By Nirvi Shah, Education Week, 10/5/11

Black and Hispanic students are far more likely to be kicked out of school when they break the rules, including some that often have nothing to do with keeping students safe, according to a new report from a civil rights research and advocacy group.

And school discipline records are too often seen as a measure of how safe a school is and not often enough as a gauge of how healthy a school is academically, said Daniel J. Losen, the report’s author and the senior education law and policy associate at the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at the University of California, Los Angeles. But he said there is no evidence that banishing some students will improve the education of classmates still in school, while studies have show that punishing students increases their risk of dropping out.

This latest report’s release coincides with the Dignity In Schools campaign’s National Week of Action on School Pushout, which involves demonstrations in 14 states and the District of Columbia. The group advocates an end to zero-tolerance policies and the use of other methods to discipline students, such as positive behavioral interventions and supports, spokesman Joao Da Silva said.

As originally appeared in Education Week, October 5, 2011.  Excerpted with permission from Editorial Projects in Education.