Holding Schools Accountable for Discipline Stats Doesn't Work
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder argues that accountability based on suspension numbers leads to gaming the data rather than improving school safety.
Key Takeaways
- Quotas don't equal fairness - Pressuring schools to reduce suspension numbers doesn't make discipline fairer — it makes schools hide problems
- Campbell's Law strikes again - When discipline stats become targets, schools manipulate them rather than address underlying issues
- Focus on fairness, not numbers - The goal should be consistent, fair application of rules, not hitting statistical targets
Transcript
How should schools be held accountable for how they're disciplining students?
I saw this comment, our state informed us we are suspending and expelling too many students.
So now drug possession is now a slap on the wrist for a first offense.
If we look only at the raw numbers, what we're going to end up doing is punishing the schools that serve the lowest income students, the neediest students, the students who have the most going on in their lives that makes it difficult for them to succeed in school.
And the better way that, I don't know that anybody really does this, the better way is is to look at the procedural elements, right?
If a student gets in trouble, are they treated fairly?
Is their individual situation investigated thoroughly?
And do they get a consistent consequence compared to other students?
That should be the kind of thing that we're looking at, not the overall numbers.
Because really what we're doing with stuff like this is we're just disincentivizing educators from working in high-needs schools, right?
Schools that have more issues with drugs, more issues with violence.
And everybody...
no matter what community they live in, no matter what school they choose to work in, deserves to be safe, right?
All of those students who go to school with that student who brings drugs to school deserve a safe education.
They deserve a safe place to learn.
And it doesn't work to have this kind of quota system that says, well, you already suspended 11 kids this month.
You can't suspend any more.
Well, what if somebody brings drugs to school?
Yes, they need to be suspended or maybe expelled.
And it does not work to just look at the numbers and hold schools accountable for the numbers because students vary, right?
On any given day, any given student can choose to do something that should get them sent out of school.
And you can't fix that with accountability, right?
The school being held accountable by the state or whatever is not going to change that child's behavior.
what the school should be accountable for is how they treat their students.
And I believe the way we treat students needs to be, above all else, fair and predictable, right?
When it's predictable that if you bring drugs to school, you're probably going to get arrested.
Well, that's fair, and it creates a safe environment for everybody, and it creates a strong disincentive against bringing drugs to school.
So this is not complicated, and I feel like we're sticking to this kind of outdated no child left behind style approach to discipline it didn't work with test scores and it's not going to work with accountability for discipline statistics it's only going to make schools unsafe and it's going to make educators not want to work in those schools let me know what you think