Luvenia Jackson knows students can’t learn when they’re in jail. During 40 years in education, the Clayton County Public Schools superintendent has seen that academic performance cannot improve systemwide under zero-tolerance discipline.
Instead of leading to safer buildings and higher achievement, the strict policies cause excessive suspensions, lost instruction time, and students to be needlessly traumatized by criminal charges—all over behavior that can be better managed by teachers and administrators, she says.
“You cannot increase graduation rates if children are out of school,” says Jackson, who retired in 2010 as a special assistant to the superintendent but returned in 2012 as interim superintendent of the suburban Atlanta district in which she had spent her entire career.
[For more of this story, written by Matt Zalaznick, go to http://www.districtadministrat...-more-promising-path]
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