggered it. Drs. Steiberg ad Lacoe deal with these challeges trasparetly by explaiig the study s limitatios ad the level of evidetiary rigor that readers ca expect give their best efforts to improve upo prior work i this field. Below is a summary of what they foud: Chages i district policy had o log-term impact o the umber of low-level coduct suspesios, ad most schools did ot comply with the ba o such suspesios. Chages i district policy were associated with improved attedace but ot improved achievemet for previously suspeded studets. Never-suspeded peers (i.e., studets who did t receive a suspesio i ay of the years cosidered by the study) experieced worse outcomes i the most ecoomically ad academically disadvataged schools, which were also the schools that did ot (or could ot) comply with the ba o coduct suspesios. Revisig the district s code of coduct was associated with a icrease i racial disproportioality at the district level. 6

4 Based o these fidigs, we draw three coclusios: 1 Schools may respod very differetly to district madates, depedig o their demographics, achievemet levels, ad prior suspesio rates, as well as other factors bearig o policy implemetatio ad compliace. I Philadelphia, the toughest schools teded to igore the district s ba o coduct suspesios, while the highest-achievig schools appeared uaffected because they did t have ay coduct suspesios to begi with ad the schools i the middle stayed lukewarm (meaig they reduced OSS but did t elimiate them). I other words, schools respoded (or did t) much as you might expect them to, give their pre-existig challeges. 2 Top-dow madates ca have uiteded cosequeces eve whe they emaate from local decisio makers rather tha distat state or federal govermets. I Philadelphia, ever-suspeded studets i may schools, icludig most schools that reduced their suspesio rates, experieced a declie i academic performace, relative to the most plausible compariso group. Furthermore, the district-wide declie i coduct suspesios coicided with a suspicious icrease i the umber of miority studets suspeded for more serious ifractios (though it is impossible to kow whether some less serious offeses were reclassified as a result of the policy chage). Clearly, these are ot the types of resposes that district leaders iteded. 3 Policymakers should respect the wisdom of practitioers whe it comes to school disciplie. For us, the biggest lesso from Philadelphia s experiece is that disciplie reform however defied or coceptualized is best iitiated at the school level rather tha the district level, where the law of uiteded cosequeces is more apt to prevail. Suspesios may have costs for suspeded studets, but these must be balaced agaist the ecessity of maitaiig a orderly learig eviromet. Ad the idividuals best positioed to make those judgmet calls, ad to gauge how effective future approaches to disciplie may be, are those o the frot lies. Teachers ad admiistrators who are strugglig to maage disorder caot be expected to comply willigly or well with a directive that elimiates oe of their most importat tools. Overall, the report s fidigs speak to the stubbor realities that educators must coted with, which brigs us to our fial poit: a plea for the removal of the rose-colored glasses that so may observers ad critics seem to do whe viewig school disciplie. Everyoe kows that chagig a district s policy o suspesios is ulikely to alter the uderlyig issues i tough 7

5 schools or i peaceful oes. So viewig this as a civil rights issue ad tryig to fix it with topdow decrees is impractical ad potetially harmful, whether those decrees emaate from the district, the state, or the baks of the Potomac. If the goal is fidig more effective ways to build a safe ad strog school culture, it is far better to work with staff i high-poverty schools tha to imply that they have racist tedecies ad may be deliberately violatig studets civil rights. We harbor o illusios that this study will put a ed to the disciplie debate. But we hope it will iject a measure of uace ito the coversatio ad perhaps help the disciplie policy pedulum fid a more stable restig place somewhere i the vast ad sesible middle groud. Ackowledgmets This report was made possible through the support of our sister orgaizatio, the Thomas B. Fordham Foudatio. We are particularly grateful to the authors, Matthew Steiberg ad Johaa Lacoe, for their willigess to tackle such a difficult subject ad their patiece as we worked to distill their comprehesive results. We also thak exteral reviewers Scott Carrell, professor of ecoomics at the Uiversity of Califoria, Davis, ad Da Goldhaber, director of the Ceter o Educatio Data ad Research at the Uiversity of Washigto, for their isightful commets o draft papers. O the Fordham side, we thak Presidet Michael Petrilli ad Presidet Emeritus Chester E. Fi, Jr. for reviewig drafts ad providig valuable feedback. We also thak Alyssa Schwek for maagig report dissemiatio; Cary Morga for hadlig fuder relatios; ad Joatha Lutto for overseeig report productio ad layout. Kudos also to Shao Last for copyeditig the report ad Edward Alto of Alto Creative, Ic. for desigig the report s layout. Shutterstock provided the image for the report s cover. The report authors wish to thak the School District of Philadelphia ad the Pesylvaia Departmet of Educatio for providig access to the data used i this report. They also thak Peter Schochet, Joh MacDoald, ad Matthew Chigos for feedback o earlier versios of the workig papers upo which these fidigs are based; Camero Aglum for excellet research assistace; coferece participats at the Associatio for Public Policy Aalysis ad Maagemet ad Associatio for Educatio Fiace ad Policy; ad semiar participats at the Uiversity of Arkasas, Departmet of Educatio Reform Lecture Series for helpful commets ad discussios. The authors cotributed equally to the writig ad aalyses cotaied i this report. The complete workig papers, o which this report is based, are available at 8