Across the United States, schools use various punitive discipline practices that result in students being removed from class, such as suspensions, expulsions, transfers to an alternative education setting, or referrals to law enforcement. These practices weaken students’ connection with school by depriving students of valuable learning time and creating an environment that erodes students’ well-being and sense of safety at school. These students often end up pushed out of school altogether, as research shows that punitive discipline practices are associated with poor student achievement and a failure to complete school.
This kind of disconnection from school creates pathways to contact with the juvenile and criminal legal systems. These school-to-confinement pathways disproportionately affect students of color, especially Black girls. To disrupt school-to-confinement pathways, schools must address the disciplinary practices that drive school pushout.
To help schools, policymakers, practitioners, & advocates put into place evidence-informed solutions that enhance the safety and wellbeing of Black girls & gender-expansive youth, the National Black Women's Justice Institute has created the Black Girls' Pushout & Criminalization in Schools Data Hub. Using data from the U.S. Department of Education's Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) from 2011- 2018, we aim to highlight and address the issue of school pushout and harsh disciplinary practices that disproportionately affect Black girls.
Join us for the launch of this new data hub where we will introduce and demonstrate this new data tool and discuss how schools, policymakers, practitioners, & advocates can use this in their work.
