School suspension rates have fallen in California for students of every ethnicity in the last three years, a sign that a shift in discipline practices in many school districts is starting to have an effect, according to a study released Monday by the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the UCLA Civil Rights Project. The study includes a spreadsheet of the number of suspensions by ethnicity in 901 California school districts.
At the same time, lower rates of suspension were correlated with higher academic achievement for every racial group in the state, the study found. For African-American students, the correlation was the strongest. While some parents and educators expressed concern that suspending fewer students would lead to chaos and lower academic scores, the study found evidence of the opposite.
The findings “push back” on the idea that “you’ve got to kick out bad kids so good kids can learn,” said Daniel Losen, director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies and the lead author of the study, “Closing the School Discipline Gap in California: Signs of Progress.” “There’s no research to support that, and data suggest the opposite is much more likely.”
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