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Concern about the use of zero-tolerance policies for discipline has led to a search for alternatives such as training in early-warning signs of aggressive behavior and strategies for effective classroom management in schools. This chapter examines the effectiveness of the provision of alternatives to out-of-school suspensions (OSS) in reducing the use of exclusionary discipline for minor misbehavior and the school characteristics associated with these provisions.

This analysis uses the 2008 panel from the National School Survey on Crime and Safety to explore this question for approximately 1,000 high schools. The analysis is a probit regression analysis to examine the association between the provision of alternatives to OSS, school characteristics, and the use of OSS for low-level suspensions. This analytic approach provides wide generalizability for the findings, though it does also limit an ability to identify individual school- or student-level effects.

Findings based on probit regression analysis suggest that structural characteristics of schools – beyond student characteristics – are only somewhat related to variation in the use of OSS for low-level infractions and, on average, the availability of alternatives to OSS do not strongly decrease the frequency of OSS for lower-level infractions. These findings are important in the current era of discipline policy scrutiny where schools and policy-makers are searching for alternatives to traditional suspension practices in a limited empirical evidence base.

While these alternatives hold great promise, little is known about their effectiveness in addressing behavior problems and/or reducing OSS. More importantly, even less is known about the characteristics of schools likely to enact alternatives.

All educators will inevitably face unwanted student behavior that they need to address. A ubiquitous response to unwanted behavior is exclusionary discipline practices, including time-out, office discipline referrals, and suspensions. However, extensive research has demonstrated that these practices are associated with negative outcomes, including increased likelihood of further unwanted behavior, decreased achievement, and racial/ethnic discipline disparities. In this chapter, we provide a preventative alternative to exclusionary practices, school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports (SWPBIS). SWPBIS is an evidence-based framework for implementing systems to reduce unwanted behavior and increase prosocial behavior, decreasing the need for exclusionary practices.

In the United States, Black preschoolers are suspended at disproportionately high rates when compared to other groups. This chapter examines the causes behind the so-called “school-to-prison pipeline,” including the psychological predilection to not label a Black child’s behavior as “bad” but to label the child that way. We offer a personal narrative to ground our research in an approachable, anecdotal fashion in an attempt to remind researchers, policymakers, and educators that this is not just about statistics, although those are included as well. However, behind every statistic is a real child with a real family who is plagued by this pipeline. Furthermore, the personal narrative also sheds light on the overwhelming pressure and stress that simply comes from being Black, and raising Black children, in an America dismissively considered “post-racial.” Finally, and importantly, this chapter explores ways in which changes can help prevent the exploding Black prison population and investigates ways in which that change can functionally take place. It is not enough to acknowledge an ongoing injustice is occurring; we must fix it, no matter how uncomfortable that fix is or how challenging.

In this chapter, we argue that the growth of punitive school discipline in US schools has created an inequitable system of school punishment that is reflective of the development of the school-to-prison pipeline and the establishment of an educational “total institution.” Current school discipline practices negatively affect student academic growth in the classroom as a result of an increase in suspensions and expulsions. Data in this chapter exemplify the overreliance on punitive school discipline in one urban school to address behavioral issues and also further expand on the concept of school-to-prison pipeline using the “total institution” theory of command and control of a population proposed by Goffman (1961). We argue that there are more effective measures of school discipline and seek to provide alternate possibilities for school leaders to address the draconian treatment of Black and brown boys in today’s traditional public school environments.

The school-to-prison pipeline is a term used to describe the pathway traveled by students from public schools to incarceration in secure juvenile detention and correctional programs. It begins with students who are marginalized by the education system because of their academic and behavioral issues. The pipeline leads from school failure and disciplinary exclusion to involvement with the juvenile justice system. Youth who are ethnic minorities (especially those who are African-American or Hispanic) as well as those with educational disabilities (especially those with learning and behavioral disorders) are significantly overrepresented in data sets representing key points along the pipeline (e.g., students with poor academic achievement, high rates of suspension, expulsion, and dropout) as well as their high rates of incarceration. From his personal perspective and experience with the juvenile justice system, the author attempts to explicate the pipeline, and to describe efforts to impact it positively.

This qualitative study examined urban school personnel’s opinions, perceptions, and strategies in implementing the following: (a) locally mandated Zero Tolerance Discipline Policies, (b) nationally mandated standardized high-stakes testing laws, and (c) how the two combined can be counterproductive to one another. Three themes emerged from the research. The first and predominate theme that emerged and discussed was “perspectives that described the potential impact standardized high-stakes assessments have on African American male students that violate the Zero Tolerance Discipline Policy.” The research and its recommendations are valuable to policymakers, education advocates, stakeholders, superintendents, boards of education, administrators, teachers, and parents.

In order to study whether college scholarships can be an effective tool in raising students’ performance in secondary school, we use one aspect of the Kalamazoo Promise that resembles a quasi-experiment. The surprise announcement of the scholarship created a large change in expected college tuition costs that varied across different groups of students based on past enrollment decisions. This variation is arguably exogenous to unobserved student characteristics. We estimate the effects of this change by a set of “difference-in-differences” regressions where we compare the change in student outcomes in secondary school across time for different student “length of enrollment” groups. We also control for student fixed effects. We find positive effects of the Kalamazoo Promise on Promise-eligible students large enough to be deemed important – about a 9 percent increase in the probability of earning any credits and one less suspension day per year. We also find large increases in GPA among African American students.

Despite nationwide decreases in school crime and violence levels, a relatively high and increasing number of students report feeling unsafe in their school environments. In response, many school and law enforcement officials are collaborating to develop school–police partnerships, especially in urban areas as an effort to significantly deter student criminal activity and violence in schools. This chapter examines the beginning efforts of New York City's Impact Schools Initiative, a punitive-based school–police partnership created in January 2004 to significantly increase police presence at some of New York City's most violent public schools. An initial examination of school-level demographic and environmental variables reveal that despite increased police presence, students enrolled at New York City's Impact Schools continue to experience higher than average problems linked directly to future criminality, including more student suspensions and lower attendance rates compared to other New York City Schools. Additionally, the data revealed that compared to other New York City public schools, Impact Schools experience greater student overcrowding and receive less funding.

Despite long-standing evidence that the use of exclusionary discipline practices is both ineffective and even potentially harmful, these policies continue to be used in educational settings across the country. In this chapter, we discuss the problems associated with exclusionary discipline, with an emphasis on zero tolerance approaches. We begin our discussion with a brief history of the origin of zero tolerance policies, a presentation of data that contradict the effectiveness of such policies, and examples of the continued and egregious application of this exclusionary approach. We discuss problems of disproportionality associated with the use of zero tolerance policies, including how this approach exacerbates learning problems for students with and at risk for disabilities, especially if that risk is related to emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). We conclude by offering alternatives to a zero tolerance approach in the form of positive and preventative approaches for improving student behavior across various levels of intensity within a tiered system of support framework.

Behavioral threat assessment and intervention is a violence prevention strategy that has become widely used in US schools. Instead of relying on a zero tolerance disciplinary approach that often leads to school exclusion of students with disabilities, schools can use a multidisciplinary threat assessment team to assess the seriousness and context of a student's behavior and identify appropriate interventions and supports. This process is especially valuable for students with disabilities who are identified as threatening violence. This chapter describes an evidence-based model of threat assessment, the Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines (CSTAG), ¹ reviews some common misunderstandings of threat assessment, and presents a case example illustrating the value of threat assessment in preventing school exclusion, and provides services for a student with a disability.