Panel:
Exclusionary School Discipline Practices: Understanding the Use and Impacts of Suspension
(Education)
Thursday, November 3, 2016: 1:15 PM-2:45 PM
Columbia 4 (Washington Hilton)
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
Panel Organizers: Rebecca Hinze-Pifer, University of Chicago
Panel Chairs: Lauren Sartain, University of Chicago
Discussants: Nathan Hess, University of Chicago
More than a decade after the broad adoption of zero tolerance school discipline policies, schools, districts, and policymakers are increasingly concerned that exclusionary discipline practices like suspensions may be too broadly applied. Existing work documents substantial correlations between suspension and negative future outcomes, as well as large racial disparities in suspension rates. It is more challenging to causally identify the impact of suspensions due to the endogeneity of punishment, risk of reverse causation, and data limitations.
This panel brings together multiple projects focused on describing the use of exclusionary discipline practices and understanding their causal impacts, using longitudinal administrative data from Chicago, Louisiana, New York City and Arkansas. Together, the projects endeavor to help policymakers better understand how exclusionary discipline is practiced, which types of students are most likely to experience exclusionary discipline, and its overall impacts on all types of students.
