UCLA’s Monday release of their report Out of School & Off Track: The Overuse of Suspensions in American Middle and High Schools gained a lot of of media attention throughout the digital, print and televised world. This cross-section of media, both locally and nationally, is an exciting indication of a widespread desire to examine the way punitive ... Read More
A brand-new national report out today from UCLA’s Civil Rights Project reveals that the use of harsh school discipline has increased across the country. African American and Latino students, students with disabilities, and English-language learners are more likely to face harsh school discipline than other students. Even one suspension in 9th grade doubles the risk ... Read More
Today, UCLA’s Civil Rights Project released a new report highlighting the overuse of suspensions and the serious implications that it has on students’ trajectories including graduation rates, achievement scores, life outcomes and incarceration rates. The report looks at data from over 26,000 U.S. middle and high schools during the 2009-2010 academic year. Its findings show ... Read More
In Oakland, schools have employed restorative justice practices as an alternative to ‘”zero-tolerance” policies. Eric Butler is a coordinator of restorative justice for Ralph J. Brunche High School. We highlighted Mr. Butler and Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY) in our Fix School Discipline Toolkit The restorative justice program at Ralph J. Brunche promotes strong ... Read More
An excellent historical look at racial disparity in one town’s school-to-prison-pipeline. In Meridian, Mississippi, the Department of Justice initiated a case review of the town during the 2007-2008 school year, confirming that African-American students were treated more harshly than their white counterparts. During one six-year period studied, students were arrested for such simple things as ... Read More
Two new articles in the Christian Science Monitor focus on the school-to-prison-pipeline and restorative justice models. “School suspensions: Does racial bias feed the school-to-prison pipeline” looks nationwide, at schools’ disparity in suspension and expulsion rates for different groups and why that happens. Read more… The related article, “Restorative justice: One high school’s path to reducing ... Read More
There are waves in our schools as restorative justice replaces punitive justice. More than 23,000 schools are letting go of punitive approaches to discipline in favor of restorative models. Schools that adopt these models often see at least a 20% drop in suspension rates during their first year, which impacts graduation rates, test scores and ... Read More
A new report by David S. Kirk and Robert J. Sampson highlights the impact of juvenile arrest on completion of high school and how it alters life trajectories around work and family. The report concludes: With high school and even college graduation virtually a necessity for a successful transition to adulthood, we conclude that the ... Read More
The Oakland Unified School District is working to combat racial disparities in how it disciplines students. This year, it has made some progress in reducing suspensions of African-American students, using a restorative justice framework. Additionally, it also developed a plan that looks at school culture and climate, working with teachers and staff to provide trainings ... Read More
California isn’t the only state where parents are concerned about harsh rules like willful defiance. In yet another example of the arbitrary nature of ‘willful defiance’, last week, a 7-year-old boy was suspended for biting his pop-tart pastry into the shape of a gun. This follows a trend of young children suspended for pointing their fingers ... Read More
