New Study: Suspending Students for Minor Infractions Like Cursing Hurts Kids but Benefits Nobody
This is the most recent article in ongoing ‘Big Picture’ series, which aims to provide a clearer understanding of the state of American education through new evidence, research, and investigative reporting. For a more extensive collection of articles, please refer to our full series.
Increasingly, schools are resorting to suspending students for minor offenses such as using profanity, which not only has a negative impact on their academic performance but also offers no discernible benefits.
This crucial finding emerges from a comprehensive new study that delves into the repercussions of out-of-school suspensions on the academic achievements of troubled students and their peers in the classroom. While the study reveals that student test scores do suffer as a consequence of suspensions – both for major and minor infractions – the effects are relatively modest compared to what was previously believed. The findings of this study have been published in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, an esteemed peer-reviewed academic journal.
Conducted by researchers from Mathematica Policy Research and the University of Pennsylvania, this study arrives amidst a heated debate surrounding school discipline reform. Responding to concerns that suspensions could be detrimental to students and lead to disengagement in the classroom, school districts and states across the country have implemented policies aimed at reducing suspensions and introducing alternative measures such as restorative justice and instruction in emotional and behavioral skills. However, critics argue that reducing suspension rates may result in disruptions in the classroom, thus impeding the academic performance of well-behaved students.
Related question: Does restorative justice yield better results than traditional school discipline?
Against this backdrop, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is currently considering whether to revoke an Obama-era guidance document that called for decreased reliance on suspensions in school districts. It has long been observed that students of color and those with disabilities are disproportionately subjected to disciplinary actions, a concern addressed by the aforementioned guidance document, which argued that this could potentially be seen as a violation of civil rights at the federal level. The debate over discipline has also taken center stage in discussions surrounding school shootings. President Donald Trump has instructed his Federal Commission on School Safety to examine the Obama-era guidance document from the perspective of school violence.
Johanna Lacoe, a researcher at Mathematica and co-author of the report, acknowledges the necessity of suspensions in certain cases, such as instances of violence or when a student poses a genuine threat to their peers, teachers, or themselves. However, Lacoe emphasizes that an increasing number of suspensions are issued for lesser infractions like disobedience. She asserts that being suspended for a non-serious offense is a significant event with no benefits for other students.
Lacoe collaborated with Matthew Steinberg, an assistant professor of education policy at the University of Pennsylvania, to analyze student discipline data from Philadelphia during the 2011-12 and 2013-14 school years. While previous studies have established a correlation between suspensions and negative academic outcomes, Steinberg argues that these studies failed to adequately isolate discipline as a variable from other potential factors. Steinberg’s study employs two distinct models to estimate the relationship between suspensions and test scores, both of which yield similar conclusions. This approach enables them to eliminate other potential factors, such as traumatic events at home, that could account for declines in test scores.
According to the researchers, students receive comparable decreases in math and English test scores when suspended for serious or minor infractions. Furthermore, suspended students show a 2 to 9 percentage point decrease in their likelihood of achieving proficiency in math.
Lacoe highlights the significance of these test score declines, particularly in math, as they correspond to dwindling proficiency and reduced probability of passing exams. She emphasizes that this goes beyond a mere drop of a few points on a test; it determines whether a student is on track for their grade level or not.
In addition to shedding light on the impact of suspensions on the disciplined students, the report also examines the effect that exposure to disciplinary actions has on peers who are not themselves facing disciplinary proceedings. The study finds that exposure to out-of-school suspensions for minor infractions does not affect the academic outcomes of peers. However, exposure to discipline for more serious offenses does harm the performance of well-behaved classmates.
However, one aspect that the study cannot definitively answer is whether the decline in academic performance among peers is a result of student misbehavior or the subsequent punishment. Consequently, Steinberg argues that it is challenging to determine whether increasing suspensions for serious infractions would improve outcomes for well-behaved students.
Steinberg poses the question: What would happen to the academic achievements of students who are not suspended if we were to suspend more misbehaving students or alternatively reduce the number of suspensions altogether? Unfortunately, this question remains unanswered.
Given the relatively limited impact suspensions have on student performance, as revealed by this study, it is remarkable that the policy debate surrounding exclusionary discipline continues to be so contentious, remarks David Griffith, a senior research and policy associate at the right-leaning Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Griffith suggests that everyone take a moment to pause and reflect on the situation.
"I believe that simply sending children home without attempting to resolve the underlying issues does not lead to any positive outcomes," she expressed. "It is merely a quick fix and fails to address the root of the problem. In my view, a more effective approach would involve implementing strategies at a school-wide level to prevent such misbehavior from occurring in the first instance."
