Several schools have suspended children for joking about guns
in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings. A 7-year-old in Maryland was
suspended for chewing a breakfast pastry into the shape of a gun, while
others have received the same punishment for pointing their fingers like
guns or using toy guns that blow bubbles. Suspension seems like a
counterintuitive disciplinary tool, since many children would prefer to
stay home from school, anyway. Why is suspension such a common
punishment?
Because it’s familiar, cheap, and convenient. It’s also demonstrably
ineffective. Its deterrent value is low: A 2011 study showed that Texas
students who were suspended or expelled at least once during middle
school and high school averaged four such disciplinary actions during
their academic careers. Fourteen percent of them were suspended 11 times
or more. Suspensions don’t even seem to benefit the school as a whole.
In recent years, while Baltimore city schools have dramatically reduced
suspensions, the dropout rate has been cut nearly in half.
Still, surveys consistently show that parents support suspension,
because it keeps those students perceived as bad apples away from their
peers. Principals continue to rely on suspension, in part because it
creates the appearance of toughness. Parents can’t complain about
inaction when a principal regularly suspends or expels bad actors.
Administrators may also favor suspension because it edges problem
students out of school: Students who have been suspended are three times more likely to drop out. Some researchers refer to a student who gives up on school after repeated suspension as a “push out” rather than a dropout.
Suspension has been a school punishment seemingly forever, but there
have been two watershed eras for the practice. During the 1960s and
’70s, many school administrators observed an increase in fighting,
possibly as a result of desegregation.
Suspension increased dramatically during this period. That spike caused
education researchers to begin asking questions about the efficacy of
suspension. A number of studies showed that minority children, students
with low grades, and the poor are suspended disproportionately—a fact
that remains true today. Few studies successfully examined the efficacy
of suspension as a punishment, though.
Despite the lack of reliable data, politicians pushed for more
suspensions in the mid-1990s. The 1994 Gun-Free Schools Act required
schools to expel students caught with guns for a year, kicking off the
“zero tolerance” movement. Today, many school districts have draconian
codes of conduct that impose suspension for such trivial offenses as gum
chewing or, ironically, truancy. These codes and laws likely have
something to do with the post-Sandy Hook spate of suspensions for fake
guns. Some state statutes explicitly allow a school to suspend students
who maliciously display anything that looks like a gun.
One of the reasons suspension sticks around is that the alternatives
require more money and effort, at least up front. Researchers suggest
pairing in-school suspension with regular counseling, or offering
so-called positive behavior support classes, which teach appropriate
conduct in the same way schools teach writing or mathematics. Other
creative solutions include youth courts, in which students sit in
judgment of one another, or restorative circles,
which involves bringing together the offender and the victim with other
students to work out a fair resolution to conflict. Still, most
reformers concede that suspension has its place, especially in the
immediate aftermath of violence.
(Source: Slate)
(Source: Slate)
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