What causes high rates of suspensions, especially for students of color? Growing evidence points to racial bias. For instance, laboratory experiments find that teachers are more likely to knit together a series of misbehaviors as a pattern, to view a student who misbehaves as a troublemaker, and to punish them more severely, if the student is Black as compared with White.
Okonofua, J. A., Goyer, J. P., Lindsay, C. A., Haugabrook, J., & Walton, G. M. (2022). A Scalable Empathic-Mindset Intervention Reduces Group Disparities in School Suspensions. Sciences Advances, 8 (12), 1-10.
Using California Healthy Kids Survey data the analysis found that students who had larger exposure to restorative practices saw less exposure to exclusionary practices saw less exposer to exclusionary discipline, smaller racial disparities in discipline, and improved academic achievement.
Darling-Hammond, Sean, Lauren Trout, Trevor Fronius, & Rebeca Cerna. 2021. Can restorative practices bridge racial disparities in schools? Evidence from the California Healthy Kids Survey. WestEd https://www.wested.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Restorative-Practices-Bridging-Racial-Disparity-Research-Brief-3.pdf (accessed January 30, 2023).
The Data Meeting Toolkit is a suite of tools that groups can use to guide conversation around data and support databased decision making. The toolkit provides resources to support success before, during, and after data meetings. It contains protocols, examples, guidelines, templates, etc. It supports team-based data analysis and data-informed decision making.
IDEA Data Center (n.d.) Data Meeting Toolkit. https://www.ideadata.org/data-meeting-toolkit (accessed April 17, 2020).
Searchable database makes available California district-level annual performance report measures for special education. Contains data collected from each indicator and performance measures but not the local compliance determination. Any inquires from the general public regarding local district determinations should be directed to the local school district.
Losen and his colleagues at the Civil Rights Project at UCLA provide readers with an analysis of current national and statewide data on continuing disparities in rates of punitive discipline for students with Individual Education Programs (IEPs) based on race and ethnicity. Their recommendations define the critical changes needed to eliminate the inequities as part of a pathway to reformation.
Losen, Daniel J. 2018. “Disabling Punishment: The Need for Remedies to the Disparate Loss of Instruction Experienced by Black Students with Disabilities.” Los Angeles and Houston: The Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the Civil Rights Project Proyecto Derechos Civiles and Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice.
This article provides an overview of restorative justice (RJ) in US K-12 schools, discusses implementation challenges, and summarizes the most recent two decades of quantitative studies regarding the effectiveness of RJ at achieving a range of outcomes. While RJ has become increasingly popular, there is still relatively little quantitative research regarding its effectiveness. Still, available evidence suggests that RJ programs can improve school climates and reduce student misbehavior and school discipline. Results are more mixed regarding RJ’s impact on bullying, student absenteeism, and academic performance.
Darling-Hammond, Sean, Trevor Fronius, Hannah Sutherland, Sarah Guckenburg, Anthony Petrosino, and Nancy Hurely. 2020. “Effectiveness of Restorative Justice in US K-12 Schools: a Review of Quantitative Research.” Contemporary School Psychology 24, 295–308, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40688-020-00290-0 (accessed January 30, 2023).
This document contains a table that outlines three distinct requirements around equity: Disproportionate Representation, Significant Discrepancy, and Significant Disproportionality. This resource can help clarify the differences and similarities among the three equity requirements and enable users to compare and contrast these various equity requirements in key areas such as methodology, data sources, and reporting considerations.
Nancy O’Hara, and Bollmer, Julie. 2020. Equity Requirements in IDEA. https://www.ideadata.org/resources/resource/1590/equity-requirements-in-idea (accessed September 16, 2022).
This workshop presents current research on language, cognitive, academic development, and their application to evaluation within a comprehensive, research-based framework for generating valid data to support conclusions & decisions regarding the presence or absence of various types of disorders with culturally and linguistically diverse learners.
Imperial Special Education Local Plan Area, (2021).
This research article demonstrates that racial/ethnic disparities continue to exist for minoritized communities, noting that White students were overrepresented as having autism in special education. Caregiver perspectives were gathered and the data showed that English speaking parents were more likely to identify early signs of autism.
Paul Luelmo, Hall, Laura J., and Estrellado, R. 2022. Examination of Racial/Ethnic Disproportionality of Autism in California.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1750946722000885 (accessed September 16, 2022).
Provides an overview of this New York University self-assessment tool.
Training Module 1: Overview of Metropolitan Center for Urban Education’s Disproportionality Workbooks
Training Module 2: Using the Data Analysis Workbook
Training Module 3: Knowing A Disproportionality Problem Based On Numbers
Training Module 4: Using the Equity in Education Workbook
Training Module 5: Discussing Culturally Responsive Education Beliefs
Training Module 6: Common Causes of Disproportionality in Special Education and Suspension
Edward Fergus, presenter (2010) State Performance Plan Technical Assistance Project, California Department of Education.
