Exclusionary Discipline Doesn't Work? Says Who — Show Me the Research

Exclusionary discipline doesn't work.

The research says exclusionary discipline doesn't work.

People say that kind of thing in my comments all the time.

And when I ask, what research are we talking about that says that suspension and things like that don't work?

What do you mean by that?

Who's saying that?

What research?

Nobody has ever shared an actual example.

So if you have an example of research that says exclusionary discipline does not work, please send it to me and I'd be happy to take a look at it.

But I think when people say things like that, what they mean is that exclusionary discipline does not have a 0% recidivism rate, right?

Like if you...

suspend a student for, say, getting in a fight, there is some chance that that kind of thing will happen again, and some chance that it will not, right?

It's neither zero nor 100%.

And I think we should expect any kind of action that we take as a school to be in the middle somewhere, to have some effect, not no effect, but not a perfect effect.

And I have to wonder, like, what bar do people have in their minds for what would constitute working?

Because to me, the goal of exclusionary discipline is to put a boundary in place to protect the learning environment.

And I can't necessarily stop a student who gets in a fight from ever getting in a fight again.

I don't think there's anything that could completely prevent that from happening again.

But I can minimize the number of fights that occur at my school by using exclusionary discipline so that everybody knows if you get in a fight, you're going to get suspended.

That's just how it goes.

But if we don't have that predictability, if we say, well, we're just going to have like a conversation with the kids and we're going to help them work it out.

If they get into a fistfight, well, then kids are very smart.

Kids are going to realize very quickly that there aren't any actual consequences to fighting and they're going to do it more.

And my comments are filled with thousands and thousands of replies from educators who are sharing what's happening in their schools and saying this is happening in our school.

Kids are getting into more trouble.

You know, the behavior has gotten worse because there are no consequences.

So I think when it comes to this idea that exclusionary discipline doesn't work, we have to think about what that really means logically, and we have to think about how that would be researched.

And I think some of the research that people are talking about is the correlational research that says, you know, the more you get in trouble, the worse your life outcomes.

And of course we would expect that kind of correlation, right?

Like if you get suspended from school 10 times, you're probably not going to graduate from college.

There's a very good chance you're not even going to graduate from high school, but that is a correlation, not a causation.

That same kid, if you don't suspend them ever for doing those same things is still going to probably have some, some bad life outcomes.

So We have to not be confused about the research, but we also have to understand why research is done.

Every school has practiced exclusionary disciplines since forever.

So if you're a researcher, that is not an appealing subject to study, to say, you know, how effective is it to use this practice that's completely universal?

What is appealing to researchers is new stuff like restorative justice, but we have to be very, very careful to listen to educators about how that is going.

So let me know what you think.