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There is extensive evidence suggesting that school suspension is correlated with poor academic performance. However, many studies examining the association between school suspension and achievement focus on the effects of out-of-school suspension specifically. While in-school suspension is offered as a less harmful alternative consequence to out-of-school suspension, the effects of in-school suspension on academic achievement are largely unknown. This article examines the association between in-school suspensions and academic failure on standardized achievement tests. The study utilized secondary data from two cohorts of 380,826 ninth-grade students enrolled in Texas public schools to investigate how many in-school suspensions result in failure on a state standardized achievement test. Our results show that a single in-school suspension is predictive of significant risk for academic failure (greater than 25% chance of failure) on a state-wide standardized test controlling for a host of individual and school characteristics. We also find that this relationship between discipline and risk for standardized test failure is more pronounced for students of color. The implications for school psychologists in terms of curtailing the potential negative impact of in-school suspension on student achievement are discussed.

African American and Hispanic students receive more punitive school discipline than White students even when students of color commit similar infractions as Whites. Similarly, students with a disability status are more likely to experience harsher discipline in schools compared to their counterparts without a disability label. This study examines whether these discrepancies are a result of a difference in the number of infractions students of different racial/ethnic groups and disability categories commit. Using secondary educational data from a state educational agency in the United States, we demonstrate that African American and Hispanic students and students with an emotional behavioral disorder status receive more severe sanctions than White students and students without a disability label at their first discipline encounter. This racial disparity in discipline severity continues through six sanctions and is eliminated at the 13th sanction. The disability disparity in discipline severity dissipates after 10 sanctions for students with emotional behavioral disorder and intellectual disability. Implications for school personnel and future directions are discussed.