A growing body of research, including work published here, documents harms of what is known as the school-to-prison pipeline. Evidence shows that compared to 20 or more years ago, contemporary schools are more likely to suspend students — particularly students of color — out of school for minor misbehaviors.
After being suspended, these students have a greater risk than others of dropping out of school and justice system involvement. Because of these harmful effects and their racially disproportionate impact, we have seen efforts at the local, state and federal levels to reduce suspensions.
While I applaud these efforts, I am skeptical about their potential to result in significant change. Despite some clear success stories where schools have implemented alternative-to-suspension programs and saw reductions in suspensions, there are reports of districts that replaced suspensions with overly lax discipline (which is also harmful to students) or even with greater use of corporal punishment. Missouri recently bucked the national trend toward keeping misbehaving students in school by enacting legislation that increases penalties for school misconduct (though it calls for more severe criminal charges in response to fights in schools, not suspensions).
[For more of this story, written by Aaron Kupchik, go to http://jjie.org/2017/06/28/sch...dent-research-shows/]
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