Rachel Perera dyed her hair red when she was in high school.
Perera attended a strict Catholic school in Queens, New York. Perera got into trouble because her school told her that her hair was an “unnatural color,” she said.
“And I thought it was unnatural for everyone? This feels really arbitrary,” Perera says.
It reminds her of what she went through a lot. Although she was getting good grades, she did not understand how her hair color had anything to do with her cheating or disrupting her learning environment. Being of Afro-Latina descent, she has come to the conclusion that it is important to take control of how she presents herself. It felt like a whim to her, but she says she has come to accept it as something she has to go through.
“I spent a lot of time in high school in detention for things that I would argue were unfair,” she said, adding that at least she was able to complete her homework while in detention.
Since then, in her role as a fellow at the Brown Center for Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit policy research institute, she has come to understand more about her student years. That convinced her that many of her experiences were not unique, but rather representative of how girls of color, especially Black girls, experience discipline among her students. she says.
One lesson is that suspension doesn’t work. Not only that, but this type of exclusionary discipline practice can have a huge impact on students’ school experiences, leading to worse outcomes for some students than others.
Perera said many teachers have come to accept the view that suspensions are ineffective.
A 2014 report by the Obama administration (later repealed under the Trump administration) even called on schools to investigate the discipline practices the report suggested. Strengthening the school-to-prison pipelinein response to data suggesting that. Black students were punished more often.
But now, under the unique stress test of the pandemic, a small number of councils are re-accepting suspensions. A recent report co-authored by Perera found that: Eight states have introduced laws. Remove pause restrictions. At least four of them became law.
In Nevada, one of the states that passed the law, a pro-suspension bill repealed a 2019 law that required schools to favor restorative justice programs over suspensions. The new bill also allows schools to suspend students as young as six.it was Sponsored by Clark County Education Association, Teachers Union. In a letter supporting the bill before it passed, the union’s president, Marie Neisses, argued that alternative approaches to suspensions “contribute to the school violence crisis.”
Harsh disciplinary policies disproportionate to Mr. Perera increase racismwhich can lead to poor academic performance and an inability to even help other students in the classroom.
tough love
Part of the problem may be that alternative disciplinary models are difficult to implement.
Unfortunately, the evidence for alternatives such as restorative justice and positive behavioral interventions is mixed, says Chris Curran, director of the Center for Educational Policy Research at the University of Florida’s College of Education.
What really matters, he says, is how you put it into practice.
Until just a few years ago, the most rigorous evidence on the restorative justice model of school discipline was It seems unfortunate.Research — including research in Pittsburgh since 2018 and from another Maine in 2019 — suggested that although the model had promise, implementation was unstable and results were mixed.
Curran says schools looking to switch to restorative justice programs lack resources and training.
He added that practices like restorative justice circles, where students sit down after an incident to repair relationships through discussion, are outside of what teachers are typically trained to do. It also requires dedicated time and space, which Curran says can be difficult to pull off when a teacher is responsible for her 20 other students without trained counselors or support staff.
Another problem? timing. Schools began transitioning to these models around the time of the pandemic.
Since school reopened, Recognition that discipline problems continue to worsensome teachers reported: fear for one’s own safety. Adding additional hardship and uncertainty to schools already facing staffing shortages.
Some researchers believe that more evidence is emerging that these models work. For example, Perera argues that: Research conducted this year in Chicago public schools We found that restorative practices improved the school environment without causing further classroom disruption.Suspensions have decreased and arrests have been made. inside or outside schooldecreased.
The study showed that the greatest benefits from restorative justice programs occurred in schools with the most robust implementation, Perera said. Although it is still unclear what exact supports are most important, Perera believes this is an indication that schools need dedicated resources to support educators.
On the other hand, there is also pressure to act.
Teachers are feeling stressed and overworked after the pandemic, and schools can feel chaotic if schools fail to implement strong alternative discipline systems, Perera said. That can reinforce the impression that the system isn’t working, she says.
But she insists that is a premature assessment.
Perera said this is a complete change in how schools approach discipline and will require a lot of resources. Perera added that it is cheaper and easier for lawmakers to pass a law green-lighting a suspension than to launch a new paradigm.
University of Florida’s Curran says there’s a lot of promise in these alternative approaches, certainly more so than in turning back the clock. It’s an investment in putting the resources in place to do it. ”
Curran argues that it’s important to take a step back and understand the root causes of what schools are seeing. School leaders should think locally. He suspects much of the increase in cheating is driven by the trauma of the pandemic, which has cut off students’ relationships with teachers and peers. In such situations, he says, it’s more beneficial to establish a positive environment and focus on instruction that is truly engaging, rather than suspending the child who is acting out and further isolating them.
