That rate dropped to 0.178 in 2015, a decrease of 24.3%. The 2013 rate of 0.235 means that for every 1,000 black students enrolled in California schools, black students received 235 out-of-school suspensions. 5Īfrican-Americans stand out as disproportionately receiving suspensions. White students constituted 24.6% of enrollment (1.5 million), followed by Asian students, 8.8% (about 550,000 students), and black students, 6.0% (about 370,000 students). In 2015, Hispanic students made up over half of California’s K-12 enrollment, with 3.3 million students (53.6%). Figure 3-2 reports the ratio of suspensions to enrollment.

The statewide decline in suspensions began a year earlier for all four groups, falling by 12%-13% from 2011 to 2012.ĭisparities associated with race or ethnicity cannot be gleaned from simple counts of suspensions. Note that the chart begins with 2012 data. Suspensions of white (-28.5%), black (-28.5%), and Asian (-29.9%) students declined by similar amounts. Suspensions of Hispanic students fell from 249,318 in 2013 to 173,897 in 2015, a decline of 30.3%. In this case, a suspension is an event leading to the out-of-school suspension of a student, and even though the student may have committed multiple infractions, the event is counted as one incident. Figure 3-1 displays statistics for the state’s four largest ethnic groups, showing the number of suspensions for each group. STATE TRENDSįrom 2013 to 2015, out-of-school suspensions declined dramatically in California. The study examines how California schools have changed their practice in regards to out-of-school suspensions and investigates the characteristics of schools associated with both high and low suspension rates of black students. The data cannot test causal hypotheses or determine whether students’ suspensions are just or unjust. It takes no position on out-of-school suspensions or the interventions proposed as alternatives. The study below is a correlational study. That offers a unique opportunity to examine the relationship between race and discipline in K-12 education. 4 The Department had been providing workshops and other resources on alternatives to out-of-school suspensions, with restorative justice and positive behavioral support programs leading the list.Ĭalifornia schools’ disciplinary policies are in transition. In 2015, just a few days after AB240 took effect, the California Department of Education issued a press release documenting sharp declines in suspensions during the previous two school years. 2 However, its use was already in decline, as several districts, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, had previously taken steps to limit expulsions and out-of-school suspensions, regardless of the grade, for willful defiance. At the time of AB420’s signing by Governor Jerry Brown, willful defiance was the most common offense for out-of-school suspensions, particularly for minority students.

1 In 2014, the California state legislature passed a state law (AB420) prohibiting public schools from expelling any student or suspending students in third grade or earlier grades for the offense of “willful defiance”-a catchall category of offenses (including disruption) ranging from shouting obscenities at a teacher to forgetting to bring a pencil to class. The report noted that black students are disproportionately dealt the harshest exclusionary penalties-expulsions and out-of-school suspensions. Two years earlier, a report from the Civil Rights Project at UCLA documented large racial disparities in California school districts’ disciplinary practices. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights caused a stir in 2014 when it released data showing that black students are suspended and expelled at three times the rate of white students.

The fall and decline of race into space