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Discipline Disproportionalities In Schools: The Relationship Between Student Characteristics And School Disciplinary Outcomes, Kaitlin Anderson, Gary W. Ritter

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

According to a 2014 report from the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, black students represent only 15% of students across the nation, but 35% of students suspended once are black, 44% of students suspended more than once are black, and 36% of expelled students are black. These disparate disciplinary aggregate outcomes, while troubling, do not provide as much information as policymakers need. In this study, we exploit three years of student-level discipline data from Arkansas to assess the extent to which black students or other minority students were more likely to receive certain types of punishments, even …