Sometimes small changes in how school districts approach policy—including how behaviors are labeled, which interventions schools are offered, and how teachers are trained to use them—can help break down the school-to-prison pipeline and put disadvantaged students on a better academic trajectory.
In a symposium here at the annual meeting of the American Association of Educational Research, civil rights experts discussed practical ways that states and districts can reduce discipline disparities for students of color, especially black students, who are suspended from school at nearly four times the rate of their white peers.
"The school-to-prison pipeline is characterized by an overrepresentation of black students—specifically black males. And that overrepresentation has yet to be explained by enrollment, by socioeconomic status, or by higher rates of misconduct," said R. Nicole Johnson-Ahorlu, the director for education and juvenile justice research at the Center for Policing Equity at the University of California, Los Angeles. "There's lots of work ... that leads us to believe that discrimination is playing some type of role here."
[For more on this story by Sarah D. Sparks, go to http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek...pline_practical.html]
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