As superintendents, we each have had the experience of being stunned, troubled, and moved to action by the rates at which schools were dispatching young people—especially boys of color and special-needs students—to the juvenile-justice system. And each of us has found that big changes in outcomes were possible.

How? By moving away from simplistic zero-tolerance policies, toward an understanding of social-emotional learning and the underlying causes of disruptive behavior, and by changing from a power dynamic to a respect dynamic. It's not about being soft, or giving fourth and fifth chances for unacceptable behavior. It's about being more effective, by addressing behavioral problems at their roots. And it's immensely urgent in a country where, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education's Civil Rights Data Collection, African-American male students are suspended at triple the rate of white students.

[For more of this story by Robert W Runcie and Antwan Wilson, go to http://www.edweek.org/ew/artic...tudents-to-jail.html]