New data shows fewer students are being disciplined in Mass. schools
Fewer students are getting expelled or suspended at Massachusetts schools, according to data released by the state this week.
During the 2014-15 school year, 10,000 fewer students were disciplined than in the 2013-14 school year, which is a 20 percent decrease, according to data reported by The Boston Globe. Boston public schools disciplined about 5 percent of their 58,000 students last year, which is a 6 percent decrease from the year before.
The state defines a “disciplinary measure’’ as expulsion, out-of-school suspension, and in-school suspension. A disciplinary measure is given to a student who breaks any number of rules, including showing uncontrollable behavior, skipping school, fighting, bringing drugs or a weapon to school, or assaulting a teacher.
Some education officials interviewed by the Globe believe the drop is a sign that schools are following a state law enacted in July 2014 that aims to reduce long-term suspensions — defined as more than 10 days — so students who are punished don’t miss lessons and fall behind.
“To see across-the-board drops by race, disability, and language-learner status is a positive step forward for our state,’’ Matt Cregor, a staff attorney for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice, a nonpartisan legal organization in Boston that published a report last year about school discipline, told the Globe.
But, though the overall rate of discipline dropped, the Globe said Black, Latino, and poor students receive out-of-school suspensions at higher rates than their white classmates.
Charter schools have some of the highest discipline rates. Roxbury Preparatory Charter, City on a Hill Charter in Dudley Square, and City on a Hill Charter in New Bedford had the highest rates of out-of-school suspension statewide — between 35 percent and 40 percent, according to the Globe.
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