Researchers at UCLA have released a shocking report showing 400,000 California students were suspended from school in 2009 — enough to fill all the professional baseball and football stadiums in the state. The new study from the Civil Rights Project at UCLA also finds that many California school districts suspend large percentages of students. The ... Read More
A newly released poll of Californians shows more than 80% support changes to harsh school discipline rules that led to the suspension or expulsion of more than 400,000 students in 2009-2010 and more than 750,000 suspensions in the same year. Are you in the 80%? Click here to send your name to California legislators and ... Read More
A March 30 editorial in the Bakersfield Californian noted that the Legislature “has already prescribed enough discipline in the Education Code.” Assemblymember Roger Dickinson writes “that’s a reason to embrace, not dismiss, my bill, AB 2242.” Here is more from his letter to the editor: Schools are too prone to send kids home from school ... Read More
“Willful defiance” accounts for 40% student suspensions, but who defines “defiance”? Research has found that under this highly subjective category, students are sent out of school for anything from failing to turn in homework, not paying attention, refusing to follow directions to take off a coat or hat, or swearing in class. They can also ... Read More
The principal of Rosa Parks Elementary in San Francisco says moving away from harsh discipline is “not a far-out idea.” “I’m not hippie-dippie,” Principal Paul Jacobson told the San Francisco Chronicle. “It’s not that we’ve suddenly become lenient,” Jacobsen said of the new approach. “We just recognize we aren’t going to be able to punish ... Read More
Welcome to FixSchoolDiscipline.org! We’re a website that’s exposing the alarming overuse of harsh discipline in California schools. Did you know California schools issued 2 million suspensions in the last three years alone? That’s almost 700,000 every year, in a state that has 6 million students. Research clearly shows that harsh approaches to misbehavior don’t keep ... Read More
California’s top judge has learned some “alarming statistics” about school discipline. As Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye told California legislators on March 19, “in the last three years, California school suspensions, self-reported, are over 2 million…. I see a looming problem out there. If we aren’t responsible for our youth, if we don’t return ... Read More
