Suspensions for ‘willful defiance’ hurt children, who lose critical instruction time. Photograph: Bsip Sa/Alamy
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At least 25 states and the District of Columbia allow schools to suspend students for “willful defiance”, according to the LawAtlas Project’s Policy Surveillance Portal. This week, California became the first state in the US to ban such suspensions for all students, expanding a pre-existing ban on the disciplinary practice for students in grades kindergarten through eighth grade.The new law, signed by the governor, Gavin Newsom, last Sunday, could represent a model for how other states approach reforming disciplinary practices, which disproportionately affect Black and Latino students, as well as those with disabilities and those from low-income backgrounds.
Black students accounted for 14% of willful defiance suspensions by the end of the 2021-22 school year, even as they made up just 5% of students across the state, according to data from the California department of education. Latino students, who account for 55% of students in California, received 57% of willful defiance suspensions. Latino boys, in particular, who make up 29% of students, accounted for 43% of defiance suspensions.
Rachel Perera, a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Brown Center on Education Policy, said California’s decision to ban defiance suspensions is an acknowledgement that the criteria for these kinds of suspensions is overly broad. The more discretion educators have, she added, the more likely implicit and explicit bias will influence how they punish students, leading to disparate treatment of Black and Latino kids.
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