In 2019, the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) published recommendations for monitoring educational equity. Building on these recommendations, the Research Alliance has been working to develop a comprehensive set of equity indicators for New York City schools. 

Earlier Spotlight posts highlighted differences in access to middle and high schools with more opportunities overall; conversations with local stakeholders have underscored the importance of also assessing the extent to which students within these schools actually benefit from the opportunities available—for example, by taking an advanced class, feeling supported at their school, or in this case, avoiding being suspended. In this post, we revisit the composition of middle and high schools across the City with low, moderate, and high use of suspensions. We then examine patterns of suspension outcomes within these schools, with a focus on differences by students’ race/ethnicity, gender, and median neighborhood income, and whether students receive special education or English Learner services.^{[1] Endnote details}

How Suspensions Harm Students and School Communities

Research has highlighted the repercussions of suspensions and other forms of exclusionary discipline that remove students from the classroom. These practices have been shown to have negative effects on school performance and attendance and increase the likelihood of school dropout and involvement with the juvenile justice system. For younger students, evidence suggests that more severe discipline may actually increase future misbehavior. Students who are suspended are also more likely to develop negative perceptions of school climate, a key factor in overall student well-being (read our latest analysis of school climate equity). We also know that Black and Latinx students are more likely to experience suspensions and other exclusionary discipline than White and Asian students, as a consequence for the same types of behavior. 

In response, many school districts, including NYC Public Schools, have started to move toward “non-exclusionary approaches”, often involving restorative practices, which focus on promoting community and repairing relationships. Our analysis of equity in school discipline starts with an assessment of the percentage of disciplinary infractions at each middle and high school that resulted in a suspension.

Which students attend schools that avoid exclusionary discipline?

The interactive dashboard below shows the percentage of students who attended schools with low, moderate, and high use of suspensions in middle and high school. Readers can see differences by students’ race/ethnicity, median neighborhood income, Individualized Education Plan (IEP) status, English Learner (EL) status, and gender.

Key Takeaways

• In middle school, Asian students were the most likely to attend schools with high use of suspensions, at 34 percent, compared to Latinx students (29%) and White and Black students (24%). This is notably different from high school, where Black students were four times more likely than White students to be enrolled in high-suspension-use schools.
• In middle school, Former and Current ELs attend high-suspension-use schools more often than Never ELs. In high school, Current ELs are still overrepresented, but Former ELs are the least likely to attend such schools.
• As neighborhood income decreased, students were generally more likely to attend high-suspension-use schools.

These findings highlight notable differences between the middle and high school settings. In the next section, we examine which students were actually suspended in schools with varying levels of exclusionary discipline, in both the middle and high school grades.

Which students are actually suspended in schools with low, moderate, and high use of exclusionary discipline?

The figure below shows the percentage of students who were suspended once or more during the course of middle or high school, broken down by student demographics.

Key Takeaways

• Even in schools with a lower use of exclusionary discipline, Black, low-income, male, and IEP students are still more likely to miss class time due to suspensions. The disparities tend to be larger in moderate and high suspension use schools.
• Inequities by IEP status and race/ethnicity are the most dramatic. Students with IEPs are about twice as likely to be suspended as those without IEPs, across all school types. Looking at race/ethnicity, compared to Asian students (who have the lowest suspension rate), Black students are between three and nine times more likely to be suspended, depending on school level and opportunity category. 
• Although suspension rates are higher in middle school, inequities in suspension outcomes are sometimes larger in high school.

Discussion

Our findings show disparities in students’ access to schools that tend to use nonexclusionary approaches to discipline. They also demonstrate substantial disproportionality in terms of which students are actually being suspended within these schools. Black, low-income, male, and students with IEPs experience higher suspension rates in both middle and high schools and across all opportunity categories, placing them at heightened risk for the negative outcomes linked to exclusion from the classroom.

The presence of inequities across every school type indicates that lowering suspension rates is not sufficient to improve equity. An explicit commitment to addressing racial discrimination and other root causes, in both school- and classroom-level disciplinary practices, is also essential.

Big Questions

• Why are suspension rates in middle school generally higher? Why do middle schools have different patterns of enrollment in higher-opportunity environments, as compared to high school? 
• What factors explain the overpresentation of low-income, male, IEP and especially Black students among those who are suspended, across school types? What can be learned from schools that have managed to reduce or eliminate these disparities?
• How have suspension rates and disparities changed over time, as NYCPS has worked to limit the use of suspensions?

• Has the shift toward nonexclusionary discipline in schools led to improvements in perceptions of school climate and/or academic engagement?

   

This Spotlight post was authored by Erin Readling, James Kemple and Chelsea Farley.