CQR School Discipline - WordPress.com · “school-to-prison pipeline.” Proponents of zero tolerance, however, say the policies have made schools safer. In addition, recent school

School DisciplineShould tough, zero-tolerance policies be revised?

Two decades after the nation’s schools began adopting

zero-tolerance discipline policies to curb violence,

drug use and gun threats, reform efforts are under-

way. New data on high rates of suspensions and

expulsions are leading school officials to question whether zero-

tolerance policies are being overused, especially when applied to

minor infractions. Critics say get-tough discipline has disproportion-

ately targeted minority and disabled students and created a

“school-to-prison-pipeline.” Encouraged by the Obama administra-

tion, many school districts are trying new approaches, such as be-

havior counseling. Advocates of zero tolerance acknowledge that

some school districts have been overzealous but say schools are

safer today largely because of strict discipline policies. Schools also

are grappling with whether hiring armed security officers improves

school safety or encourages higher student arrest rates. meanwhile,

civil liberties advocates question whether school officials can regu-

late off-campus misbehavior, such as cyberbullying, without infring-

ing on free speech.

Fairfax County police officer Joe Plazio monitorscafeteria activity at West Springfield High School inNorthern Virginia. Recent school shootings nationallyhave prompted calls for more armed personnel inschools. Only 1 percent of schools had police in

1975; by 2011, nearly 70 percent had security guardsor police, according to a poll of students.

CQ Researcher • May 9, 2014 • www.cqresearcher.comVolume 24, Number 18 • Pages 409-432

RECIPIENT Of SOCIETY Of PROfESSIONAL JOURNALISTS AwARD fOR

EXCELLENCE � AmERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION SILvER GAvEL AwARD

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THE ISSUES ....................411

BACKGROUND ................417

CHRONOLOGY ................419

CURRENT SITUATION ........422

AT ISSUE........................425

OUTLOOK ......................426

BIBLIOGRAPHY ................430

THE NEXT STEP ..............431

THISREPORT

Published by CQ Press, an Imprint of SAGE Publications, Inc. www.cqresearcher.com

This is .pdf version No. 3

By Anne Farris RosenMay 9, 2014

410 CQ Researcher

THE ISSUES

411 • Has zero tolerance madeschools safer?• Should principals be ableto discipline students for off-campus behavior?• Should schools increasethe number of armed securi-ty officers on campus?

BACKGROUND

417 Rise of Zero ToleranceIn the 1990s, schools adopt-ed strict policies requiringsuspension or expulsion forall incidents involving drugsor weapons.

418 Shootings and Bullyingfatal shootings have in-creased pressure to keepschools safe.

420 School Resource OfficersSecurity guards and policeare a growing presence inschools.

CURRENT SITUATION

423 Federal EffortsThe Obama administrationhas issued guidelines for re-forming zero tolerance.

424 The CourtsCivil rights complaints havetriggered Justice Departmentsuits.

426 Reducing SuspensionsStates are adopting alternativeapproaches.

OUTLOOK

426 Striking a BalanceSchools strive to maintainsafety while ensuring punish-ment is fair.

SIDEBARS AND GRAPHICS

412 Blacks Disciplined at Disproportionate RatesBlack students are suspendedand expelled at rates dispro-portionate to their numbers.

413 School Violence Has Declinedviolent crimes against studentshave declined markedly sincepeaking in 1993.

416 More Schools Have Security OfficersNearly 70 percent of studentssay their schools have securityguards or police officers.

419 ChronologyKey events since 1967

420 Baltimore Seeks to Reduce SuspensionsStudents are now counseled,not kicked out.

422 Students with DisabilitiesFace Arrest MoreOne-quarter of school-relatedarrests involve students withdisabilities.

425 At Issue:Should schools increase thenumber of law enforcementofficers?

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

429 For More InformationOrganizations to contact.

430 BibliographySelected sources used.

431 The Next StepAdditional articles.

431 Citing CQ ResearcherSample bibliography formats.

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE

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School Discipline

THE ISSUESwhen 15-year-old

Dontadrian Bruceof Olive Branch,

miss., was suspended for 21days in february for holdingup two fingers and thumb ina class photo, there was anoutcry from schoolmates andthe community on social mediasites calling for his reinstate-ment. Bruce, a 10th-grade foot-ball player, said he didn’t knowhe was flashing a gang sign,but Desoto County school ad-ministrators said the gestureviolated the county’s schooldiscipline code.

“we’re looking at possiblerevisions for the upcomingschool year,” said AssociateSuperintendent van Alexan-der. “But safety still has tobe the number one priority.It just has to be.” 1

The discipline meted outto Bruce is not uncommon.Although in the past suchbehavior might have landedstudents in detention or inthe principal’s office, todaystudents in the United Statesare suspended for minor in-fractions such as disruptingclass, not wearing a school uniform,chewing gum or using a cell phone.

Nearly two decades after school ad-ministrators began instituting get-tough discipline to stem growing vio-lence and drugs in schools, new dataon high rates of suspensions and ex-pulsions are leading many school of-ficials to question the use of so-calledzero-tolerance policies and to institutereforms. Critics say overzealous use ofsuch policies, plus a growing policepresence in schools, has dispropor-tionately targeted minority and disabledstudents, in some cases creating a

“school-to-prison pipeline.” Proponentsof zero tolerance, however, say thepolicies have made schools safer.

In addition, recent school shootingshave led some parents and gun-rightsgroups to call for more armed person-nel in schools, but some studies showthat having police in schools leads tohigher student arrest rates. And civil lib-erties advocates question whether schooldiscipline policies that cover off-campusmisbehavior, such as cyberbullying, in-fringe on students’ privacy and civil rights.

figures released in march show thatsome 3.5 million students were sus-

pended from U.S. elementaryand secondary public schools,mostly for minor offenses, dur-ing the 2011-12 school year,the latest data available. 2 An-other 130,000 students wereexpelled, and 260,000 studentswere referred to law en-forcement. And nearly 5,000preschoolers were suspendedonce — and 2,500 more thanonce. 3 Nationwide, 95 per-cent of out-of-school suspen-sions are for nonviolent be-havior, said U.S. EducationSecretary Arne Duncan. 4

moreover, according to thenewly released figures, sus-pension rates are dispropor-tionately higher among minor-ity and disabled students.African-Americans are sus-pended and expelled at threetimes the rate of whites, andstudents with disabilities aremore than twice as likely to besuspended as students withoutdisabilities. 5

A recent study shows thatalthough racial disparity in sus-pensions has existed since the1970s, the gap between blackand white students haswidened since schools beganexpanding the use of zero tol-erance. 6

Those racial disparities occur even atthe prekindergarten level, U.S. AttorneyGeneral Eric H. Holder said in releas-ing the new data on preschool sus-pensions and expulsions — the firsttime such data have been collected. 7

“Every data point represents a life im-pacted and a future potentially divertedor derailed,” Holder said. 8 “This admin-istration is moving aggressively to disruptthe school-to-prison pipeline in order toensure that all of our young people haveequal educational opportunities.”

The pre-K data is part of an Obamaadministration effort to reinstitute and

BY ANNE FARRIS ROSEN

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Attorney General Eric Holder, right, and EducationSecretary Arne Duncan visit preschoolers at J.O. WilsonElementary School in Washington on March 21. Newdata on suspensions and expulsions released by Holderare leading many educators and parents to question theuse of zero-tolerance policies. Critics of the tough

policies, including Holder and Duncan, say they lead tohigher student arrest rates that disproportionately targetminority and disabled students, creating a “school-to-prison pipeline.” Proponents of zero tolerance say the

policy has made schools safer.

412 CQ Researcher

expand the government’s annual datacollection on national school discipline,which was discontinued during theGeorge w. Bush administration. The newinformation on the sharp rise in sus-pensions and expulsions has helped spureducators, elected officials and parentsto rethink school discipline policies.

“most people weren’t aware of howfrequently students were being sus-pended,” says Daniel Losen, directorof the Center for Civil Rights Reme-dies at the University of California atLos Angeles’s Civil Rights Project. “Thesheer volume raised flags for parentsand education policymakers.”

“we’re at a very exciting stage rightnow,” says michael Thompson, directorof the Council of State Governments’Justice Center, a nonpartisan organiza-tion that serves local, state and federalpolicymakers. “It’s clear that we’re see-ing a substantial growth of momentum

across the country as it relates to re-thinking school discipline policies.”

Others are wary that reforms couldsacrifice safety. “The first priority shouldbe on creating a safe and orderly en-vironment for the vast majority of stu-dents who want to learn and obey therules,” said michael Petrilli, executivevice president of the conservativeThomas B. fordham Institute, a re-search organization in washington thatpromotes educational excellence. 9 “Butwe should never sacrifice a safe andorderly climate for feel-good efforts forthe handful of disruptive students.”

The Obama administration is push-ing for reforms of zero tolerance disci-pline, both focusing on data collectionand raising awareness about the dis-proportionate rates of suspensions andexpulsions among minority and disabledstudents. “An African-American kinder-gartner was given a five-day suspen-

sion for setting off a fire alarm, whilea white ninth-grader in the very samedistrict was suspended for one day forthe same offense,” Deborah Delisle, anassistant secretary of Education, told aSenate Judiciary Committee hearing on“Ending the School-to-Prison Pipeline.” 10

The Justice Department also is in-vestigating allegations of high suspen-sion rates, racial disparity in disciplineand unlawful use of law enforcementin schools. In wake County, N.C., forinstance, 18 civil rights and education-reform organizations have filed a com-plaint with the Justice Department againstthe school system, sheriff’s departmentand seven police departments. Thegroups allege that African-American stu-dents’ constitutional civil rights havebeen violated by the over-use of lawenforcement in wake County schoolsfor minor discipline problems. Theschool system is reviewing the com-plaint, but former wake County SchoolBoard Chairman Ron margiotta defendedthe board’s actions. “we cannot edu-cate students if we can’t control whatgoes on in the schools and in the class-rooms,” he said. 11

Several academic and nonprofit or-ganizations say the new research onthe pervasiveness and effects of zerotolerance supports their contention thatchanges are needed. for instance, astudy examining at least six years ofrecords of 1 million public secondaryschool students in Texas found thatnearly 60 percent had been suspendedor expelled at least once. It also foundthat African-American students had a31 percent higher likelihood of sus-pension or expulsion than their whiteor Hispanic counterparts. 12

In 2012, nationwide numbers showedhigher rates of suspension among Lati-no, disabled, gay and transgender stu-dents, as well as African-Americans,often for similar violations. 13

Some scholars, however, such as fred-erick Hess of the conservative Ameri-can Enterprise Institute (AEI), have saidthe government is focusing too narrowly

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE

* Includes mixed-race, native Hawaiian/Pacific islander, Asian and American Indian/Alaskan native students.

** Percentages do not add to 100 due to rounding.

Source: “Civil Rights Data Collection, Data Snapshot: School Discipline,” U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, March 21, 2014, p. 2, www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/crdc-discipline-snapshot.pdf

Blacks Disciplined at Disproportionate Rates

Black students represent 16 percent of the student population, but 32-42 percent of students suspended or expelled. In comparison, white students represent between 31-40 percent of students suspended or expelled, but they are 51 percent of the student population.

Percentage of Enrollment, Suspensions and Expulsions, by Race/Ethnicity, 2011-12**

WhiteHispanicBlack/African-AmericanOther*

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60

80

100%

ExpulsionsMultipleOut-of-SchoolSuspensions

In-SchoolSuspensions

U.S. Enrollment


on civil rights rather than consideringother explanations for disciplinary dis-parities. The disparities might be theresult of “prejudice either overt or in-tentional,” he said, but it also could bethat “low income or minority kids aremisbehaving at higher rates for what-ever reason. my experience is that it’sprobably some mix of the two.” 14

Hans Bader, a senior attorney spe-cializing in first Amendment and civilrights law at the Competitive Enter-prise Institute, a nonprofit organiza-tion in washington that promotes lim-ited government and free enterprise,said the numbers of suspensions large-ly “reflect actual infraction rates.” Tryingto bring suspension rates for minori-ties closer in line with those of othergroups would mean adopting a “de factoracial quota in discipline” that at leastone federal court has ruled violates theConstitution’s Equal Protection Clause,Bader contended. 15

But Russell Skiba, a school psychol-ogy professor at Indiana University inBloomington, said the disparity rate isnot the result of minority students mis-behaving more than their white peers.In one of his own studies, Skiba foundthat even when controlling for povertyand student behavior, black students weresuspended or expelled at rates 1.5 timesthose of whites. 16

Some schools are incorporating al-ternative discipline models for nonvi-olent offenses, such as antibullyingprograms, teacher training for positivefeedback, manhood-development class-es, early intervention and conflict res-olution. (See sidebar, p. 420.) Anoth-er approach, called restorative justice,holds misbehaving students account-able to the victims and the schoolcommunity. 17 An analysis by Losenshows that many schools use alterna-tive programs and are suspending fewerstudents than before. 18 Schools inCleveland and virginia that introducedsome of these alternatives saw an im-proved sense of safety among studentsand a decline in suspensions, accord-

ing to a 2014 study by 26 researchcollaborators. 19

“more than ever before, we’re see-ing a willingness to develop strategiesthat keep children in the classroomwhile creating safe, welcoming learn-ing environments that help all studentssucceed,” says Thompson.

Alternatives can be expensive, how-ever. “Superintendents recognize thatout-of-school suspension is outdatedand not in line with 21st-century ed-ucation,” said Daniel Domenech, ex-ecutive director of The School Super-intendents Association, in Alexandria,va. But “funds to improve school cli-mate and train school personnel in al-ternative school discipline can be scarcein today’s economic climate.” 20

As schools and the public contin-ue to grapple with student-disciplineproblems, here are some of the ques-tions that arise:

Has zero tolerance made schoolssafer?

when schools began adoptingzero-tolerance policies in the early-

1990s, it was largely to address therising incidence of violence and drugsin schools. Also, Congress in 1994 man-dated that schools expel a student forone year for possessing a weapon atschool. 21 Some local administrators,using their authority under the law tomodify expulsions on a case-by-casebasis, extended strict discipline to awide variety of misbehavior. A spateof school shootings beginning in thelate 1990s also led to demands thatschools crack down on troublemakersand post police and armed securityguards on campus.

Some school boards also adoptedmandatory zreo-tolerance punishmentsfor infractions to protect principals andadministrators from lawsuits allegingthat discipline was being applied un-equally based on students’ race, dis-abilities or other factors. Such policieseliminated principals’ discretion, it wasargued, so they could not be accusedof disparate treatment.

Although the juvenile crime ratehas dropped since peaking in 1994,and there is less violence in schools

* Includes serious violent crimes, including rape, sexual assault, robbery and aggravated assault, as well as simple assault.

Source: Simone Robers, Jana Kemp, and Jennifer Truman, “Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2012,” National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, and Bureau of Justice Statistics, June 2013, Table 2.1, http://tinyurl.com/pcvy3xq

School Violence Declines Over 20 Years

Serious violent crimes and assaults against students ages 12 to 18 fell by about 75 percent since reaching a peak in 1993. School violence reached a 20-year low in 2010 before edging up a bit in 2011.

Violent Crime* Against Students, Ages 12-18, 1992-2011 (per 1,000 youths)(Violent incidents* per 1,000 youths)

G

0

20

40

60

80

100

’11’10’09’08’07’06’05’04’03’02’01’00’99’98’97’96’95’94’931992

414 CQ Researcher

today than 20 years ago, the get-toughpolicies along with the added securi-ty staffing has meant more studentsare being ushered into court and sus-pended from school. 22 “This sort oftsunami of zero tolerance, get-tough-on-kids approach, and this willingnessto kick out the bad kids so the goodkids can learn, has seen a dramaticincrease,” says Losen of the Center forCivil RIghts Remedies. “The mentalityof zero tolerance has seeped intoevery little offense.”

A growing body of research exam-ining the impact on students and schoolsof swift and strict penalties has con-cluded that while such policies are cru-cial for serious offenses involvingweapons, drugs or violence, the use ofarbitrary suspension and expulsion forminor violations may not be the bestapproach to school discipline.

“Two decades of research has con-firmed that out-of-school suspensionsdo not improve student behavior and,in fact, often exacerbate it,” says Laurafaer, education rights director for Pub-lic Counsel, a law firm in Los Ange-les that provides pro bono legal ser-vices to schools. “Students who aresuspended lose valuable instructionaltime and are more likely to fall be-hind in school, drop out and enterthe juvenile delinquency system, atgreat cost to students and taxpayers.”

One study showed that students ex-pelled or suspended once were twice aslikely to be held back a year and almostthree times as likely to end up in thejuvenile justice system compared withstudents of similar characteristics. 23

Supporters of zero-tolerance policiescite other studies showing that strict,universal discipline helps maintain orderand a safe learning environment. fourin 10 educators surveyed by Educa-tion Week in 2013 said suspensions andexpulsions are effective in maintaininga safe environment. Teachers are gen-erally more likely than administratorsto see punitive discipline as an effec-tive way to address student behavior. 24

“Zero-tolerance policies have re-sulted in countless numbers of badlyconceived decisions, such as studentssuspended for having baseball bats intheir car trunks when they play onthe baseball team. The [policies] havedone a lot of harm,” says AndrewCoulson, director of the libertarian CatoInstitute’s Center for Educational free-dom in washington. “But if you getrid of very strict discipline, you willnot get what you hoped for, which ismore sane schools. You will get morechaotic schools and less learning be-cause the alternatives are not donesystematically.”

for instance, he says, studies showthat when out-of-school suspensionsare reduced without instituting otherchanges, such as strong discipline thatconsistently rewards or punishes be-havior, overall student achievement suf-fers because disruptive students remainin the classroom. “It is unjust to pun-ish innocent students educationally forthe actions of a few disruptive stu-dents,” Coulson says. Keeping unrulystudents in class “makes it harder forthe typical school to be able to teach.”

Both sides of the zero-tolerance de-bate agree there is a place for alter-native discipline for minor violations.“I think schools have been pretty safeplaces and still are,” says Losen, “butsafer schools are not a result of sus-pensions. Good relationships aremuch more important. If [you] investin the right kind of things — trainingand behavior modification — you in-still more order.”

David Osher, an expert on schoolsand youth development and vice pres-ident of the American Institutes for Re-search, an organization in washingtonthat conducts behavioral and socialscience research, said studies showstudents and teachers perform betterwhen schools improve discipline. mosteffective, he says, are programs thatfocus on self-discipline and healthybehavior, connecting to students ratherthan removing them from the school

community and providing services ina coordinated fashion rather thanadding them piecemeal. 25

Such a multitiered approach to dis-cipline can be expensive, especiallysince more than two-thirds of statesspent less per student in 2013 than be-fore the 2007-2009 recession. 26 “Thread-bare school budgets have resulted inthe loss of, or inability to hire, much-needed guidance counselors, schoolsocial workers and school psycholo-gists,” said Randi weingarten, presidentof the American federation of Teach-ers (AfT), a union representing 1.5 mil-lion members, which favors alternativesto suspensions and expulsions. 27 Onaverage, she said, schools have onecounselor for every 471 students, a ratiotwice as high as recommended.

“After-school, peer-mediation andrestorative-justice programs that em-power students to resolve conflicts:cut, cut, cut,” she says. “many of thethings that help keep students in schooland give them a sense of belongingare being taken away.”

However, disciplining students byexcluding them from class may costtaxpayers more than keeping studentsin school, says Losen. “Tax dollars aregoing to be spent on these kids oneway or another,” he says, “either inschools or later in courts at a muchhigher cost.” In one study, Connecti-cut estimated it annually costs $14,000to educate a student compared to$270,000 for juvenile custody. 28

while studies have found links be-tween student suspensions and crim-inal behavior, there is no solid proofthat suspensions cause a student toget involved in crime later in life, re-searchers say, since many students ar-rive at school with problems muchlarger than educators can address. ButZeph Capo, a former school teacherand vice president of the Houstonfederation of Teachers, said that in hisexperience suspensions do not alwaysimprove student behavior or help stu-dents succeed. 29

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE


Others put a positive spin on theconsequences of zero-tolerance poli-cies. Cole Alexander, guitarist for thepunk rock band Black Lips, said hedidn’t like being expelled when zero-tolerance policies came to his Geor-gia high school months after the 1999shooting at Columbine High School inLittleton, Colo., when two heavily armedstudents killed a teacher and 12 students.But zero tolerance, he says, gave himmotivation to get a job and focus on hisnow-successful music career. 30

Should principals be able to dis-cipline students for off-campusbehavior?

In a 1980 precedent-setting case, ahigh school student in Rogers, Ark.,left school, got drunk with friends andreturned to school to find he was sus-pended. The student, Pete mcCluskey,sued the school board, and his case,Board of Education of Rogers, Arkansasv. McCluskey, eventually ended up atthe U.S. Supreme Court, which ruledin the school’s favor. 31

Since then courts have generally fa-vored schools when it comes to dis-ciplining kids for off-campus behav-ior, particularly if the behavior disruptsthe school climate. But in the age ofmodern technology, legal issues sur-rounding discipline for off-campus be-havior today are more complicated.Electronic communication can facili-tate a climate of bullying as studentspost hurtful information on the Inter-net or harass others with text mes-sages both on and off campus. Andthe legal decisions and laws regard-ing cyberbullying vary greatly fromcase to case and state to state. 32

Traditional schoolyard slurs havetaken a new electronic form via tweet-ing, texting, sexting and cyberbullying.A federal study released in 2012 foundthat 9 percent of secondary school stu-dents said they had been cyberbulliedin and out of school. 33 The targetswere more likely female middle school-ers — particularly sixth-graders — and

white. Another study found that morethan one-fifth of secondary studentssaid they had been cyberbullied, andthe same percentage said they had cy-berbullied someone. 34

while studies vary on the frequen-cy of cyberbullying, few experts ques-tion the quandary it poses for admin-istrators who must also respect students’first Amendment rights to free speech.Schools have responded in a variety ofways, with most — 91 percent — lim-

iting access to social-networking sitesfrom school computers and banningcell phone use and text messaging dur-ing school hours. 35

But school administrators are grap-pling with how to respond when off-campus student speech, such as whatstudents say to one another online,causes disruption at school.

“A student does not and should notreceive less protection under the Con-stitution just because their speech isoff campus,” says Lee Rowland, an at-torney for the American Civil LibertiesUnion in New York. “The Supreme Courthas stated time and again that kids donot lose their first Amendment rightssimply because they’re students. Twen-ty-four/seven government monitoringof private student speech is both un-wise and unconstitutional. we wouldn’t

accept school officials rifling through astudent’s personal diary, and we shouldn’taccept it simply because the diary isdigital.”

finding the right balance betweenfree speech and keeping a school safecan be difficult, said Sarah LevitanKaatz, a California attorney who spe-cializes in education law. “I don’t know

Eighteen-year-old Isabella “Belle” Hankey, left, here with her mother, has filed amultimillion-dollar lawsuit against the school district, town officials and threeschool administrators, alleging that her repeated complaints about bullying she experienced at Concord-Carlisle High School in Concord, Mass.,

were ignored. Nationwide, 45 states direct school districts to adopt bullying policies, and 36 states prohibit cyberbullying.

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a single administrator who wants toviolate a student’s free-speech right,”she said. “But I do know a lot of ad-ministrators who wake up every morn-ing wanting to make sure [they pro-vide] a safe school environment foreverybody there.” 36

Some groups advocating more reg-ulation of off-campus electronic be-havior have said a principal should beable to discipline a student if the stu-dent’s speech prevents other students— especially legally protected groupssuch as minorities or disabled students— from receiving an education.

“when student speech is outside ofschool, officials only have the author-ity to formally respond if the impactof that speech has, or foreseeably will,substantially disrupt or interfere withthe rights of other students at school,”says Nancy willard, director of Em-brace Civility in the Digital Age, a non-profit organization in Eugene, Ore.,that helps parents and students ad-dress digital bullying. “People shouldhave free speech rights up to the pointthat they’re interfering with other stu-dents’ rights. That’s where the lineshould be drawn.”

Lower court rulings involving off-campus electronic speech have beenmixed. One court ruled in favor of astudent who sued the school after beingexpelled for writing rap music at homeand publishing it online. Another courtruled in favor of the school districtafter an eighth-grader sent electronicmessages to friends from home de-picting violent statements about hisEnglish teacher.

“Interestingly, courts have seeming-ly provided greater speech protectionsto students for cyber speech than schoolteachers and employees,” said Gretchenm. Shipley, an education technologylawyer in San Diego, Calif. She citedtwo cases in which courts ruled thatschools had overstepped their author-ity by suspending students whose off-campus cyberbullying did not causesubstantial disruption at school. 37

Usually, the off-campus behaviormust have a strong connection to theschool setting before principals candiscipline. Education lawyers today gen-erally advise schools to take discipli-nary action for off-campus activity ifone of four criteria is met:

• There is a clear-cut and violentthreat;

• The school has solid proof thatspeech disrupts the school environment;

• A student brings printed versionsof the electronic communication tocampus;

• Cyber harassment has a significantimpact on staff.

forty-five states direct school dis-tricts to adopt bullying policies, and36 states prohibit cyberbullying as partof their education codes. Thirteen statesallow schools to take action if off-cam-

pus bullying creates a dangerous schoolenvironment. 38 A 2013 California lawallows suspension or expulsion forelectronic bullying, even if it originatesoutside of school.

Should schools increase the num-ber of armed security officers oncampus?

The number of law enforcement per-sonnel on school grounds has increaseddrastically in the last 15 years, in partbecause after the Columbine massacreCongress provided federal grants forschools to hire security guards. 39 Andwhenever there is a high-profile schoolshooting — such as the 2012 massacreat Sandy Hook Elementary School inNewtown, Conn., when 20 small chil-dren and six adults were shot to death— some in the public demand that moreschool personnel carry guns. 40

Security staff in schools typically areschool resource officers (SROs), uni-formed and armed security officers whoare sworn municipal law enforcementofficers or members of a school dis-trict’s own security force. SROs carryout the duties of regular officers andcan make arrests and respond to inci-dents. They also have additional dutiesas mentors and may conduct classeson crime and drug prevention.

Only 1 percent of schools reportedhaving police in 1975. By 2009-2010,40 percent of schools had law enforce-ment officers stationed in the building.In a 2011 survey of students, 70 percentreported police officers in their schools.Proponents of increasing the numberof armed security personnel said schoolsare safer now than ever before, and toreduce their presence would deny stu-dents and teachers a sense of safetyand order. Opponents say more armedguards do not necessarily improve safe-ty and can undermine the school en-vironment by creating a “police state”atmosphere. School staff should notbe armed, they say, preferring thatonly trained police officers carryweapons.

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE

More Security Officers in Schools

Nearly 70 percent of students ages 12 to 18 said security guards or police officers were present at their schools in 2011 — up 15 percentage points from 1999.

Source: Simone Robers, Jana Kemp, and Jennifer Truman, “Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2012,” National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, and Bureau of Justice Statistics, June 2013, Figure 21.1, http://tinyurl.com/pcvy3xq

Percentage of Students With Security Officers at School

54.1%69.8%

1999 2011


much of the push for more schoolsecurity staff has come from the feder-al government, which has spent morethan $811 million to hire school secu-rity officers since Columbine. A monthafter Sandy Hook, President Obamapledged to put an additional 1,000 trainedpolice officers in schools.

“Each school is different and shouldhave the flexibility to address its mostpressing needs,” white House guide-lines stated. “Some schools will wanttrained and armed police; others mayprefer increased counseling services.Either way, each district should be ableto choose what is best to protect itsown students.” 41

Obama’s initiative was not roundly ac-cepted. “Our No. 1 task, as a nation, isto protect our children. To achieve this,National PTA believes schools also mustbe completely gun-free. The administra-tion’s recommendation to expand theschool resource officer program there-fore comes as a disappointment,” saidNational PTA president Betsy Landers. 42

former U.S. Rep. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., chairman of the advisory boardfor National School Shield, a NationalRifle Association emergency-responseprogram, says, “In today’s environment,the best protection is an armed, trainedsecurity officer in every school. Historyhas shown this is the best protectionand the best response. It’s regrettablethat we have circumstances that call forthis, but in today’s society it is neces-sary.” (See “At Issue,” p. 425.)

After Sandy Hook, Obama appoint-ed vice President Joseph Biden to leada gun control task force, which sparkednational controversy when it consid-ered funding additional police in schoolsas part of a larger gun violence agen-da. 43 The American federal of Teach-ers (AfT), which met with Biden, rec-ommended adding police in schools ona case-by-case basis, not as stationedarmed guards but as “part of the fabricof the school community.” 44

maurice “mo” Canady, executive di-rector of the National Association of

School Resource Officers, an organiza-tion based in Alabama that trains SROs,says having trained security guards isnot about wearing a gun but workingwith students to prevent violence.

“There has to be some sense ofsafety and order and law enforce-ment,” Canady says. “But we’re notcalling for more police in schools. we’recalling for better trained police whoare properly selected and trained tobe involved in the education processand serve as informal counselors.”

Kenneth S. Trump, president of Na-tional School Safety and Security Services,a Cleveland-based consulting firm, saysSRO programs are often misunderstoodas “ ‘cuff-em and stuff’em’ programs.” Themajority of police officers in schools, hesays, “build positive working relationshipswith students, do more counseling thanarresting and perform much more pre-venting of problems than arresting kids.”

Gun-rights advocates, however,propose countering violence from out-side the schools by increasing the num-ber of guns inside schools. “Our firstpreference is to have trained, armedsecurity personnel,” Hutchinson says.“Teachers should teach, and othersshould protect. But it should be de-cided by local schools. If they don’thave the resources, school staff shouldbe trained and armed.”

Six national school employee orga-nizations, joined by more than 100 ed-ucation and mental health organizations,oppose arming school staff — otherthan trained SROs — and prefer insteadto provide behavioral, mental health andsocial services for students and familiesto make schools safer. 45

“Singular horrible events like thispast week make us all upset, but ifwe look at the data, it doesn’t makesense that that’s where we need tobeef up security in a very expensiveway,” Kenneth Dodge, director of theCenter for Child and family Policy atDuke University, said shortly after SandyHook. “Isn’t it more straightforward tojust get rid of the guns?” 46

In the spring of 2013, a few monthsafter Sandy Hook, 33 states proposedmore than 80 bills that sought to armteachers and staff. Seven were enacted,bringing to 18 the total number of statesallowing adults, in addition to securitypersonnel, to carry guns in school ifthey have permission from the school.

In Utah, school personnel have car-ried concealed weapons for about adecade, and in Texas four school dis-tricts allow some staff to carry con-cealed weapons. Tennessee passed alaw to allow school employees to carryguns in school. An Arizona sheriff placed500 armed, uniformed volunteers out-side the schools in his county. Thispast march, Georgia lawmakers passedone of the nation’s most sweeping pro-gun-rights laws, which allows schoolstaff to carry guns at school.

A national poll conducted by CNN amonth after Sandy Hook showed that54 percent of respondents favored puttingarmed guards in every school in thecountry, while 45 percent opposed it. 47

Yet a survey conducted at the same timeby the National Education Associationshowed almost 70 percent of teachersoppose allowing teachers and schoolstaff to carry guns in schools. 48

BACKGROUNDRise of Zero Tolerance

C oncerns about school safety anddisparities in how discipline is

meted out are not new for school ad-ministrators. As student activism grewduring the 1960s, many administratorsgrappled with maintaining order andauthority in schools while still respectingstudents’ rights.

Race riots and rising rates of crimeand violence in the 1960s and ’70salso prompted school districts to adoptcentralized discipline policies and use

418 CQ Researcher

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE

more security guards in the schools.Plagued by a tide of racial tension,drug use and murder, the Los Ange-les Unified School District as early asthe 1970s adopted discipline policiesthat resembled today’s zero-tolerancepolicies by suspending and expellingstudents for having weapons anddrugs. 49 Other school districts in NewYork and Kentucky followed suit, withmandatory expulsion for drugs, fight-ing and gang-related activity. 50

As early as the 1970s, the Children’sDefense fund, a child advocacy groupin washington, D.C., was expressingconcern about suspended studentsmissing class time and about the dis-proportionate rate of suspensionsamong black students, which was twoto three times higher than for whitestudents in 1970. 51

In the 1980s, the term “zero toler-ance” was first used by a U.S. Cus-toms Service anti-drug program, whichimpounded ships caught carrying ille-gal drugs. Under federal zero-tolerancepolicies adopted by some states, thenumber of people incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses increased from50,000 in 1980 to more than 400,000by 1997. 52

In 1986, Education Secretary williamJ. Bennett urged Congress to withholdfederal funds from schools that didnot adopt zero-tolerance expulsion forstudents using or selling drugs at school.Bennett’s effort failed, but in 1994 Con-gress enacted the Gun-free SchoolsAct, which required schools receivingfederal money to expel for at leastone year any student caught carryinga weapon on school grounds. Propo-nents of the law said the strict penal-ties would ensure safety and guaran-tee disciplinary equity because theuniform penalties meant that all stu-dents would be treated the same, re-gardless of background or circum-stances. 53

Over time, school districts beganextending the tough punishments topossession of any object that might

be deemed a weapon — such as nailclippers or a butter knife packed in aschool lunch. Eventually, some ad-ministrators began suspending studentsfor less serious types of misconduct,such as smoking, skipping class or ig-noring dress codes.

According to critics of zero toler-ance, administrators during the 2000sbegan relying on stiff disciplinary poli-cies to winnow out poorly perform-ing students because schools facedsanctions if students failed high-stakesachievement tests mandated by thesweeping No Child Left Behind schoolreform measure passed in 2001. Stu-dents who were disruptive in classcould jeopardize classroom learningand drag down test scores. 54

Other laws also have played a rolein dictating disciplinary procedures.The Individuals with Disabilities Edu-cation Act (IDEA) of 1975 guaranteeda public school education to all dis-abled youth, but made it difficult tosuspend or expel students if they mis-behaved due to their disability, unlessthey committed a crime or were dan-gerous to themselves or others.

On the legal front, the number ofschool discipline cases to reach thestate and federal courts expanded great-ly between the 1960s and the ’90s. In1969, in the first major school disci-pline case to reach the U.S. SupremeCourt, Des moines, Iowa, students’ first-Amendment rights were upheld afterthey were suspended for wearingblack armbands to protest the viet-nam war. 55 In 1975, the court ruledthat public schools must hold hear-ings before suspending students, be-cause the suspension could potential-ly affect their future education andemployment. 56

After that, court rulings in studentdiscipline cases generally were morefavorable toward the schools as thecourt’s composition and leaningschanged. 57 Some researchers havesaid the proliferation of student law-suits led to more states and school

districts adopting uniform and inflex-ible discipline policies. 58 That’s be-cause students often alleged in theirlawsuits that school principals applieddiscipline unequally based on race orother factors. 59

Shootings and Bullying

T he rise in school shootings sincethe early 1990s has left the nation

grappling with how such crimes canoccur and questioning the social caus-es of violence, the prevalence of gunpossession and the role of bullying.

“Incidents like the shooting at[Columbine] changed the way we un-derstood school safety and increased theresponsibility to both protect and con-nect with all students,” said Richard L.Curwin, a school discipline expert anda classroom management consultant. 60

Although there was never conclu-sive evidence that the Columbine per-petrators had been victims of bully-ing, initial speculation about possiblebullying raised the public’s awarenessabout the problem.

The advent of the Internet, the ex-pansion of social-networking sites andthe ubiquity of cell phones hasopened the way for cyberbullying, orwhat criminal justice professorsSameer Hinduja of florida AtlanticUniversity and Justin w. Patchin at theUniversity of wisconsin-Eau Claire havecalled “willful and repeated harm in-flicted through the use of computers,cell phones and other electronic de-vices.” 61 what previously had beentaunts on the playground became elec-tronic harassment that could be dis-tributed to hundreds or thousands ofpeople online.

Critics say some anti-cyberbullyinglaws violate free-speech rights, but thelower courts have issued inconsistentdecisions. The U.S. Supreme Court hasnot yet considered the issue. In 2010,the Education Department issued new,

Continued on p. 420


Chronology1960s Vietnam Warprotests spark concern overstudent conduct; juveniles gaindue-process rights.

1967Supreme Court rules that juvenilesaccused of misconduct deservemany rights given to adult defen-dants. . . . Students for a Democ-ratic Society, a leftist organizationstarted on college campuses, circu-lates information on how to “takeover” a high school.

1969Supreme Court rules that suspend-ing students for wearing armbandsto protest the vietnam war violatestheir first Amendment rights.

•

1970s Protectionsbroadened for students; schoolspour resources into security asschool crime rises.

1975Congress passes Education for AllHandicapped Children Act, requir-ing equal access to education forchildren with disabilities. . . .Supreme Court rules that suspend-ed students are entitled to a hear-ing. . . . Children’s Defense fundreports disproportionate rates ofsuspensions for black students.

•

1980s Federal push forzero-tolerance policies for illegaldrug use and other crimes fil-ters down to schools.

1986Education Secretary william J.Bennett unsuccessfully urges Con-

gress to withhold money fromschools rejecting zero-toleranceexpulsion for students using orselling drugs at school.

1989School districts in California, New York and Kentucky adoptzero-tolerance policies for drugsand gang activity.

•

1990s Gun violence inschools spurs tough, new laws.

1994California and a dozen other statespass “three-strikes-and-you’re-out”laws. . . . federal crime bill in-cludes mandatory drug sentences;Gun free Schools Act requires ex-pulsion for at least a year of anystudent caught with a firearm.

1998more than 30 students and teach-ers nationally are killed in a sud-den spate of school shootings.

1999Two armed students at ColumbineHigh School in Colorado kill 12students and a teacher and wound23 before committing suicide.Schools nationwide tighten securityand discipline codes.

•

2000-PresentMore student violence occurs;schools increase number ofarmed guards on campuses. . . .Courts and the federal govern-ment continue involvement instudent-conduct issues.

2002President George w. Bush signs

No Child Left Behind Act mandat-ing that states identify “persistentlydangerous” schools.

2006Gunman kills five girls and thenhimself at a one-room Amishschoolhouse in Pennsylvania.

2007In the deadliest shooting rampagein U.S. history, Seung-Hui Cho, astudent at virginia Tech University,kills 32 students and teachers, thencommits suicide. . . . SupremeCourt rules in Morse v. Frederickthat school officials can punish stu-dent speech that can be interpretedas advocating illegal drug use.

2008families of virginia Tech victimscall for tighter gun control, butvirginia lawmakers defeat a bid toclose a loophole on gun-showsales. . . . Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., introduces legislation to re-quire schools to include anti-bullyingpolicies in their conduct codes.

2012A gunman opens fire at Sandy HookElementary School in Newtown,Conn., killing 26 people, including20 children, before turning thegun on himself.

2013A string of student suicides sparkedby chronic bullying prompts all butone state to adopt laws protectingstudents from bullying; some includeoff-campus and online bullying.

2014U.S. Departments of Education andJustice release new data on dis-parate rates of suspensions andexpulsions, issue new guidelinesfor reducing racially disparate dis-cipline and call for more extensivedata collection.

420 CQ Researcher

comprehensive guidance on bullyingand gave a stern warning that schoolscould lose federal education money un-less they comply with civil rights lawsprotecting all students, including lesbian,gay, bisexual and transgender students.

In 2011, 28 percent of secondarystudents reported being bullied. Effortsto address the bullying problem werefueled in 2012 and 2013 by a stringof highly visible suicides by U.S. stu-dents who had suffered chronic bul-lying. By 2013, all states except mon-tana had passed laws requiring schoolprograms to protect students from bul-lying by establishing discipline proce-dures or requiring closer monitoringand reporting of bullying.

School Resource Officers

T he first law enforcement officerprogram in a school began in 1953

in flint, mich. It was created to fosterbetter relationships between studentsand law enforcement. 62 A similar pro-gram was instituted in fresno, Calif.,in 1968 with plainclothes officers.

In the 1980s, rising juvenile crimerates spurred a greater police presencein schools. The homicide rate in schoolsfor adolescents doubled between 1984and 1994, and the rate of nonfatal vio-lent incidents rose nearly 20 percent. 63

Programs putting police officers in schoolsalso expanded quickly after the SafeSchools Act of 1994 encouraged schools

and law enforcement to work togetherto reduce school crime.

Police presence in schools increasedsubstantially after Columbine, mainly be-cause of an influx of federal money.States also funded school security, andsome schools hired the officers as schoolstaff. 64 Schools also added security fea-tures such as cameras, metal detectors,staff identification badges and con-trolled access to buildings and grounds.

Statistics show that schools are safertoday than they were in the early 1990s,and the percentage of students whosaid they were afraid of attack or harmat school decreased from 12 percentto 4 percent between 1995 and 2011.Yet teachers and students can attestthat schools can be dangerous places.

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE

when a group of Baltimore middle school boys beatup students from another school and stole their cellphones, the schools didn’t suspend the boys or send

them to juvenile court. Instead, the boys met in the school li-brary with the principal and the parents of the victims to talkabout their actions and their punishment. The parents decidednot to press criminal charges, and the boys stayed after schoolto participate in character development classes. 1

This strategy is part of a larger plan in 196 Baltimore schoolsto improve student conduct and reduce out-of-school suspen-sions as a first response to misbehavior. So far, the approachhas had positive results. The middle school boys said they arelearning to communicate rather than fight and not jump inwhen others are fighting. And suspensions are down in Balti-more city schools to fewer than 9,000 from a 2004 high of26,000. Students once sent packing for acting up are now coun-seled and redirected in more productive ways, unless their mis-deeds threaten school safety.

“The mindset does have to change from punishment to re-inclusion and restoration,” Karen webber-Ndour, executive di-rector of student support and safety for the district, says of theplan. “Discipline cannot be seen as separate from the entireeducational process.”

But the shift away from harsh punishment is controversial.Concerns linger over school safety and the effects the policiesmay have on teachers, staff members and well-behaved stu-dents who are trying to learn. U.S. Education Secretary ArneDuncan has praised the Baltimore strategy as a model for otherschools, but he acknowledges the difficulties of working with

problem students rather than kicking them out of school. 2

And critics question whether the Baltimore model can ad-equately stem violence in schools and provide a safe environ-ment for teachers and other students.

A decade ago problems were at epidemic proportions in Bal-timore city schools, where the student body is roughly 85 per-cent African-American. Almost one-third of students were sus-pended each year, two-thirds of them male, and the highschool graduation rate was about 50 percent, one of the worstin the nation. 3

Out of that situation was born what webber-Ndour calls a“crusade.” with funding from school officials, local philan-thropies, nonprofit organizations and the state and federal gov-ernments, the school board adopted a new discipline systemin 2007 that uses zero-tolerance suspensions and expulsionsonly as last resorts.

when students are disrespectful to a teacher or late to class,they are sent to the principal’s office, where discipline is de-termined on a case-by-case basis. Staff members are trained ina national model called “restorative justice” and “positive be-havior intervention and support” to work with parents and stu-dents on behavior expectations and consequences. mentalhealth counselors work in every middle school.

meanwhile, under a “Climate walk” program, lay observerswalk the halls and provide principals with information aimed athalting behavior problems before they happen. The school dis-trict gives principals weekly graphs and charts showing whenand where suspensions occur in their schools to help them pre-vent future problems. A “success academy” provides an alterna-

Baltimore Seeks to Reduce Suspensions“With trusting relationships, you have safer schools.”

Continued from p. 418


federal crime records indicate that sec-ondary school students were victimsof theft and violent crime more oftenin school than out of school. 65

The National Association of SchoolResource Officers’ Canady partly at-tributes the overall decline in schoolviolence to the greater presence ofschool resource officers. “The increasedsafety indicators coincide with the spanof time of school resource officers’ phe-nomenal growth,” he says. One gov-ernment study showed that studentsfelt safer and more comfortable re-porting crimes when they had a pos-itive opinion of school resource offi-cers, but that the relationships of officerswith students varied depending on theofficers’ training and preparation. 66

The increased police presence inschools coincided with adoption ofmore stringent discipline codes, whichoften mandated that serious offensesbe reported immediately to the police.As a result, some students are arrest-ed and taken directly from school tojuvenile detention or issued a citationor ticket to appear before a judge.

However, Canady says, if a schoolhas properly trained school resource of-ficers who help school administratorseducate and informally counsel students,it does not result in more arrests. Theschool-to-prison pipeline has been “politi-cized as a national phenomenon,”Canady says. But, he asks, “How canall indicators of school-based crimecontinue to fall and juvenile arrest rates

fall 17 percent since 2000 if the pres-ence of school resource officers oncampus has opened up a pipeline tothe juvenile-justice system?”

However, some studies have found noevidence that police officers contribute toschool safety and have found instead that,as police presence increases, more crimesinvolving weapons and drugs are record-ed and the likelihood of students beingarrested at school increase. The presenceof police officers helps to define disci-pline as a criminal justice problem ratherthan a social, psychological or academicproblem, says Aaron Kupchik, an asso-ciate professor of sociology and criminaljustice at the University of Delaware. 67

After the Sandy Hook shootings,school districts, including the Newtown

tive means of education for students with long-term suspensionsand expulsions.

webber-Ndour says the approach reflects the realities of urbaneducation. “In the 21st century, especially in urban settings, wemust come to grips with the fact that without behavioral mod-ifications and actually teaching and training students how to be-have appropriately, we’re not going to get the student achieve-ment that we’re looking for,” she says. “They go hand in glove.”

But critics say students inclined to push boundaries are adeptat exploiting the new system. “They’re not stupid; they knowexactly what’s going on,” said Thompson Guerrier, a Baltimoreelementary school teacher’s aide who was injured when a stu-dent threw a desk and chair at him. “You tell them you’regoing to call the principal, and they laugh at you.” 4

Nevertheless, the Baltimore approach has become a model formaryland education leaders, who this year approved sweepingchanges in the state’s discipline policies. The state had turned itsattention to zero-tolerance policies three years earlier, when a 15-year-old football player committed suicide after a lengthy sus-pension from a nearby virginia school, and two maryland lacrosseplayers were suspended for carrying banned items in their gearbags they said they had brought to repair their equipment. 5

The new regulations still allow principals to suspend stu-dents, but they encourage educators not to use zero-tolerancepolicies but to evaluate incidents on an individual basis. Thenew standards also create shorter response times for suspen-sion appeals and call for more educational services for sus-pended students. Every maryland school district has until 2015to revise its policies. 6

The maryland State Education Association, the state’s largestteachers union, was critical of the changes, saying local schoolsystems need flexibility and authority to decide discipline stan-dards and additional state money to train school staff for han-dling classroom situations and provide student-behavior pro-grams. Otherwise, the union said, school systems will bear thecosts of providing such programs, and disruptive students willbe returned to the classroom.

“while the ideal place for students is in their classrooms, ifdisciplinary action is necessary, then educators need both the au-tonomy to be able to make decisions that help create a safe andproductive learning environment for all students, as well as re-sources to establish and sustain alternative educational programsand opportunities,” says Adam mendelson, a union spokesman.

But webber-Ndour stands by the Baltimore approach. “Youcan never do enough to make a school safer,” she says. “Butif you set up an environment with trusting relationships, youhave safer schools.”

— Anne Farris Rosen

1 Laurel Bowman, “Restorative Practices at City Springs Elementary Schools,”voice of America, http://tinyurl.com/krvnwys.2 Arne Duncan, “Rethinking School Discipline,” Department of Education,Jan. 8, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/myt935t.3 Andres A. Alonzo, “State of Our High Schools 2010-2011,” Baltimore CityPublic Schools, http://tinyurl.com/pnk6ldm.4 Erica L. Green, Scott Calvert and Luke Broadwater, “Painful Lessons,” TheBaltimore Sun, feb. 16, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/obf7oo3.5 Donna St. George, “maryland approves new school discipline regulations,”The Washington Post, Jan. 28, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/nha8hmb.6 Ibid.

422 CQ Researcher

Board of Education, hired more armedguards and installed more security de-vices. In 2013, 29 states introducedmore than 90 bills related to schoollaw enforcement officers, and at least17 of those were enacted. 68

Overall, efforts to pass gun control leg-islation were unsuccessful after Sandy Hook,while efforts to loosen gun laws suc-ceeded. Every state now allows people tocarry guns in some public places, and atleast three states passed laws allowingteachers to carry handguns on campus.meanwhile, no major national gun con-trol law has been passed since 1994. 69

CURRENTSITUATIONFederal Efforts

I ncreased record keeping, researchand media coverage of discipline

policies is galvanizing a movementthat seeks to replace zero-tolerancepolicies with alternative measures —at least for minor violations.

In January Secretary of EducationArne Duncan and Attorney GeneralHolder, focusing on racial disparities inhow zero tolerance has been adminis-tered, released the government’s firstlegal guidelines to help schools ad-minister school discipline under Title Ivand Title vI of the Civil Rights Act of1964, which prohibit discrimination byrace, color or national origin. 70

“Education is the civil rights of ourgeneration,” Duncan said. “The undeni-able truth is that the everyday educationexperience for too many students ofcolor violates the principle of equity at

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE

J ulie Landry’s 8-year-old son suffers from autism. One dayin gym class, teachers and administrators said, he ran aroundscreaming and throwing volleyballs. He flailed his arms and resisted when administrators tried to restrain him. Accord-

ing to the fairfax County, va., school system, he punched, kicked,bit and head-butted three people. for that and other incidents,

the boy was suspended for 11 days and faced expulsion hear-ings twice within six weeks — all during a single school year. 1

Although students with disabilities represent only about 12percent of the K-12 student population, they account for 25 per-cent of students arrested and referred to law enforcement. In anera when zero-tolerance school discipline policies can result insuspension for a range of offenses, students with disabilities aremore than twice as likely as students without disabilities to re-ceive an out-of-school suspension, according to 2011-12 data fromthe Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education. 2

Long before zero-tolerance policies, students with disabilities weretreated differently from their peers, and often were denied school-ing. “There were educators that just didn’t want students with dis-abilities in their classroom,” says Daniel Losen, director of the Cen-ter for Civil Rights Remedies at UCLA, a research center for civilrights and equal opportunity for minority groups in the United States.“They would say ‘we think you’ll be a disruption.’ ”

Since 1975, federal law has required that public schools pro-vide special education services to students with disabilities, in-cluding protection from frequent suspension. 3 Zero-toleranceschool discipline policies, widely implemented in the 1990s, orig-inally required suspension and expulsion for incidents involvingweapons, drugs or violence. But over time zero-tolerance poli-cies have evolved to require the same strict punishments for awide variety of misconduct, including minor infringements, suchas violating the dress code. Thus, today suspensions are oftengiven for offenses such as truancy or disobedience. 4

“There’s no question that students with disabilities are dis-proportionately punished” under zero tolerance, says Losen.

Students with a disability that affects their behavior usuallyreceive behavior assessments and behavioral improvementplans, according to Losen, for instance, he says, before a stu-dent can be suspended for more than 10 days, school officials

Students with Disabilities face more Punishment“Some educators just didn’t want students with disabilities in their classroom.”

* Identified under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Source: “Civil Rights Data Collection, Data Snapshot: School Discipline,” U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, March 21, 2014, p. 7, http://tinyurl.com/kls2ajo

Students With Disabilities Are Disproportionately Arrested

Students with disabilities make up one-eighth of school enrollment but account for one-quarter of school-related arrests.

Percentage of Enrollment and School-Related Arrests, by Disability Status,* 2011-12

0

20

40

60

80

100%

Students without disabilitiesStudents with disabilities

Enrollment

School-related arrests

12%25%

88%75%


the heart of the American promise.” 71

Judith Browne Dianis, codirector ofthe Advancement Project, a civil rightsorganization working to reduce relianceon zero-tolerance policies, called the gov-ernment’s actions historic. “Disparities inschool discipline have been document-ed since the 1970s, and we’ve never beenable to get the federal government tostep in and help stop it,” she said. 72

The guidelines are part of a multi-agency initiative to reform school dis-cipline begun by the Obama admin-istration in 2011. As part of that initiative,the Education and Justice departments

have overseen development of con-sensus recommendations, convenedworking sessions with researchers andeducators and required some schooldistricts to account for high rates ofsuspensions among minority and dis-abled students. 73 The initiative alsohas been sponsoring awareness we-binars and helped to develop curric-ula to train education and judicial of-ficials in how to deal with schoolincidents that end up in court.

“So many of these young peopleneed a helping hand, need assistance,but also need clear boundaries and

clear guidelines,” Duncan said in an-nouncing the initiative in 2011. “whatthey don’t need is to be pushed outthe door or to start a criminal record.we need to be a lot more thoughtfulin how we address this.” 74

But some question the wisdom ofthe federal actions. “This is funda-mentally a civil rights enforcementstep of the kind that is ultimately goingto weaken discipline in our schools ata very time when things like New-town ought to have us seeking betterorder in our schools, rather than dis-couraging school systems from en-

are required to hold a hearing to determine whether the be-havior in question had to do with the student’s disability orwith the school not providing adequate support. for example,if a disabled student with emotional disturbances is supposedto see a counselor every wednesday and the student “flips out”after the counselor misses an appointment, that could be con-sidered a failure of the school system, he says.

“So the question should be asked, ‘was the failure to pro-vide counseling contributing to the behavior?’ says Losen. “Rarelyare those questions addressed.”

Research shows disparities between the type of disability astudent has and the likelihood that a student will be suspendedor expelled. A 2011 Texas study examining how school disci-pline relates to student success and juvenile detention found thatnearly 75 percent of special education students were expelled atleast once between the 7th and 12th grades. And the punish-ment varied significantly depending on the type of educationaldisability, according to the study, conducted by the Council ofState Governments Justice Center, a national nonprofit organiza-tion focusing on public safety, and the Public Policy ResearchInstitute (PPRI) at Texas A&m University. 5 for instance, studentswith learning disabilities and emotional disturbances were disci-plined more often than those with other types of disabilities, in-cluding autism, physical disability or developmental delay.

Two major teachers’ unions — the American federation ofTeachers (AfT) and the National Education Association (NEA) —are shifting away from their support of zero-tolerance policies.“It’s about creating schools where our students are able to reachtheir full potential,” said Harry Lawson, associate director of theNEA’s Human and Civil Rights Department. 6

In virginia, Landry’s son avoided expulsion because a panelof school officials and special-education experts concluded thathis actions were caused by his disability. 7

“These are children who we shouldn’t expect to be capableof understanding [student rights] or being compliant like their non-disabled peers,” said Elizabeth Schultz, a member of the fairfax Coun-ty School Board. “To hold them to the same standard is absurd.” 8

However, according to data from the fairfax school system,officials ruled that a student’s actions were caused by his disabil-ity in fewer than 20 percent of all cases involving students withdisabilities who faced expulsion during the 2011-12 school year.

As for Landry’s son, fairfax administrators ruled that the pub-lic schools could not meet the boy’s needs, so his family receivedstate grants to cover his tuition at a private school. Landry saidshe hopes the new school will better help her son learn. 9

— Kaya Yurieff

1 T. Rees Shapiro, “for students with disabilities, discipline issues take toll,”The Washington Post, July 16, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/phsj5c6.2 “Civil Rights Data Collection: Data Snapshot (School Discipline),” Office forCivil Rights, U.S. Department of Education, march 21 2014, http://tinyurl.com/kls2ajo.3 “what is IDEA?” National Center for Learning Disabilities, http://tinyurl.com/lmxhde5. for background see the following CQ Researcher reports:Kenneth Jost, “Learning Disabilities,” Dec. 10, 1993, pp. 1081-1104; and Kathy Koch“Special Education,” Nov. 10, 2000, pp. 905-928.4 “Zero Tolerance and Alternative Strategies: A fact Sheet for Educators andPolicymakers,” National Association of School Psychologists, http://tinyurl.com/cf588nv. for background see the following CQ Researcher reports:Thomas J. Billitteri, “Discipline in Schools,” feb. 15, 2008, pp. 145-168; andKathy Koch, “Zero Tolerance,” march 10, 2000, pp. 185-208.5 Tony fabelo, et al., “Breaking Schools’ Rules: A Statewide Study of HowSchool Discipline Relates to Students’ Success and Juvenile Justice Involve-ment,” Council of State Governments Justice Center and The Public PolicyResearch Institute, Texas A&m University, July 2011, http://tinyurl.com/omqf2nc.6 Roger Glass and virginia myers, “Communication, relationships are keysto better discipline,” American federation of Teachers, march 25, 2014,http://tinyurl.com/kdh76dg.7 Shapiro, op. cit.8 Ibid.9 Ibid.

424 CQ Researcher

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE

forcing discipline,” said Chester finn,president of the fordham Institute. 75

The federal government’s new datacollection now includes surveys of allof the nation’s schools rather than justa sample of schools, plus information— for the first time — about the racialmakeup of students referred to law en-forcement and the suspension rates ofpreschool students. 76 Also this year,Obama endorsed a public-private ini-tiative to help young men and boys of

color reach their full potential, whichbuilds on the federal guidance to endracial disparities in school discipline. 77

However, the administration hasnot received full funding for its effortsto reform school discipline. The ad-ministration asked for $50 million ingrants to help train teachers in strate-gies to reduce behavior problems andbullying, but Congress appropriatedonly $30 million in fiscal year 2014, ac-cording to the Education Department.

Congress also has failed to pass anyof the pending bills that would revise

zero-tolerance policies, despite hold-ing two hearings on the subject. In2012, a Senate subcommittee hearingentitled “Ending the School-to-PrisonPipeline” drew an overflow crowd ofresearchers, educators and experts whosubmitted 700 pages of findings andopinions about school discipline poli-cies. It was the first congressional hear-ing on zero tolerance.

Several small bills have been in-troduced but have not moved for-

ward. One would establish an Officefor School and Discipline Policy, whileanother would prohibit any federalmoney going to schools that disci-pline a student for using pictures,clothing, food, body gestures or toysto resemble a weapon.

A massive bill to replace No ChildLeft Behind is pending in the Senate,which includes provisions for alterna-tive discipline techniques, grievanceprocedures for disciplined students andthe elimination of zero tolerance ex-cept for serious violent offenses.

“for the first time, the bill reau-thorizing our nation’s federal educa-tion policy will include provisions toaddress a growing crisis dubbed the‘school-to-prison pipeline,’ ” said Sen.Chris murphy, D-Conn. “The bill alsoincludes, for the first time, importantsupport for positive, prevention-basedapproaches to school discipline.” 78

But experts say the measure haslittle chance of passage without bi-partisan support. Some education groupsoppose the Senate version of the leg-islation because they said it expandsthe federal role over local jurisdictionsand creates an overwhelming burdenfor schools to collect data on nonaca-demic information. Sen. Richard Burr,R-N.C., called the legislation “No ChildLeft Behind on steroids.” 79

The Courts

S ome school districts are voluntar-ily revamping their discipline poli-

cies, while the Justice Department hassued others referred to them by theEducation Department’s Office forCivil Rights, which has 152 ongoingdiscipline investigations in 37 states.Since 2000, the office has respondedto more than 7,622 complaints involvingdiscipline at elementary and sec-ondary schools, says Dorie Turner Nolt,the department’s press secretary.

In one case, the Oakland, Calif.,school district worked with the Officefor Civil Rights on a five-year volun-tary plan to reduce suspensions, ex-pulsions and disciplinary racial dis-parity with a variety of interventionand support programs. In meridian,miss., the Justice Department has suedofficials for allegedly arresting studentsas young as 10 for rudeness and tar-diness and holding them for days with-out a probable cause hearing. Officialsnamed in the suit denied the allega-tions, and a trial is scheduled for De-cember. In a separate action, the

Continued on p. 426

Police stand guard in the parking lot of Arapahoe High School, in Centennial,Colo., on Dec. 13, 2013, as students are bused to a nearby church after astudent carried a shotgun into the school and wounded two fellow studentsbefore killing himself. Although the juvenile crime rate has dropped since

peaking in 1994, and there is less violence in schools today than 20 years ago,get-tough policies coupled with added school security staffing has meant that

more students face court appearances and suspensions.

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At Issue:Should schools increase the number of law enforcement officers?yes

yesASA HUTCHINSONCHAIRMAN, NATIONAL SCHOOL SHIELDADVISORY BOARD

WRITTEN FOR CQ RESEARCHER, MAY 2014

t he safety and security of children are fundamental to aquality education. with this principle as a foundation, it isnecessary for our local schools to enhance their security

because we live in a dangerous world. This increased securityemphasis requires our school districts to increase the number ofarmed security officers.

After the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in2012, I led a national task force funded by the National RifleAssociation to examine the gaps in school security and tomake recommendations. for three months I worked with se-curity experts ranging from former Secret Service agents tonationally recognized school security experts. Our conclusionsare contained in a 225-page report that recommends suchsolutions as increased training of armed school personnel andpilot programs to address the challenge of mental illness andbullying.

much has been made of our finding that schools shouldemploy trained and qualified armed security. This approachserves as a deterrent and as the fastest possible response —and many Americans agree. In fact, one-third of our nation’sschools already employ some type of armed security. And asurvey of more than 10,000 teachers and administrators foundthat 90 percent think an armed police officer in school wouldimprove safety.

History makes it clear that a shooter does not stop untilconfronted by someone who is armed, usually a law enforce-ment officer. The shooting ends when an assailant takes hisown life or surrenders. So, the response time is critical. Younglives are lost when the police must come to the school. It isessential that the school have an armed response capability oncampus to minimize the time it takes to respond and disarmthe assailant.

In 1997 an armed intruder killed two students and wound-ed seven others at Pearl High School in Pearl, miss., beforethe school’s assistant principal, Joel myrick, disarmed himusing a .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol he retrieved from histruck. This scenario has been repeated too often in recentyears, with the attacker surrendering or taking his life afterbeing confronted by someone who is armed.

Certainly, there is more to security than a police officer.Our report includes best practices on surveillance cameras,identification badges and many other specific challenges facedby our schools. Schools are taking action, and many chooseto have an armed police officer in the school.no

AMANDA PETTERUTIAUTHOR, EDUCATION UNDERARREST, JUSTICE POLICYINSTITUTEJASON ZIEDENBERGRESEARCH AND POLICY DIREC-TOR, JUSTICE POLICY INSTITUTE

WRITTEN FOR CQ RESEARCHER, MAY 2014

w e all want safe schools and to give teachers andprincipals the tools to create a safe learning envi-ronment. while some schools require additional re-

sources to keep them safe, we believe most schools and com-munities would be better off by reducing the number of schoolresource officers (SROs) and focusing instead on better policiesto improve outcomes for all students.

In a Justice Policy Institute report, “Education Under Arrest:The Case Against Police in Schools,” we found that whenschools have law enforcement on site, students are more like-ly to be arrested rather than disciplined by school officials.This leads to more kids being funneled into the juvenile jus-tice system, which is expensive and creates a host of negativeeffects on youth. Data showed that school resource officers(SROs) needlessly drive up arrests for behavior that can, andshould, be dealt with at school. Data from Birmingham, Ala.,for instance, found that 96 percent of student juvenile courtreferrals were for misdemeanors or minor violations. A studyof schools with and without SROs found that those with anSRO had nearly five times the rate of arrests for disorderlyconduct as schools without an SRO.

By overly relying on arrest and suspension, SROs contributeto young people starting down a path that will hurt their fu-tures: High school students who come in contact with thecourts are more likely to drop out. Police in schools also cancreate an environment that makes learning difficult, and some-times SROs have caused the violence they are supposed to pre-vent. Additionally, SROs and harsh, zero-tolerance policies aremore likely to affect youth of color and youth with disabilities.

There are other ways to improve school safety that do notoverly rely on SROs. Schools are using peer-to-peer mediationand training staff so that teachers can help young people im-prove behavior. These result in better outcomes without un-necessary involvement in the juvenile justice system.

Research shows that police in schools are not the way tocreate an environment that is safe and conducive to learning.Instead, we should use evidence-based programs that createschools with high levels of structure and support by caringadults dedicated to helping meet the needs of all students.This way, we can keep kids out of the courtroom and in theclassroom.

426 CQ Researcher

meridian School District agreed to enactnew disciplinary policies.

The government’s legal remedies arecontroversial. “These ‘targeted reduc-tions’ are racial quotas in all but name,”said Bader, of the Competitive Enter-prise Institute. 80 “Stopping school of-ficials from disciplining black studentswho violate school rules just becausethey previously disciplined more blackthan white students is as crazy as or-dering police to stop arresting blackcriminals just because they previouslyarrested more blacks than whites.”

Bader said the Oakland agreementviolates the California constitution andfederal court rulings that forbid racialquotas for school discipline. “The onlypractical way for a school system tocomply with the Education Department’sdemands is to adopt a de facto racialquota in discipline. But this itself putsthe school system in legal jeopardy.” 81

Education Department officials saidthey are not trying to make disciplinerates proportional by race, but to haveschools evaluate whether their systemsare equitable. 82

“for years, we couldn’t rely on thefederal government to enforce civilrights law, so now we have an Officefor Civil Rights that is finally takingup the torch,” said the AdvancementProject’s Dianis. 83

Reducing Suspensions

A variety of local jurisdictions areinstituting new programs and laws

to reduce the number of out-of-schoolsuspensions and court appearances.

four states recently passed legisla-tion related to alternative education forsuspended or expelled students. Ofthose, California is giving administratorsmore discretion to offer alternatives, andIndiana is calling for more research onthe subject. virginia is encouraging theestablishment of regional educationcenters for suspended and expelled stu-

dents, and washington law says edu-cators shall not be prevented from pro-viding alternative education.

In Texas, officials are trying to keepminor misconduct cases from reachingthe courts. The Texas legislature passedlaws to prohibit school law enforcementfrom ticketing or fining elementary stu-dents and recommended that schoolsissue warnings or appoint counselorsrather than issue harsh sanctions.

However, states like massachusetts,which has a new law going into ef-fect in July that requires schools toprovide education to students even ifthey have been expelled or suspend-ed, are grappling with how to pay forthe services. 84 Other states providefor alternative education “when fundsare available.” 85

California continues to allow suspen-sions for serious violations but requiresschools to try alternative measures fornonviolent infractions. Los Angeles in2013 became the nation’s first school dis-trict to ban suspensions for student de-fiance, and school districts in Sacra-mento, vallejo, Oakland and San franciscoare adopting new measures to reducesuspensions for minor violations.

In Broward County, fla., where morestudents were arrested on campus thanin any other district in the state, the coun-ty last November began requiring dis-ruptive students to make reparations andreceive counseling and anger-managementcourses. Arrests dropped 41 percent andsuspensions fell 66 percent, but observerssaid it’s probably too early to determineoverall success. 86

A variety of nonprofit organizationsare working with local officials to revisediscipline policies. Public Counsel, anonprofit organization in California thatprovides pro bono legal services, hasbeen helping the Los Angeles and Sanfrancisco school districts revise policiesand provides free technical support toschool districts changing their policies.

Additionally, 10 school districts na-tionally are participating in a public-private initiative to examine discipline

alternatives. Brown University’s An-nenberg Institute for School Reform inProvidence, R.I., received a two-year$1 million grant from The Atlantic Phil-anthropies, an international foundation,to help schools in Chicago, Los An-geles, New York and Nashville addressdiscipline policies. more than a dozenmore cities are also revising their dis-cipline codes.

OUTLOOKStriking a Balance

A s schools eliminate or reduce dis-parate zero-tolerance policies

and incorporate a combination of dis-cipline methods, the debate is expectedto continue over how best to strikethe right balance in school discipline.

“we are in the middle of the mostrecent wave of education law reform.. . . we’ve been through several wavessince Columbine. It’s going to end upas all previous waves of reform have,which is [with] a variety of differentapproaches to keep children safe andto educate them,” said Bernard James,a professor of civil rights and educa-tion law at Pepperdine University Schoolof Law in Los Angeles. “The goal isto let each school do what they needto do to meet kids’ needs.” 87

Some educators say that withoutlarger political, social and economicchanges reforms will have a limitedimpact at low-performing schools strug-gling with racial and class-basedachievement gaps. 88 Losen at UCLA’s-Center for Civil Rights Remedies saysthe future of education and disciplinepolicies lies in adequate resources.

“Changing the discipline policy is not. . . the be-all and end-all of educationreform, just part of it. we need [both]more resources and diversity aware-ness,” he says. “we’re making impor-

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE

Continued from p. 424


tant progress but there’s a lot more todo, and it’s more than school discipline.In changing school discipline, leadersare thinking about how can we engagekids, and that has an effect on betterlearning and higher graduation rates.”

The Cato Institute’s Coulson says struc-tural changes also are needed. “Unlessthe incentive structure changes futurepublic school polices will look like [theydo] today,” he says. “There will be noreal improvement except where parentscan have a choice.” Incentives includehigher salaries for principals who incor-porate more holistic alternatives, he says,and allowing education leaders to ex-pand their changes to more campuses.

“Zero-tolerance policies were the prod-uct of political and social processes, andthese same processes can be used todismantle them,” said Judith Kafka, anassociate professor of educational poli-cy and history of education at BaruchCollege’s School of Public Affairs. mov-ing away from zero tolerance will re-quire building relationships in the schoolcommunities, she said. “without thoserelationships, we are likely to developnew policies that will differ from cur-rent practices in name only.” 89

New and expanded data will pro-vide insights on how the new disci-pline policies are applied, said wadeHenderson, president of the Leader-ship Conference on Civil and HumanRights, a civil rights organization inwashington, D.C. “The new data pro-vides a wonderful start in what I hopewill be building a new movement inthis anniversary of great civil rights ac-complishments,” Henderson said. 90

The Council of State Governments’Thompson agrees. “The changes we’realready starting to see are due, in largepart, to the evidence we’ve been ableto gather and assess regarding the ef-fectiveness of suspension and expul-sion policies,” he says. “You can’t fix aproblem that you don’t fully under-stand. School districts need to devotethemselves to collecting more data re-lated to students’ attendance, their per-

formance in class and their overall per-ception of a school’s environment.”

woodland Hills School District nearPittsburgh, Pa., is one of 10 nationalpilot programs to use alternative dis-cipline methods to reduce zero toler-ance. 91 Superintendent Alan Johnsonsays new research and discipline al-ternatives are part of the future.

“we’re going to pursue a project toreally reinvent, and re-imagine andrewrite our code of conduct to incor-porate some of these strategies,” saidJohnson. “These new practices andnew learnings have only come up justin the past 10 to 15 years, and we’reready to rethink how we approach theidea of discipline.” 92

Notes

1 Nona willis Aronowitz, “School Spirit or GangSigns? ‘Zero Tolerance’ Comes Under fire,” NBCNews.com, march 9, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/q8me6h5.2 “Civil Rights Data Collection, Data Snap-shot: School Discipline,” U.S. Department ofEducation Office of Civil Rights, march 21, 2014,p. 2, http://tinyurl.com/kls2ajo.3 Stacy Teicher Khadaroo, “Racial gap indiscipline found in preschool, US data show,”The Christian Science Monitor, march 21, 2014,http://tinyurl.com/nvmljvf.4 Arne Duncan, “Rethinking School Discipline,”U.S. Secretary of Education, Jan. 8, 2014,http://tinyurl.com/omnpeyl.5 “Civil Rights Data Collection,” op. cit.6 See “School suspensions: Are they helpingchildren?” Children’s Defense fund, Sept. 1, 1975,http://tinyurl.com/le3e9ne; and Stephen Hoff-man, “Estimating the Effect of Zero ToleranceDiscipline Polices on Racial Disparities in SchoolDiscipline,” Education Policy, Sage Journals,Jan. 2, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/pdakonf.7 Khadaroo, op. cit.8 Denver Nicks and Charlotte Alter, “Report:Black Preschoolers Suspended more thanwhites,” Time, march 21, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/l5otlak.9 Joy Resmovits, “School ‘Discipline Gap’Explodes As 1 In 4 Black Students Sus-pended, Report finds,” The Huffington Post,April 8, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/cqd2bmp.

10 “Ending the School-to-Prison Pipeline,” Com-mittee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Dec. 12,2012, p. 11, http://tinyurl.com/khyyejq.11 “wake Schools accused of unfair policingin federal complaint,” wNCN, march 5, 2014,http://tinyurl.com/nd73tov.12 “Breaking Schools’ Rules: A StatewideStudy of How School Discipline Relates toStudents’ Success and Juvenile Justice In-volvement,” Justice Center, The Council ofState Governments and The Public Policy Re-search Institute, Texas A&m University, July2011, http://tinyurl.com/lkdwog4.13 Prudence Carter, michelle fine, and StephenRussell, “Discipline Disparities Series: Overview,”The Equity Project at Indiana University,march 2014, www.indiana.edu/~atlantic/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Disparity_Overview_040414.pdf.14 Halimah Abdullah, “minority kids dispro-portionately impacted by zero-tolerance laws,”CNN, Jan. 30, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/pjljra9.15 Susan Berry, “Obama’s School GuidelinesCriticized by Legal, Education Experts,”Breitbart, march 31, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/kk7augr; and Stacy Teicher Khadaroo, “Schoolsuspensions: Does racial bias feed the school-to-prison pipeline?” The Christian Science Mon-itor,march 31, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/c8kdy3u.16 Russell Skiba, et al., “Are Zero TolerancePolicies Effective in the Schools? An EvidentiaryReview and Recommendations,” American Psy-chological Association Zero Tolerance Task force,Aug. 9, 2006, http://tinyurl.com/pmyvzp8.17 Jessica Ashley and Kimberly Burke,“Implementing restorative justice,” IllinoisCriminal Justice Information Authority,http://tinyurl.com/lrpdzo2.18 Daniel Losen and Jonathan Gillespie,“Opportunities Suspended: The Disparate Im-pact of Disciplinary Exclusion from School,”The Center for Civil Rights Remedies at theCivil Rights Project, August 2012, http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED534178.pdf.19 Skiba, “New Developments,” op. cit.20 “AASA Statement on School Climate andDiscipline Guidance Release by U.S. Depts.of Justice, Education,” The School Superin-tendents Association, Jan. 8, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/q7ckq43.21 See for background, “The Gun-freeSchools Act of 1994,” www2.ed.gov/legislation/ESEA/toc.html. Also see Thomas J.Billitteri, “Discipline in Schools,” CQ Researcher,feb. 15, 2008, pp. 145-168; and Kathy Koch,“Zero Tolerance,” CQ Researcher, march 10,2000, pp. 185-208.

428 CQ Researcher

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22 Jacob Kang-Brown, et al., “A GenerationLater: what we’ve Learned about Zero Tol-erance in Schools,” Center on Youth Justiceat the vera Institute of Justice, December 2013,http://tinyurl.com/khvmaqm. Also see NationalCenter for Education Statistic’s “Indicators ofSchool Crime and Safety: 2012,” op. cit.23 “Breaking Schools’ Rules,” op. cit.24 “State and National Grades Issued forEducation Performance, Policy; U.S. Earns aC-plus, maryland Ranks first for fifth StraightYear,” Editorial Projects in Education ResearchCenter, Education Week, Jan. 10, 2013,http://tinyurl.com/abwfflb.25 “U.S. House of Representatives Educationand the workforce Committee hearing on“Protecting Students and Teachers: A Dis-cussion on School Safety,” American Institutesfor Research, feb. 27, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/oy2e6h2.26 michael Leachman and Chris mai, “mostStates funding Schools Less Than Before theRecession,” Center on Budget and PolicyPriorities, Sept. 12, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/odqg939.27 Randi weingarten, “Support staff makeschools safe, welcoming places,” The PRSP Re-porter, Spring 2014, http://tinyurl.com/mjb89aj.28 Natassia walsh, “A Capitol Hill Briefing onStates’ Innovations in Juvenile Justice,” TheCouncil of State Governments Justice Center,Sept. 6, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/o55eb7x.29 Alan Schwarz, “School Discipline StudyRaises fresh Questions,” The New York Times,July, 19, 2011, http://tinyurl.com/o7q2qdw.30 “‘we Like Struggle’: Black Lips On Thewill To Entertain,” NPR, march 30, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/kowbat4.31 Board of Ed. of Rogers, Ark. v. McCluskey,

458 U.S. 966, July 2, 1982, U.S. Supreme Court,32 for background, see Thomas J. Billitteri,“Cyberbullying,” CQ Researcher, may 2, 2008,pp. 385-408.33 Simone Robers, Jana Kemp, Jennifer Tru-man and Thomas D. Snyder, “Indicators ofSchool Crime and Safety: 2012,” U.S. Depart-ment of Education, Institute of Education Sci-ences, National Center for Education Statistics,June 2013, http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2013036.34 Sameer Hinduja and Justin Patchin,“Cyberbullying fact Sheet: Identification, Pre-vention and Response,” The Cyberbullying Re-search Center, 2011, http://tinyurl.com/47tmxrb.35 Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2012,op. cit.36 Larry magid, “when schools can disciplineoff-campus behavior,” The Threshold Magazine,summer 2009, http://tinyurl.com/ybntbdl.37 Gretchen m. Shipley, “Cyber misconduct,Discipline and the Law,” Leadership,September/October 2011, pp. 14-16, http://tinyurl.com/mhg65ez.38 victoria Stuart-Cassel, Ariana Bell and J. fredSpringer, “Analysis of State Bully Laws andPolicies,” EmT Associates, U.S. Department ofEducation, 2011, http://tinyurl.com/88lcqar.39 Chongmin Na and Denise C. Gottfredson,“Police Officers in Schools: Effects on SchoolCrime and the Processing of Offending Be-haviors,” The Justice Quarterly, vol. 30, Issue 4,2011, http://tinyurl.com/loovp5m.40 Ibid.41 “Obama On Guns: School Police ShouldBe funded By federal Government, But NotRequired,” The Huffington Post, Jan. 16, 2013,http://tinyurl.com/b2dwutu.42 “National PTA Praises Administration’s Gun

violence Prevention Agenda,” NationalParent Teachers Association, Jan. 16, 2013,http://tinyurl.com/pr8ljvv.43 Philip Rucker, “white House may considerfunding for police in schools after Newton,”The Washington Post, Jan. 10, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/a87e7kh.44 “AfT Offers Plan for Creating Safer Schoolsand Communities and Reducing Gun violence,”Jan. 10, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/oojqf2k.45 K. C. Cowan, K. vaillancourt, E. Rossen,K. Pollitt, “A framework for safe and successfulschools,” National Association of School Psy-chologists, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/pab9jea.46 matt Sledge, “Arming Teachers, School CopsCould Cause more Harm Than Good,” TheHuffington Post, Dec. 20, 2012, http://tinyurl.com/pu7bq5q.47 “Poll: CNN/Time Poll: majority of Ameri-cans favor armed guards in schools,” 2012Election Center, CNN Politics, http://tinyurl.com/mlzp5of.48 “Educators support stronger laws to pre-vent gun violence says NEA poll,” NationalEducation Association, Jan. 15, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/n767dfr.49 Judith Kafka, The History of “Zero Toler-ance” American Public Schooling, 2011.50 Russell Skiba, “Zero Tolerance, ZeroEvidence,” Indiana Education Policy Center,Policy Research Report #SRS2, August 2000,p. 2, http://tinyurl.com/kcz6p3e.51 marylee Allen, Cindy Brown and Ann Rose-water, “Children Out of School In America,”The Children’s Defense fund, 1974, http://tinyurl.com/q2mh9vn.52 “A Brief History of the Drug war,” DrugPolicy Alliance, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/q8juwhc. Also see Kafka, op. cit.53 Kafka, op. cit., p. 2.54 Deborah Gordon Klehr, “Addressing theUnintended Consequences of No Child LeftBehind and Zero Tolerance: Better Strategiesfor Safe Schools and Successful Students,”Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law &Policy, 2009, pp. 585-610.55 “Tinker v. Des moines Independent Com-munity School District,” The Oyez Project,Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Insti-tute of Technology, http://tinyurl.com/3ycpfef.56 Richard Arum, Judging School Discipline:The Crisis of Moral Authority (2003), pp. 42-66.57 Ibid. See also 1978 Carey v. Piphus, 1982Board of Education of Rogers, Arkansas v.McCluskey, 1985 New Jersey v T.L.O., 1986Bethel School District v. Fraser.58 Ibid., and Kafka, op. cit.

About the AuthorAnne Farris Rosen is a freelance journalist in Washington,D.C., with more than 30 years’ experience covering govern-ment and social policy issues for newspapers and documen-tary television. She is the co-author of the 2001 book Stan-ley H. Kaplan: Test Pilot: How I broke testing barriers formillions of students and caused a sonic boom in the busi-ness of education. She has won numerous awards, includingthe Associated Press Managing Editor’s Award and the Bestof Gannett award. She is an adjunct professor of journalismat the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of

Maryland. She holds a BA in English from Rhodes College and a MA in UrbanAffairs from St. Louis University.


59 “Lawyers may Oppose Zero Tolerance,”The Associated Press, feb. 14, 2001, http://tinyurl.com/lxzocsr.60 Richard L. Curwin, Allen N. mendler, BrianD. mendler, Discipline With Dignity: New Chal-lenges, New Solutions, 3rd edition (2008), p. 3.61 for background see Thomas J. Billitteri,“Preventing Bullying,” CQ Researcher, Dec. 10,2010, pp. 1013-1036.62 Teresa L. Sarmiento-Brooks, “The School-to-Juvenile Justice Pipeline: factors Associatedwith the Use of School-based Law EnforcementOfficers by Public Schools,” 2008, p. 36.63 Na and Gottfredson, op. cit.64 “To Protect and Educate: The SchoolResource Officer and the Prevention ofviolence in Schools,” National Association ofSchool Resource Officers, October 2012,http://tinyurl.com/p6mv5fq.65 Indicators of School Crime and Safety:2012, op. cit.66 Peter finn and Jack mcDevitt, “National As-sessment of School Resource Officer Programsfinal Project Report,” National Institute of Justice,february 2005, http://tinyurl.com/qzo8m8o.67 Aaron Kupchik, Homeroom Security: Schooldiscipline in an age of fear (2010).68 Justice Center, op. cit.69 for background, see Barbara mantel, “GunControl,” CQ Researcher, march 8, 2013, pp.233-256.70 “Guiding Principles: A Resource Guide forImproving School Climate and Discipline,”U.S. Department of Education, January 2014,http://tinyurl.com/n2lwu44.71 Tamar Lewin, “Black Students face moreDiscipline, Data Suggests,” The New York Times,march 6, 2012, http://tinyurl.com/7rqx8bj.72 Donna St. George, “Holder, Duncan an-nounce national guidelines on school disci-pline,” The Washington Post, Jan. 8, 2013,http://tinyurl.com/ma8gqu4.73 Supportive School Discipline Initiative athttp://tinyurl.com/nkvh9jb and http://tinyurl.com/omq9s9c and http://tinyurl.com/3hgx46b.74 Ben firke, “Ending the School-to-PrisonPipeline,” Home Room, The Official Blog ofthe U.S. Department of Education, July 22,2011, http://tinyurl.com/msp959w.75 “Are Some U.S. School Discipline PoliciesToo Punitive?” PBS Newshour, Jan. 8, 2014,http://tinyurl.com/m8mqdmh.76 Civil Rights Data Collection, op. cit.77 valerie Jarrett and Broderick John, “myBrother’s Keeper: A New white House Ini-tiative to Empower Boys and Young men ofColor,” The white House Blog, feb. 27, 2014,

http://tinyurl.com/n86kjxw.78 “Harkin, HELP Committee Democrats Intro-duce Bill to Prepare All Children for Successand fix ‘No Child Left Behind,’ ” U.S. Com-mittee on Health, Education, Labor and Pen-sions, June 4, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/nzdlxcb.79 “The Senate Health, Education, Labor andPensions (HELP) Committee marked up theStrengthening America’s Schools Act of 2013,”CSPAN, June 11, 2013, minute 58, http://tinyurl.com/omffex8.80 Hans Bader, “Obama Administration Im-poses Racial Quotas on School Discipline inOakland,” The Legal, Politics as Usual, Zeit-geist, Oct. 12, 2012, http://tinyurl.com/9cgj9e6.81 Susan Berry, “Obama Admin’s School Guide-lines Criticized by Legal, Education Experts,”Breitbart, Jan. 9, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/kk7augr.82 Khadaroo, op. cit., School suspensions:Does racial bias feed the school-to-prisonpipeline?83 Nadra Kareen Nittle, “U.S. Department ofEducation Investigating Record Number of CivilRights Complaints in School Districts, Aims toImprove Education for minority Students,”America’s Wire, http://tinyurl.com/kud3b2j.84 Alyssa morones, “Is massachusetts SchoolDiscipline Law an Unfunded mandate?”Education Week, feb. 13, 2014, http://tinyurl.

com/ouzbm7z.85 “School Discipline Data: A Snapshot ofLegislative Action,” The Justice Center,Council of State Governments, february 2014,http://tinyurl.com/m23ycfb.86 Lizette Alvarez, “Seeing the Toll, SchoolsRevise Zero Tolerance,” The New York Times,Dec. 2, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/qaj4blp.87 “School Safety and the School Resource Of-ficer,” Oct. 12, 2012 http://tinyurl.com/9nd7prd.88 Alan R. Sadovnik and Susan f. Semel,Introduction to Kafka, op. cit.89 Judith Kafka, letters to the editor, The NewYork Times, Jan. 8, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/nxfskyb.90 “wade Henderson Speaks on SchoolDiscipline,” The Leadership ConferenceEducation fund, YouTube, Jan. 16, 2013,http://tinyurl.com/oo4y8od.91 This initiative is a product of the partner-ship between the American Association ofAdministrators, a nationwide superintendentsgroup, and the Children’s Defense fund, whichis funded for this project by the Atlantic Phil-anthropies.92 Jessica Berardino, “woodland Hills High SchoolSets Out To Change Their ‘Zero-Tolerance’ Pol-icy,” NewsRadio 1020 KDKA, Jan. 27, 2014,http://tinyurl.com/p2uohwx.

FOR MORE INFORMATIONAdvancement Project, 1220 L St., N.w., Suite 850, washington, DC 20005; 202-728-9557; www.advancementproject.org. Civil rights organization that sponsors re-search and model programs on zero-tolerance policies.

Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University, 383 Benefit St.,Providence, RI 02903-2923; 401-863-7990; http://annenberginstitute.org. Promotesredesign of American schooling by working to change policies and practices atthe school district level.

Center for Evaluation and Education Policy, 509 East Third St., Bloomington,IN 47401-3654; 800-511-6575; http://ceep.indiana.edu. Conducts research on educa-tion policy, including student-discipline practices.

Education Commission of the States, 700 Broadway, No. 810, Denver, CO80203-3460; 303-299-3600; www.ecs.org. maintains extensive online resources oneducation policy.

National School Boards Association, 1680 Duke St., Alexandria, vA 22314;703-838-6722; www.nsba.org. federation of state school board associations.

National School Safety Center, 141 Duesenberg Dr., Suite 7B, westlake village,Calif. 91362; 805-373-9977; www.schoolsafety.us. Promotes strategies and programsfor safe schools.

Public Counsel, 610 S. Ardmore Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90005; 213-385-2977;www.publiccounsel.org. Pro bono law firm’s project that www.fixschooldiscipline.orgprovides information on how to eliminate “push-out” discipline such as suspensionand expulsion.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

430 CQ Researcher

Selected Sources

BibliographyBooks

Boccanfuso, Christopher and Megan Kuhfeld, Multiple Re-sponses, Promising Results: Evidence-based, Non-punitiveAlternatives to Zero Tolerance, Child Trends, 2011.Education researchers review existing studies on zero-

tolerance policies and highlight promising alternatives.

Kafka, Judith, The History of “Zero Tolerance” in Ameri-can Public Schooling, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.An associate professor specializing in educational policy at

the Baruch College School of Public Affairs reviews the his-torical roots of zero-tolerance policies and their intersectionwith race, politics and education bureaucracy.

Trump, Kenneth S., Proactive School Security and Emer-gency Preparedness Planning, Corwin, 2011.A school safety expert provides advice and strategies for

preventing violence and preparing for emergency responses.

Articles

“School Discipline Racialized,”National Review, Jan. 16,2014, http://tinyurl.com/ob93oj8.Editors at the conservative magazine argue against federal

guidelines on zero tolerance.

“State Highlights Reports,”Education Week, January 2013,http://tinyurl.com/lzxs9ou.A collection of articles and supporting multimedia data

analysis spotlights school social and disciplinary climates atthe state level.

“The school-to-prison pipline: By the numbers,” AmericaTonight, Aljazeera, Jan. 23, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/puppc43.Reporters survey zero-tolerance policies at school districts

throughout the nation.

Khadaroo, Stacy Teicher, “School suspensions: Does racialbias feed the school-to-prison pipeline?” The ChristianScience Monitor, March 31, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/c8kdy3u.A reporter examines racial disparities in zero-tolerance sus-

pension and expulsion rates to see whether they representcivil rights violations.

Reports and Studies

“Breaking Schools’ Rules: A Statewide Study of How SchoolDiscipline Relates to Students’ Success and Juvenile Jus-tice Involvement,” Council of State Governments JusticeCenter and the Public Policy Research Institute at TexasA&M University, July 2011, http://tinyurl.com/lkdwog4.Researchers analyze discipline records of 1 million Texas

secondary-school students over six years and find that 60 per-cent have been suspended or expelled at least once.

“Guiding Principles: A Resource Guide for ImprovingSchool Climate and Discipline,” U.S. Department of Edu-cation, January 2014, http://tinyurl.com/n2lwu44.The federal government issues guidelines for schools striv-

ing to reduce over-reliance on zero-tolerance disciplinarypolicies.

“Policy Briefing Spotlights What Works to Eliminate Dis-parities in School Discipline,” Civil Rights Project at theUniversity of California, Los Angeles, March 15, 2014,http://tinyurl.com/kgj7otf.A policy briefing highlights and summarizes the work of

26 national school discipline experts.

“Report of the National School Shield Task Force,” Na-tional School Shield Task Force, April 2, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/cbbshdr.A National Rifle Association task force surveys school security

standards and makes recommendations to improve security.

“A Summary of New Research Closing the School Dis-cipline Gap: 1 Research to Policy,” The Center for CivilRights Remedies, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/bpur26a.This summary of 16 new research studies concludes that

reducing suspensions can lead to better academic outcomesand highlights successful alternatives to zero tolerance.

Kang-Brown, Jacob, Jennifer Trone, Jennifer Fratello andTarika Daftary-Kapur, “A Generation Later: What We’veLearned about Zero Tolerance in Schools,” Vera Instituteof Justice, December 2013, http://tinyurl.com/khvmaqm.Juvenile-justice researchers survey empirical research to ad-

dress questions on zero tolerance.

Kinsler, Joshua, “School Discipline: A Source or Salve forthe Racial Achievement Gap?” International EconomicReview, February 2013, Vol. 54, Issue 1, pp. 355-383,http://tinyurl.com/lsh7rty.An assistant professor of economics at the University of

Rochester in New York state examines the effect of reduc-ing suspensions on overall student achievement.

Skiba, Russell J., Megan Trachok, Choong-Geun Chung,Timberly Baker, Adam Sheya and Robin Hughes, “WhereShould We Intervene? Contributions of Behavior, Stu-dent, and School Characteristics to Suspension and Ex-pulsion,” Center for Civil Rights Remedies and Research-to-Practice Collaborative, April 6, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/qakexfd.Researchers review the odds of students being suspended

or expelled based on three conditions.


Effectiveness

Ahmed-Ullah, Noreen S., “CPS wants to ease disciplinepolicy at charters,”Chicago Tribune, Feb. 7, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/kkkol3w.Chicago public school officials say they are revising zero-

tolerance policies, such as reducing school suspensions ex-cept for the most serious infractions.

Alvarez, Lizette, “Seeing the Toll, Schools Revise ZeroTolerance,” The New York Times, Dec. 2, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/kwjxxmn.School districts around the country are rethinking their ap-

proach to minor offenses under zero-tolerance policies asreports show the policies lead to student arrests and highdropout rates that especially affect minority students.

Higgins, Lori, “Students, parents challenge zero-tolerancepolicies,”Detroit Free Press, April 17, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/mt5y9hf.A Detroit student who says he was suspended for five days

for forgetting his student identification card contends thatzero-tolerance policies hurt students.

Minorities

Demby, Gene, “Black Preschoolers Far More Likely toBe Suspended,”NPR, March 21, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/kjzayxu.African-American children account for 18 percent of the

preschool population but make up nearly half of out-of-school suspensions of preschoolers according to a report bythe Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

Hefling, Kimberly, “Obama administration recommendsending ‘zero-tolerance’ policies in schools,” The AssociatedPress, Jan. 8, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/lmw3z5t.The Obama administration is pushing for schools to get

rid of zero-tolerance policies, which civil rights advocatessay promote a “school-to-prison pipeline” that discriminatesagainst minority students.

Lee, Trymaine, “Preschool to prison: no child too youngfor zero-tolerance,”MSNBC.com, March 21, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/kqcypxe.African-American students are suspended or expelled at

three times the rate of their white peers, according to theDepartment of Education and the Justice Department.

Off-Campus Behavior

“Off-campus infractions should cost students’ rights inschool,”NJ.com, Feb. 28, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/n7lmthb.The Star-Ledger (Newark, N.J.) editorial board says schools

must be able to take action regarding misbehavior that oc-curs off campus or after school hours.

Kaminer, Wendy, “What Right Do Schools Have to Dis-cipline Students for What They Say Off Campus?” TheAtlantic, April 30, 2012, http://tinyurl.com/6opxb9r.A reporter says three eighth-grade girls should not have been

expelled for joking on facebook about killing classmates be-cause their conversation was not covered by the school’s de-finition of bullying as repeated, negative actions over time.

Leung, Wendy, “California Schools Can Now Discipline Stu-dents for Cyberbullying Off-Campus,”Ventura County Star(Ventura, Calif.), Jan. 6, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/kzhfz82.A new California law allows school administrators to dis-

cipline students who engage in cyberbullying off campus.

Violence

Bidwell, Allie, “Could School Stabbings Be the NextGreat Threat?” U.S. News & World Report, April 9, 2014,http://tinyurl.com/lgmoa5x.In the wake of a stabbing at a high school in murrysville, Pa.,

the president of National School Safety and Security Servicessays school staff must be trained to deal with all kinds of vi-olence, not just shootings, which get the most public attention.

Martinez, Michael, “Newtown a year later: Nation re-flects on legacy of its 2nd-deadliest mass shooting,”CNN, Dec. 14, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/k627jeu.A year after the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary

School in Newtown, Conn., some gun reform measures havefailed, while some states have liberalized their gun laws, andmental health has been brought to the forefront.

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CQR School Discipline - WordPress.com · “school-to-prison pipeline.” Proponents of zero tolerance, however, say the policies have made schools safer. In addition, recent school