School Discipline And Student Rights

Answers the calls of grassroots communities pressing for integration and increased education funding with a complete rethinking of school discipline In the era of zero tolerance, we are flooded with stories about schools issuing draconian punishments for relatively innocent behavior. One student was suspended for chewing a Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun. Another was expelled for cursing on social media from home. Suspension and expulsion rates have doubled over the past three decades as zero tolerance policies have become the normal response to a host of minor infractions that extend well beyond just drugs and weapons. Students from all demographic groups have suffered, but minority and special needs students have suffered the most. On average, middle and high schools suspend one out of four African American students at least once a year. The effects of these policies are devastating. Just one suspension in the ninth grade doubles the likelihood that a student will drop out. Fifty percent of students who drop out are subsequently unemployed. Eighty percent of prisoners are high school drop outs. The risks associated with suspension and expulsion are so high that, as a practical matter, they amount to educational death penalties, not behavioral correction tools. Most important, punitive discipline policies undermine the quality of education that innocent bystanders receive as well—the exact opposite of what schools intend. Derek Black, a former attorney with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, weaves stories about individual students, lessons from social science, and the outcomes of courts cases to unearth a shockingly irrational system of punishment. While schools and legislatures have proven unable and unwilling to amend their failing policies, Ending Zero Tolerance argues for constitutional protections to check abuses in school discipline and lays out theories by which courts should re-engage to enforce students’ rights and support broader reforms.

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

Reprimand a class comic, restrain a bully, dismiss a student for brazen attire--and you may be facing a lawsuit, costly regardless of the result. This reality for today's teachers and administrators has made the issue of school discipline more difficult than ever before--and public education thus more precarious. This is the troubling message delivered in Judging School Discipline, a powerfully reasoned account of how decades of mostly well-intended litigation have eroded the moral authority of teachers and principals and degraded the quality of American education. Judging School Discipline casts a backward glance at the roots of this dilemma to show how a laudable concern for civil liberties forty years ago has resulted in oppressive abnegation of adult responsibility now. In a rigorous analysis enriched by vivid descriptions of individual cases, the book explores 1,200 cases in which a school's right to control students was contested. Richard Arum and his colleagues also examine several decades of data on schools to show striking and widespread relationships among court leanings, disciplinary practices, and student outcomes; they argue that the threat of lawsuits restrains teachers and administrators from taking control of disorderly and even dangerous situations in ways the public would support. Table of Contents: Preface 1. Questioning School Authority 2. Student Rights versus School Rules With Irenee R. Beattie 3. How Judges Rule With Irenee R. Beattie 4. From the Bench to the Paddle With Richard Pitt and Jennifer Thompson 5. School Discipline and Youth Socialization With Sandra Way 6. Restoring Moral Authority in American Schools Appendix: Tables Notes Index Reviews of this book: This interesting study casts a critical eye on the American legal system, which [Arum] sees as having undermined the ability of teachers and administrators to socialize teenagers...Arum, it must be pointed out, is adamantly opposed to such measures as zero tolerance, which, he insists, often results in unfair and excessive punishment. What he wisely calls for is not authoritarianism, but for school folks to regain a sense of moral authority so that they can act decisively in matters of school discipline without having to look over their shoulders. --David Ruenzel, Teacher Magazine Reviews of this book: Arum's book should be compulsory reading for the legal profession; they need to recognise the long-term effects of their judgments on the climate of schools and the way in which judgments in favour of individual rights can reduce the moral authority of schools in disciplining errant students. But the author is no copybook conservative, and he is as critical of the Right's get-tough, zero-tolerance authoritarianism as he is of what he eloquently describes as the 'marshmallow effect' of liberal reformers, pushing the rules to their limits and tolerating increased misconduct. --John Dunford, Times Educational Supplement [UK] Reviews of this book: [Arum] argues that discipline is often ineffective because schools' legitimacy and moral authority have been eroded. He holds the courts responsible, because they have challenged schools' legal and moral authority, supporting this claim by examining over 6,200 state and federal appellate court decisions from 1960 to 1992. In describing the structure of these decisions, Arum provides interesting insights into school disciplinary practices and the law. --P. M. Socoski, Choice Reviews of this book: Arum's careful analysis of school discipline becomes so focused and revealing that the ideological boundaries of the debate seem almost to have been suspended. The result is a rich and original book, bold, important, useful, and--as this combination of attributes might suggest--surprising...Many years in the making, Judging School Discipline weds historical, theoretical, and statistical research within the problem-solving stance of a teacher working to piece together solutions in the interest of his students. The result is a book that promises to shape research as well as practice through its demonstration that students are liberated, as well as oppressed, by school discipline. --Steven L. VanderStaay, Urban Education Reviews of this book: [Arum's] break with education-school dogma on student rights is powerful and goes far toward explaining why so many teachers dread their students--when they are not actually fighting them off. --Heather MacDonald, Wall Street Journal

Reprimand a class comic, restrain a bully, dismiss a student for brazen attire--and you may be facing a lawsuit, costly regardless of the result. This reality for today's teachers and administrators has made the issue of school discipline more difficult than ever before--and public education thus more precarious. This is the troubling message delivered in Judging School Discipline, a powerfully reasoned account of how decades of mostly well-intended litigation have eroded the moral authority of teachers and principals and degraded the quality of American education. Judging School Discipline casts a backward glance at the roots of this dilemma to show how a laudable concern for civil liberties forty years ago has resulted in oppressive abnegation of adult responsibility now. In a rigorous analysis enriched by vivid descriptions of individual cases, the book explores 1,200 cases in which a school's right to control students was contested. Richard Arum and his colleagues also examine several decades of data on schools to show striking and widespread relationships among court leanings, disciplinary practices, and student outcomes; they argue that the threat of lawsuits restrains teachers and administrators from taking control of disorderly and even dangerous situations in ways the public would support.

To assist administrators in understanding procedural due process rights in student discipline, this manual draws together hundreds of citations and case summaries of federal and state court decisions and provides detailed commentary as well. Chapter 1 outlines the general principles of procedural due process rights in student discipline, such as when students are entitled to due process and how much due process to give. Chapter 2 describes the application of due process to specific forms of discipline: suspension for 10 days or less; long-term suspension and expulsion; disciplinary transfer; inschool suspension; class removal; extracurricular activity exclusion; graduation ceremony exclusion; procedural rights for academic decisions; corporal punishment; and school bus exclusion. Chapter 3 details specific elements in prior hearings and the emergency exception, notice types and procedures, hearing timing, access to evidence before the hearing, ensuring impartial decisionmakers, hearing procedures, findings and reasons, and appeal and judicial review. Specific court cases are cited for further reference. (EJS)