Giving Compass' Take:

• A YouthTruth survey reveals that most students don't believe that school discipline is fair, black students were least likely to believe that discipline was fair. 

• How can funders help shool address discipline disparities? 

• Learn how data can help educators rethink school discipline. 

The past decade of federal, state and local advocacy aimed at improving school discipline outcomes is encouraging. Some studies show rates of suspensions in decline, and the list of resources available to help educators rethink discipline policies is lengthening. Yet recent federal civil rights data suggest there’s still a lot of work to do. According to a 2018 report from the Government Accountability Office, black students make up around 15 percent of all public school students but constitute close to 40 percent of all suspensions.

The nonprofit I work for, YouthTruth, helps schools measure nonacademic indicators related to school climate and academic achievement. We wanted to know: What do students, parents/guardians and school staff think about discipline and fairness in their schools?

To answer this question, we analyzed the survey responses of more than 104,000 students, parents/guardians, and instructional and noninstructional school staff members across 132 secondary schools. Here are some key things we learned (click here to read the full report):

Overall, students feel less positively about discipline than do families or staff. Less than half of students – 40 percent – feel that discipline at their school is fair, compared with 59 percent of family members and 50 percent of staff.

Students, families and staff of different races and ethnicities have different experiences with discipline and fairness. Asian students rate discipline at their school more positively than do other racial or ethnic groups, while multiracial students rate discipline at their school less positively. (African-American or black students’ ratings are a few percentage points lower than other students’ ratings, but the difference is not statistically meaningful.) For families, Hispanic and Asian parents/guardians rate school discipline more positively than do other groups, while white family members and those who preferred not to identify their race or ethnicity feel less positively. For staff, those who preferred not to disclose their race or ethnicity also feel less positively.

Read the full article about the fairness of school discipline by Jimmy Simpson Jr. at The 74.