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Despite a dramatic decline in suspensions as students moved to remote learning during the pandemic, Black children and those in special education were disciplined far more often than white students and those in general education, according to a recent New York University study.
The report also indicates students’ behavior may have worsened this past academic year, echoing news accounts of young children regressing and older students acting out as a result of anxiety and depression and just-released federal surveys of 850 school leaders where roughly 1 in 3 reported an increase in student fights or physical attacks.
And, it notes, some schools have turned away from restorative justice programs that grew out of the Obama era to more punitive tactics, including out-of-school suspensions, which are particularly damaging to students: Research shows they harm academic achievement and can foreshadow incarceration in adulthood. The Department of Education is in the process of revising its own disciplinary recommendations with a focus on these same student groups.
“This is perhaps one of the most urgent civil rights and social justice issues in education,” said Richard O. Welsh, assistant professor at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development and the study’s author. Read more.
