Photo by Emory Maiden on Flickr.

Some schools say they need to suspend students to be successful. But research shows that suspending students makes them more likely to fail academically and run afoul of the law. Are there other disciplinary measures that work better?

Natalie Wexler’s October 23rd post examined an important question: does a school like DC Prep’s Edgewood Middle Campus, which last year gave 47% of its students at least one one-day suspension, need to rely on suspensions to achieve high test scores?

In fact, utilizing alternative approaches such as behavior contracts or restorative justice conferences would help DC Prep more effectively hold students accountable and provide the disruption-free environment it desires.

Earlier this year the Every Student Every Day Coalition, of which DC Lawyers for Youth is a member, issued a report on school discipline in DC. One of its key points is that suspension is a counterproductive disciplinary tool that actually makes students more likely to misbehave in the future, fail their current grade level, drop out, and become involved with the juvenile justice system.

The leading research in the area strongly supports the conclusion that school suspensions lead to negative consequences.  The 2011 Breaking Schools’ Rules study examined data on nearly one million public school students and all types of disciplinary exclusions, including in-school suspensions, removals to special disciplinary programs, short-term suspensions, and expulsions. The study found that even when controlling for 83 other variables (poverty, test scores, learning disabilities, and many more), a single disciplinary exclusion resulted in a student being twice as likely to repeat a grade and three times as likely to enter the juvenile justice system. 

Short of conducting an experiment in which we randomly suspend some students and not others, this as close as we will come to demonstrating the causal effects of suspension.  The evidence is clear: on average, school administrators should expect each suspension to make a student less likely to succeed. Based on the strength of this research, it is very likely that suspending 47% of a school’s students in one year is counter-productive to the long-term success of the student body.

Indeed, local data suggests that these one-day suspensions are not the effective tool for promoting reflection and good behavior that DC Prep thinks.  In school year 2011-12, DC Prep issued 269 suspensions to 111 individual students, indicating that many of these students are suspended repeatedly.  This observation is consistent with past research finding that suspension actually reinforces misbehavior rather than preventing it.

DC Prep’s written discipline policy allows suspensions to be given on the first repeat offense of relatively minor misbehavior.  For example, a student could be suspended for using the elevator twice in one school year or for swearing twice in one school year.  Given that nearly half of the school’s students were suspended last year, it seems likely that many are suspended for such minor infractions.  This results in the student simply spending a day at home rather than continuing to learn or even being held accountable for his or her behavior.

How, then, would we explain the success of DC Prep?  First, there are many positive features of DC Prep’s approach to school discipline that probably help to counteract the impact of the school’s many suspensions.  The school invests early in socio-emotional learning, clearly communicates expectations, utilizes rewards as well as punishments, and holds a reintegration meeting after the suspension.  We would encourage other schools to incorporate these portions of DC Prep’s discipline policy into their own approaches.

Second, the school may have other resources that make it likely to succeed despite the negative effects of suspension.  These resources could include exceptional teachers, an effective curriculum, and a particularly motivated student body.  DC Prep seems to be producing impressive overall outcomes, and the school should be applauded for that. 

However, DC Prep — like all District schools — would be even better off if it reduced its use of suspensions. It would be a mistake for educators in the District to conclude that because DC Prep’s overall model is successful, each part of that model must be successful. The District’s students will achieve better outcomes if we begin moving away from old-school disciplinary exclusions and begin to adopt evidence-based alternatives instead.

Like most current issues in education, school discipline is complicated and challenging.  It is also a domain in which our intuitions and traditional notions often turn out not to be supported by evidence.  We must continue to do our homework in seeking out the best available research and adopting evidence-based practices.  We thank Greater Greater Education for continuing to cover these important issues.