This study examines the likelihood that a student will receive a school disciplinary action, such as in-school or out-of-school suspension.
Analyses of district-wide data for the 2014-15 academic year indicate that both student and school factors play an important role. Net of other factors, the strongest predictors of school discipline are school racial composition and student race. In HISD, students with a disciplinary incident by the 8th grade have increased odds of dropping out.
When well-planned and well-delivered instruction and classroom management systems have not been sufficiently effective for particular students, a suspension is one of the few tools educators have in dealing with student misbehavior. It can serve to diffuse classroom conflict which benefits the teacher, the student in the conflict, and other students in the classroom not directly involved. This study further examines what impacts suspensions have on students' futures.
Photo: Kris Carillo/flickr
