Obama school discipline policies hurt state’s kids
Over the last decade, suspensions at Wisconsin’s K-12 public schools have dropped substantially — by about 41%. While some may see this as a positive, the reality is that the increasing hesitancy of schools to utilize discipline is having a negative effect on the learning environment.
Worst of all, public schools are being pushed in the direction of fewer suspensions because of a leftover policy from the Obama administration.
In 2010, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan declared the U.S. Department of Education would start focusing on race, school discipline and educational inequality. National data have shown minority students are being suspended at higher rates than white students and the department attributed this to discrimination by teachers and administrators. The debate on this issue is far from settled, with many making the case that differences in suspension rates for minority students may be reflective of actual differences in behavior.
However, the department’s Office of Civil Rights began sending letters to school districts, conducting compliance reviews, and reviewing districts’ disciplinary policies. In 2014, the Departments of Education and the Department of Justice sent schools a letter warning them that if their policies (even if neutral and fairly applied) resulted in differences in suspension rates for white and minority students, they could face a federal investigation.
Whether these changes in federal policy have had an impact is questionable. Our research shows that the racial gap in suspension rates has closed statewide. But district-level data paints a different picture. In Milwaukee Public Schools, which serves about half of Wisconsin’s African American students, the suspension rates for white students have dropped more than for African American students, actually widening the racial disparity in suspension rates.
The rapid drop in suspension rates has also raised safety concerns, which have also been documented by Dan O’Donnell and Badger Institute. Many Wisconsin schools are implementing alternative discipline approaches but it isn’t clear yet if those are leading to better school environments.
In the Madison Metropolitan School District, when teachers were surveyed on a program intended to reduce the use of disciplinary practices, such as suspensions, their responses were concerning. Only 13% thought the new practices were having a positive effect on students and 51% disagreed. When asked, “When a student is returned to class following a behavior incident, he or she is ready to reengage in learning,” just 17% agreed and 46% disagreed. Teacher surveys from other states on similar discipline reforms report similarly negative results.
Perhaps even more troubling, though, is some of the feedback from students. Wisconsin was awarded a grant to analyze new softened discipline policies, and the survey compared students whose schools implemented such policies with schools that did not participate. The perceptions of students from schools participating in the new policies that they were “not always safe at school” increased by a statistically significant degree. The gap between non-participating students and participating students also grew on questions of whether “violence is a problem in school” and “someone ever hurt you at school in the last 12 months.”
Fortunately, this problem can be fixed at both the state and federal level.
Last week, Politico reported that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, rightfully, is giving serious consideration to rescinding the Obama-era suspension policies. Whether districts suspend more or fewer students is a decision best left to school board members and district administrators — not to bureaucrats in Washington D.C.
In Wisconsin, state Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt, a former teacher, is working to improve the situation in schools and has introduced a bill that bill would empower teachers to remove problem students for a short time from the classroom without requiring a formal suspension, which school administrators are increasingly hesitant to impose.
Among other provisions, the bill would also allow teachers to request a suspension hearing with the school board president if the administration of a school does not suspend a student when the teacher feels a suspension is justified.
The bottom line is that a federal push for less discipline under President Barack Obama is having a negative effect on Wisconsin classrooms while attempting to solve a problem of discrimination that does not exist. Legislation like that proposed by Thiesfeldt would empower teachers throughout the state to restore order in their classrooms and ensure that Wisconsin students who want to learn can do so in a safe environment.
Will Flanders is research director at the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty; Natalie Goodnow is a research fellow at WILL.