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Students in the foster care system tend to have lower educational outcomes than their peers, including more frequent disciplinary events. However, few studies have explored how transitions into and out of foster care placements are associated with educational outcomes. Using longitudinal data from four California school districts, this study investigated the dynamics of entering versus exiting foster care to predict school discipline and how this relationship ultimately influences absenteeism. Our findings suggest that students in foster care are more likely than their peers to face disciplinary action, especially exclusionary discipline, particularly when entering foster care. We also find suggestive evidence that disciplinary actions upon entry increase student absenteeism for students in foster care.

National context: Schools across the United States have long grappled with the role and impact of school-based police officers, often referred to as school resource officers (SROs). Proponents for school-based policing believe that SROs contribute to school safety by preventing or addressing crime and violence in schools. Opponents of SROs in schools argue that the presence of SROs criminalizes students and increases the likelihood of school-based arrest, particularly for students of color. Policies around SROs vary in districts across the country. Chicago context: In the wake of George Floyd's murder in 2020, the Chicago Board of Education (CBOE) asked the district to develop a plan to phase-out the SRO program, which assigned two SROs to most Chicago Public Schools (CPS) high schools. In February 2024, the CBOE voted to remove all remaining SROs from schools starting in 2024-25. In May 2024, CPS proposed a Whole School Safety Policy that did not include SROs and focused on supports for physical safety, emotional safety, and relational trust in schools. The research: This brief examines what happened when Chicago Public Schools (CPS) began the process of removing School Resource Officers (SROs) from its high schools during the 2020-21 school year. These findings can inform conversations in Chicago, and across the country, about SROs and whole school safety practices and policies--while recognizing that questions about the presence of police and the experience of safety in schools are complex and reflect differences in lived experiences and perspectives across policymakers, practitioners, young people, families, and communities. The findings are part of a larger, ongoing study by researchers from the UChicago Consortium; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; and Lurie Children's Hospital's Center for Childhood Resilience. [This research brief received additional support from the Pritzker-Pucker Family Foundation and the Consortium Investor Council.]

We investigate the beginning of the school discipline pipeline using a reform in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools that limited the use of out-of-school suspension for students in grades K-2. We find that the reform reduced the likelihood of out-of-school suspension by 1.4 percentage points (56%) and had precise null effects on test scores and disciplinary infractions. This leads us to reject a key argument in favor of early-grade suspensions: namely, that early-grade suspensions improve classroom-level outcomes. For high-risk students, we find short-run increases in test scores that persist into third grade. The reform reduced the Black-white out-of-school suspension gap by 79%. [Author Sarah Komisarow received funding from the Duke University Office of the Provost for this work.]

The Department for Education (DfE) is committed to minimising the use of reasonable force, including physical restraint and other restrictive practices in all schools in England, including special schools and alternative provision. This work programme will include updating the 'Use of reasonable force' guidance (2013) to provide school staff with advice on how to minimise the use of physical restraint and, in instances where it is absolutely necessary and lawful to use reasonable force or restrictive practices, to do so as safely as possible. The DfE commissioned Revealing Reality to carry out research to understand how special and alternative provision schools in England currently use reasonable force, including physical restraint and other restrictive practices, and to learn what these schools believe works to effectively minimise the need to use such methods. The research was qualitative, with findings drawn from analysis of interviews with school leaders and staff from a total of 45 special and alternative provision schools, plus additional evidence gathered from site visits to four of these schools.

Many educators in California are unaware of just how harmful out of school suspensions can be. When suspended students are barred from attending school, more often than not, the rule broken was some form of minor misconduct. This update of "Lost Instruction Time in California Schools" demonstrates that despite the important efforts by the state of California to reduce suspensions, those efforts are seriously insufficient. The most recent statewide rates of lost instruction due to out of school suspensions show a widespread increase in the days lost per 100 students. The increase in these lost instruction rates, is not large for every group, but the 2023 data reverses a consistent downward 6-year trend. In 2023, nearly every racial and ethnic group, as well as students with disabilities, experienced an increase over their rate of lost instruction from the prior year. Using the recently released data for 2023, show that not only are the rates for homeless youth increasing for every demographic, but they increased far more for Black and Native American homeless youth than any other groups.

This brief evaluates the causal effect of attending Las Americas Middle School on newcomer students' early high school outcomes. Using administrative data from the Houston Independent School District (HISD) spanning the 2007-2008 through 2018-2019 school years, the study examined the academic performance, course-taking patterns, and school engagement of newcomer students who did and did not attend Las Americas. Attending Las Americas increased newcomer students' English end-of-course (EOC) exam scores and decreased students' likelihood of receiving disciplinary actions. Newcomer students who attended Las Americas fared similarly to their newcomer peers at other middle schools on all other outcomes. The brief concludes with a discussion of the limitations of the analysis, as well as potential implications for policy and practice.

This brief highlights the urgent need to address chronic absenteeism among American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) students in the United States. It explores the challenges that AI/AN students and their families face in terms of regular school attendance. Systemic barriers, unwelcoming?school environments, biased disciplinary practices, and a lack of culturally relevant curricula are all referenced as?major contributors to chronic absenteeism. The brief emphasizes the importance of working with parents, tribal leaders, community members, educators, policymakers, and other allies to improve AI/AN student attendance rates. Recommendations include investing in positive learning environments tailored specifically to these students' needs, implementing tiered approaches that include prevention strategies, and enacting targeted interventions aimed at removing barriers to attendance. This brief provides practical solutions,?focusing?on successful initiatives such as attendance recognition programs, inclusive graduation events that foster a sense of belonging, and collaboration with tribal governments to provide transportation or medical services.

Over the last decade, California leaders have made tremendous progress on supporting kids in some crucial areas. They have vastly increased the percentage of children enrolled in health insurance and made paid family leave available for most workers. They have also invested in free school meals, committed to universal transitional kindergarten, and significantly cut school suspensions among students of color. On too many issues, however, California has failed to significantly improve outcomes for kids, allowing unacceptable racial and economic disparities to stagnate and in many cases grow. That lack of progress is why low grades are seen all across the 2024 Report Card. What's particularly disturbing is that California continues to trail far behind other states on a number of important indicators of child well-being. Despite the relatively high tax burden, the progressive leanings, and the enviable 5th largest economy in the world, California is far from a leader when it comes to kids. That's not only a threat to the state's collective future, but to the entire country as well since California is so often a bellwether for the nation. The issues in this report must be the top priority issues for state policymakers. The report card is organized into the following sections: (1) Health; (2) Education; (3) Family Supports; (4) Child Welfare; and (5) Cross-Sector Issues.

State law (Revised Code of Washington [RCW] 28A.320.130) requires the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to annually report to the Legislature the number of incidents in violation of RCW 9.41.280, which involves the possession of weapons on school premises, transportation systems, or in areas of facilities while being used exclusively by public or private schools. This update reports on the 2,275 incidents involving the possession of a weapon and the resulting interventions that were reported by Washington's public and private schools for the 2022-2023 school year.

Black Mothers Forum (BMF) was founded in 2016 to combat institutional racism, including disproportionate discipline, unrepresentative curricula, and racial bullying in Phoenix-area schools. When the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted public education, the organization launched a network of microschools as outposts of this mission. These microschools were able to start quickly, make frequent course corrections, and sustain their efforts after the pandemic, thanks in part to Arizona's growing ecosystem of diverse education options. The initial pandemic-era effort to launch these microschools was documented in a case study published by the Center on Reinventing Public Education in 2022. This followup brief revisits the initial case study with an eye toward the pedagogical tensions and questions of sustainability that it brought to light. This brief is based on in-person classroom observations, a new round of interviews with BMF microschool leaders and educators, and an analysis of Arizona's education policy landscape.

The Oregon Statewide Report Card is an annual publication required by law (ORS 329.115), which reports on the state of Oregon's public schools. The purpose of the Statewide Report Card is to monitor trends among school districts and Oregon's progress toward achieving the goals referred to in ORS 329.015. This report also provides a tool that makes education data accessible to researchers, media, students, and families and creates a clear, complete, and factual picture of the state of education in Oregon. [For the 2021-2022 report, see ED628178.]

The 2020-21 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) is a mandatory survey of all public school districts and schools serving students in preschool through grade 12 in the 50 states, Washington, D.C., and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and therefore includes data from 17,821 public school districts and 97,575 public schools. The CRDC measures student access to courses, programs, Internet and devices, instructional and other staff, and resources -- as well as school climate factors such as student discipline, use of restraint and seclusion, harassment or bullying, and offenses occurring at schools -- that impact education opportunity for students. A First Look provides an overview of CRDC data public school districts submitted to the U.S Department of Education's (ED) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) for the 2020-21 school year. The calculated counts and percentages in this report may differ from those reported by other offices within ED due to differences in methodology, data sources, and survey population (or the universe of schools and school districts that submit data). OCR cautions readers and data users to consider the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on students and on education conditions when comparing the 2020-21 CRDC to CRDCs from previous years.

Research for Action (RFA) studied why Black teachers were leaving their jobs more than White teachers in Allegheny County from 2014 to 2020. RFA analyses found that the number of Black teachers in the area was consistently dropping, more than the decrease in the overall Black population. The data gathered from speaking directly with 38 current and former Black teachers about their perspectives and experiences through interviews and focus groups conducted in the spring of 2023 yielded three key takeaways: (1) Black teachers support Allegheny County students and schools in several unique and important ways; (2) Black teachers face many challenges that impact their experiences as educators in Allegheny County; and (3) Several factors retain and sustain Black teachers in Allegheny County. The report offers insights into the working conditions for Black teachers and provides recommendations for policymakers, school leaders, teacher diversity initiatives, and the wider community for how to improve efforts to recruit, hire, retain, and sustain Black teachers within the region and beyond. [Additional funding provided by the McElhattan Foundation and the Eden Hall Foundation.]

Over the years, the nation's large urban school districts have consistently learned from the progress of their peer districts across the country. Great City School districts that have embraced the challenge of educating America's urban children have recognized the value of benchmarking their performance and growth against the progress of others. The authorization of the Performance Measurement and Benchmarking Project to develop and implement key performance indicators across the member school districts in operations, business services, finances, human resources, and technology was followed by the authorization of the Academic Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to gauge performance. This 2023 report presents an updated set of data for school year 2021-22 and presents several different ways that member districts can analyze the data themselves by disaggregating results, showing trends, and combining variables. This report focuses on the data collection and analysis of the following Academic KPIs: (1) Pre-K enrollment relative to Kindergarten enrollment; (2) Algebra I completion rates for credit by grade 9; (3) Ninth grade course failure rates--at least one core course; (4) Ninth graders with B average (GPA) or better; (5) Absentee rates by grade level; (6) Suspension rates; (7) Instructional days missed per 100 students due to suspensions; (8) AP participation rates; (9) AP-equivalent participation rates; (10) AP exam pass rates; and (11) Four-year graduation rate.

While the statewide trends and disparities suggest that the rate of lost instruction in California due to out-of-school suspension (OSS) is about where it was before the COVID-19 school closures, this is the first report to highlight how post-COVID suspensions in 2021-2022 have added to the pandemic's harmful impact of instructional loss, especially for students from "high-needs" groups, who were most harmed by the pandemic. This report analyzes California Department of Education (CDE) data sources to provide a detailed review of how suspensions directly contribute to disparities in learning opportunities for students in foster care or experiencing homelessness, as well as along the lines of race and disability in every California school district. It also describes evidence of extreme differences in how some districts responded to student misconduct in 2021--2022 and uses the data on student enrollment and the raw count of days lost due to OSS to establish a baseline measure for calculating comparable rates of lost instruction for every group in every district in California.

School districts historically approached conflict-resolution from a zero-sum perspective: suspend students seen as disruptive and potentially harm them, or avoid suspensions and harm their classmates. Restorative practices (RP) -- focused on reparation and shared ownership of disciplinary justice -- are designed to avoid this trade-off by addressing undesirable behavior without imparting harm. This study examines Chicago Public Schools' adoption of RP. We identify decreased suspensions, improved school climate, and find no evidence of increased classroom disruption. We estimate a 19% decrease in arrests, including for violent offenses, with reduced arrests outside of school, providing evidence that RP substantively changed behavior. [Additional funding provided by the Becker Friedman Institute for Economics at the University of Chicago and the Hymen Milgrom Supporting Organization through the Successful Pathways from School to Work initiative of the University of Chicago.]

The overarching goal of the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation (MIHOPE) is to provide information about whether families and children benefit from Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program-funded early childhood home visiting programs as they operated from 2012 to 2017, and if so, how. The MIECHV Program is administered by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in collaboration with the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). The MIHOPE study team first estimated the effects of MIECHV-funded early childhood home visiting programs around the time the study child was 15 months of age. To ensure that the study was in a strong position to conduct later data collection with families, the MIHOPE team asked families for updated contact information when children were about 2.5 and 3.5 years of age so that they could be contacted in the future. At the 2.5-year check-in point, the study team maintained contact with 70 percent of families--51 percent of families responded to the survey. At the 3.5-year check-in point, the study team maintained contact with 65 percent of families--48 percent of families responded to the survey. Although the primary purpose of checking in with families was to obtain updated contact information, families were also asked to complete 30-minute surveys that included a limited set of questions about six outcome areas (maternal health, child health, family economic self-sufficiency, discipline practices and strategies, parental support for cognitive development, and child functioning). This report uses these data to provide a snapshot of families' life circumstances and the effects of MIECHV-funded home visiting, but the study team could only measure a limited set of outcomes and could not comprehensively assess any of the outcome areas examined. Of the six confirmatory outcomes examined at each time point, only one estimated effect was statistically significant, suggesting that home visiting did not have effects on these particular outcomes as measured through parent report. However, an analysis of all outcomes (both confirmatory and exploratory) in each outcome area indicated positive effects in the areas of parental support for cognitive development and child functioning.

Emotional, behavioral, and mental health challenges make it difficult for many children and adolescents to engage and succeed at school. Research indicates that at least 20% of all children and adolescents have been diagnosed with one more mental health disorders. Behavioral problems, anxiety, and depression are the most diagnosed mental health issues, and they often co-occur. Moreover, these conditions are being diagnosed at increasingly younger ages. In the past several years there has been a rise in the number of adolescents and young adults with serious mental health issues such as major depression and suicidal ideation, and the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated mental health problems for children and adolescents. Schools offer promise for providing intensive clinical support to the most at-risk students, and schools are necessary environment to explore the implementation of multi-modal youth mental health services. This paper provides an analysis of an intensive, in-school mental health services model developed and implemented by Effective School Solutions (ESS), a New Jersey based provider of high acuity school based mental health services for K-12 students. We analyze this multi-modal model for its effectiveness in improving educational outcomes for over 3,000 students identified as requiring intensive clinical mental health support across the 2021-22 school year. This analysis reveals that those students receiving High- versus Low-fidelity programming (i.e., multiple sessions per week for at least half of the school year versus for less than half of the school year) had better educational outcomes. Students receiving High-fidelity programming had greater improvements in grade point average (GPA) and greater reductions in absences across the school year. A higher number of in-school clinical sessions per week significantly predicted a greater increase in GPA and a greater reduction in total disciplinary incidents (including out of school suspensions) across the school year. This report provides initial promising evidence that in-school intensive mental health clinical services yield positive effects on students' educational outcomes. Though future research is needed to validate and extend these findings, schools may consider implementing such services onsite to meet students where they are and to optimize students' mental, behavioral, and educational well-being. [This white paper report was published by the Yale Child Study Center."]

Expulsion and suspension (or exclusionary discipline) in early care and education (ECE) are widely recognized as harmful to children. Numerous states have developed expulsion and suspension prevention policies through legislation or administrative rules. However, there is limited research on the implementation of state policies designed to reduce exclusionary discipline and on ECE providers' use of program supports that could help reduce exclusionary discipline practices. In this report, we use survey data to investigate Arkansas ECE program leaders' and teachers' understanding of the state's expulsion prevention policy, their use of suspension and expulsion and their participation in professional development (PD) and other supports to meet the needs of children with challenging behavior. We also explore how teachers' attributions of the reasons for challenging behavior predict their use of the available PD and supports. Key findings include: (1) Publicly funded programs in Arkansas (which are subject to state policy) engaged in exclusionary discipline at lower rates than non-publicly funded programs, despite reporting a higher percentage of children with challenging behavior; (2) Many Arkansas ECE program leaders were aware of the state's expulsion prevention policy, but fewer demonstrated a strong understanding of the requirements; (3) More than three quarters of Arkansas ECE teachers reported receiving some form of PD or training on topics such as encouraging positive teacher-child interactions, promoting children's positive behavior and helping children develop skills like managing their emotions; and (4) The use of exclusionary discipline practices was related to teachers' views of families as a reason for children's challenging behavior. At the end of the report, we offer recommendations based on these findings.

This study analyzes how the availability of Black and Hispanic teachers within schools in the Houston Independent School District is related to Hispanic and Black students' academic and behavioral outcomes during the 2018--19 and 2019--20 school years. The analyses found that Hispanic and Black students' test scores, attendance and discipline referrals are shaped by the demographics of their fellow students and faculty. Specifically, Hispanic students attending schools where the majority of both teachers and students were also Hispanic had higher test scores, lower absenteeism and lower disciplinary referrals. In contrast, the opposite was found to be the case for Black students: When they attended schools with lower proportions of Black students and teachers, these students tended to have better reading scores, less absenteeism and fewer disciplinary referrals. These results may be due to systemic disadvantages facing some schools in predominantly Black communities. [For the second brief, "Campus Teacher Characteristics and Outcomes for Black and Hispanic Students. Research Brief for the Houston Independent School District," see ED630801.]

This study investigates how teacher qualifications at the campus level were related to achievement, absenteeism, and discipline outcomes for Black and Hispanic students in the Houston Independent School District (HISD) during the 2018-19 and 2019-20 school years. Campus-level teacher qualifications included shares of advanced degrees, formal backgrounds in education, certifications in special education (SPED), certifications in English as a Second Language/Bilingual Education (ESL), and above-district-average years of teaching experience. Some qualifications were related to different outcomes for Black and Hispanic students, but overall, campus-level teacher qualifications were related to higher achievement, lower absenteeism, and lower disciplinary referrals for both racial/ethnic groups in HISD. [For the first brief, "Achieving Equity in Access to Qualified Teachers in HISD. Research Brief for the Houston Independent School District," see ED630780.]

This guide is designed for use by school, district, and state education agency staff to improve the effectiveness of efforts to collect and use discipline data, including reporting accurate and timely data to the federal government. It explains the importance of collecting discipline data, identifies key considerations for agencies implementing and managing a discipline data system, and discusses how discipline data can be used and reported effectively. Case studies provide examples of successful practices used in local education agencies (LEAs) and state education agencies (SEAs). One goal of the Forum is to improve the quality of education data gathered for use by policymakers and program decision makers. An approach to furthering this goal has been to pool the collective experiences of Forum members to produce "best practice" guides in areas of high interest to those who collect, maintain, and use data about elementary and secondary education. The accurate, consistent, and timely collection and reporting of discipline data by schools, districts, and SEAs is one of those high-interest areas. This guide reflects the judgment of experienced data managers. There is no mandate to follow these principles. The authors hope that the contents are a useful reference to others in their work.

In 2013, California implemented an ambitious school funding reform, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), which allocates state funding by the proportion of unduplicated "high-need" students in the district: those from low-income families, English learners, and those in foster care. Using student-level longitudinal data for all California schoolchildren, the study is the first comprehensive investigation of LCFF's impacts on student outcomes, including math and reading achievement, grade repetition, school disciplinary incidents, high school graduation, and college readiness. The analyses show that LCFF-induced funding increases significantly improved academic achievement for every grade and subject assessed, reduced grade repetition, enabled lower suspension rates, and increased the likelihood of students graduating from high school and being college-ready. The impact on student achievement grew with years of exposure to increased funding and with the amount of the funding increase. District investments in instructional inputs, including reduced class size, increased teacher salaries, and teacher retention, were associated with improved student outcomes. [Additional funding from the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) Population Center pilot grant.]