Discipline Disparities Among Students With Disabilities

The decades-long problem of disproportionate school discipline and school-based arrests of students with disabilities, particularly those who also identify as Black or Native American, is explored in this authoritative book. A team of interdisciplinary scholars, attorneys, and education practitioners focus on how disparities based on disability intersect with race and ethnicity, why such disparities occur, and the impacts these disparities have over time. A DisCrit and research-based perspective frames key issues at the beginning of the book, and the chapters that follow suggest promising practices and approaches to reduce the inequitable use of school discipline and increase the use of evidence-supported alternatives to prevent and respond to behaviors of students with disabilities. The final chapter recommends future research, policy, legal, and practice goals, suggesting an agenda for moving the field forward in years to come. Contributors: Amy Briesch, Sandra Chafouleas, Donald Chee, Lindsay Fallon, Pamela Fenning, Amy Fisher, Benjamin Fisher, Emma Healy, Heather Hoechst, Miranda Johnson, Kathleen Lynne Lane, Patrice Leverett, Laura Marques, Thomas Mayes, Markeda Newell, Angelina Nortey, Wendy Oakes, Kristen Pearson, Michelle Rappaport, Monica Stevens, Carly Tindall-Biggins, Margarida Veiga, Elizabeth Marcell Williams, Perry Zirkel

Educators remove over 3.45 million students from school annually for disciplinary reasons, despite strong evidence that school suspension policies are harmful to students. The research presented in this volume demonstrates that disciplinary policies and practices that schools control directly exacerbate today's profound inequities in educational opportunity and outcomes. Part I explores how suspensions flow along the lines of race, gender, and disability status. Part II examines potential remedies that show great promise, including a district-wide approach in Cleveland, Ohio, aimed at social and emotional learning strategies. Closing the School Discipline Gap is a call for action that focuses on an area in which public schools can and should make powerful improvements, in a relatively short period of time. Contributors include Robert Balfanz, Jamilia Blake, Dewey Cornell, Jeremy D. Finn, Thalia González, Anne Gregory, Daniel J. Losen, David M. Osher, Russell J. Skiba, Ivory A. Toldson “Closing the School Discipline Gap can make an enormous difference in reducing disciplinary exclusions across the country. This book not only exposes unsound practices and their disparate impact on the historically disadvantaged, but provides educators, policymakers, and community advocates with an array of remedies that are proven effective or hold great promise. Educators, communities, and students alike can benefit from the promising interventions and well-grounded recommendations.” —Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education, Stanford University “For over four decades school discipline policies and practices in too many places have pushed children out of school, especially children of color. Closing the School Discipline Gap shows that adults have the power—and responsibility—to change school climates to better meet the needs of children. This volume is a call to action for policymakers, educators, parents, and students.” —Marian Wright Edelman, president, Children’s Defense Fund

"A team of interdisciplinary scholars, attorneys, and educators explore the disproportionate school discipline and school-based arrests of students with disabilities, particularly those who also identify as Black or Native American. They suggest promising practices and approaches that will reduce discipline disparities and increase the use of evidence-supported alternatives"--

Examines the relationship between the law and the school-to-prison pipeline, argues that law can be an effective weapon in the struggle to reduce the number of children caught, and discusses the consequences on families and communities.

While the achievement gap has dominated policy discussions over the past two decades, relatively little attention has been paid to a gap even more at odds with American ideals: the opportunity gap. Opportunity and achievement, while inextricably connected, are very different goals. Every American will not go to college, but every American should be given a fair chance to be prepared for college. In communities across the U.S., children lack the crucial resources and opportunities, inside and outside of schools that they need if they are to reach their potential. Closing the Opportunity Gap offers accessible, research-based essays written by top experts who highlight the discrepancies that exist in our public schools, focusing on how policy decisions and life circumstances conspire to create the "opportunity gap" that leads inexorably to stark achievement gaps. They also describe sensible policies grounded in evidence that can restore and enhance opportunities. Moving beyond conventional academic discourse, Closing the Opportunity Gap will spark vital new conversations about what schools, parents, educators, and policymakers can and should do to give all children a fair chance to thrive.

Step outside of the IEPs and behavioral paperwork currently generated in schools, go where disabled people are thriving today, and see the results in learning, growth, and expression. This authoritative book offers readers alternative ways to think about learning and behavior in special education. Through illustrative case studies and a disability studies lens, author Erin McCloskey uses the voices of people with disabilities to show how these students progress creatively outside the classroom and school building—at the dojo, the riding arena, the theater stage, the music studio, and other community-centered spaces where disabled students can make choices about their learning, their bodies, and their goals. Balancing theory and practice, the book describes alternative learning spaces, demonstrates how disabled students learn there, and passes on the important lessons learned in each space. The ideas apply to students of all ages with a wide variety of disabilities. Book Features: Uses the voices of people with disabilities to promote alternative ways to think about learning and behavior in special education.Presents rich case studies and briefer interludes to illustrate how disabled students are learning and thriving in surprising ways outside of school where they have opportunities to explore. Distills important key takeaways from each case study through chapter sections of “lessons learned.”Promotes informed discussion of the concepts in the book with questions at the end of each chapter. Combines theory and practice to help readers put the concepts into action in a variety of settings with a variety of disabled students.

This Brief reviews the past, present, and future use of school corporal punishment in the United States, a practice that remains legal in 19 states as it is constitutionally permitted according to the U.S. Supreme Court. As a result of school corporal punishment, nearly 200,000 children are paddled in schools each year. Most Americans are unaware of this fact or the physical injuries sustained by countless school children who are hit with objects by school personnel in the name of discipline. Therefore, Corporal Punishment in U.S. Public Schools begins by summarizing the legal basis for school corporal punishment and trends in Americans’ attitudes about it. It then presents trends in the use of school corporal punishment in the United States over time to establish its past and current prevalence. It then discusses what is known about the effects of school corporal punishment on children, though with so little research on this topic, much of the relevant literature is focused on parents’ use of corporal punishment with their children. It also provides results from a policy analysis that examines the effect of state-level school corporal punishment bans on trends in juvenile crime. It concludes by discussing potential legal, policy, and advocacy avenues for abolition of school corporal punishment at the state and federal levels as well as summarizing how school corporal punishment is being used and what its potential implications are for thousands of individual students and for the society at large. As school corporal punishment becomes more and more regulated at the state level, Corporal Punishment in U.S. Public Schools serves an essential guide for policymakers and advocates across the country as well as for researchers, scientist-practitioners, and graduate students.