Education Week: Study Finds Minority Students Get Harsher Punishments: Black and Hispanic students are far more likely to be kicked out of school when they break the rules, including some that often have nothing to do with keeping students safe, according to a new report from a civil rights research and advocacy group.
And school discipline records are too often seen as a measure of how safe a school is and not often enough as a gauge of how healthy a school is academically, said Daniel J. Losen, the report’s author and the senior education law and policy associate at the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at the University of California, Los Angeles. But he said there is no evidence that banishing some students will improve the education of classmates still in school, while studies have show that punishing students increases their risk of dropping out.
The report, slated to be released today in Washington, is the latest in a series of actions intended to draw attention to school discipline practices that some consider overly harsh or punishments that are meted out disproportionately among students of different races, genders, and ethnic groups.
