Reprimand a class comic, restrain a bully, dismiss a student for brazen attire--and you may be facing a lawsuit, costly regardless of the result. This reality for today's teachers and administrators has made the issue of school discipline more difficult than ever before--and public education thus more precarious. This is the troubling message delivered in Judging School Discipline, a powerfully reasoned account of how decades of mostly well-intended litigation have eroded the moral authority of teachers and principals and degraded the quality of American education. Judging School Discipline casts a backward glance at the roots of this dilemma to show how a laudable concern for civil liberties forty years ago has resulted in oppressive abnegation of adult responsibility now. In a rigorous analysis enriched by vivid descriptions of individual cases, the book explores 1,200 cases in which a school's right to control students was contested. Richard Arum and his colleagues also examine several decades of data on schools to show striking and widespread relationships among court leanings, disciplinary practices, and student outcomes; they argue that the threat of lawsuits restrains teachers and administrators from taking control of disorderly and even dangerous situations in ways the public would support. Table of Contents: Preface 1. Questioning School Authority 2. Student Rights versus School Rules With Irenee R. Beattie 3. How Judges Rule With Irenee R. Beattie 4. From the Bench to the Paddle With Richard Pitt and Jennifer Thompson 5. School Discipline and Youth Socialization With Sandra Way 6. Restoring Moral Authority in American Schools Appendix: Tables Notes Index Reviews of this book: This interesting study casts a critical eye on the American legal system, which [Arum] sees as having undermined the ability of teachers and administrators to socialize teenagers...Arum, it must be pointed out, is adamantly opposed to such measures as zero tolerance, which, he insists, often results in unfair and excessive punishment. What he wisely calls for is not authoritarianism, but for school folks to regain a sense of moral authority so that they can act decisively in matters of school discipline without having to look over their shoulders. --David Ruenzel, Teacher Magazine Reviews of this book: Arum's book should be compulsory reading for the legal profession; they need to recognise the long-term effects of their judgments on the climate of schools and the way in which judgments in favour of individual rights can reduce the moral authority of schools in disciplining errant students. But the author is no copybook conservative, and he is as critical of the Right's get-tough, zero-tolerance authoritarianism as he is of what he eloquently describes as the 'marshmallow effect' of liberal reformers, pushing the rules to their limits and tolerating increased misconduct. --John Dunford, Times Educational Supplement [UK] Reviews of this book: [Arum] argues that discipline is often ineffective because schools' legitimacy and moral authority have been eroded. He holds the courts responsible, because they have challenged schools' legal and moral authority, supporting this claim by examining over 6,200 state and federal appellate court decisions from 1960 to 1992. In describing the structure of these decisions, Arum provides interesting insights into school disciplinary practices and the law. --P. M. Socoski, Choice Reviews of this book: Arum's careful analysis of school discipline becomes so focused and revealing that the ideological boundaries of the debate seem almost to have been suspended. The result is a rich and original book, bold, important, useful, and--as this combination of attributes might suggest--surprising...Many years in the making, Judging School Discipline weds historical, theoretical, and statistical research within the problem-solving stance of a teacher working to piece together solutions in the interest of his students. The result is a book that promises to shape research as well as practice through its demonstration that students are liberated, as well as oppressed, by school discipline. --Steven L. VanderStaay, Urban Education Reviews of this book: [Arum's] break with education-school dogma on student rights is powerful and goes far toward explaining why so many teachers dread their students--when they are not actually fighting them off. --Heather MacDonald, Wall Street Journal

Kupchik shows that security policies lead schools to prioritize the rules instead of students, so that students' real problems--often the very reasons for their misbehavior--get ignored.

This edited volume fills a critical void by providing the most current and authoritative information on what is known about disciplinary disparities. School exclusion—out-of-school suspension and expulsion in particular—remains a substantial component of discipline in our nation’s schools, and those consequences continue to fall disproportionally on certain groups of learners. The negative consequences of frequent and inequitable use of school exclusion are substantial, including higher rates of academic failure, dropout, and contact with the juvenile justice system. As educators, policymakers, community leaders, and other youth-serving organizations begin the difficult work of creating more equitable school disciplinary systems, the need for effective disparity-reducing alternatives could not be more important. Drawing on the multi-year ground-breaking work of the Discipline Disparities Collaborative, the chapters in this book provide cutting edge knowledge supporting a new national imperative to eliminate race, gender, disability, and sexual orientation-based disciplinary disparities.

Truly international in scope, this Handbook focuses on approaches to discipline, surveillance and social control from around the world, critically examining the strategies and practices schools employ to monitor students and control their behavior. Bringing together leading scholars from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, the chapters scrutinize, analyze and compare schools' practices across the globe, providing a critical review of existing evidence, debates and understandings, while looking forward to address emerging important questions and key policy issues. The chapters are divided into four sections. Part 1 offers accounts of international trends in school discipline, surveillance and punishment; Part 2 examines the merging of school strategies with criminal justice practices; Part 3 focuses on developments in school technological surveillance; and Part 4 concludes by discussing restorative and balanced approaches to school discipline and behavior management. As the first Handbook to draw together these multiple themes into one text, and the first international comparative collection on school discipline, surveillance and social control, it will appeal to scholars across a range of fields including sociology, education, criminology, critical security studies and psychology, providing a unique, timely, and indispensable resource for undergraduate educators and researchers.

Schools across the U.S. look very different today than they did a generation ago. Police officers, drug-sniffing dogs, surveillance cameras, and high suspension rates have become commonplace. The Real School Safety Problem uncovers the unintended but far-reaching effects of harsh school discipline climates. Evidence shows that current school security practices may do more harm than good by broadly affecting the entire family, encouraging less civic participation in adulthood, and garnering future financial costs in the form of high rates of arrests, incarceration, and unemployment. This text presents a blueprint for reform that emphasizes problem-solving and accountability while encouraging the need to implement smarter school policies.Ê

On his very first day of school as a substitute teacher, Cinque Henderson was cursed at and openly threatened by one of his students. Not wanting trouble or any broken bones, Henderson called the hall monitor, who escorted the student to the office. But five minutes later the office sent him back with a note that read, “Ok to return to class.” That was it: no suspension, no detention, no phone call home, nothing. Sit Down and Shut Up: How Discipline Can Set Students Free is a passionate and personal analysis of Henderson's year as substitute teacher in some of America’s toughest schools. Students disrespected, yelled at, and threatened teachers, abetted by a school system and political culture that turned a willfully blind eye to the economic and social decline that created the problem. Henderson concludes that the failures of our worst schools are the result of a population in crisis: classrooms are microcosms of all our nation’s most vexing issues of race and class. The legacy and stain of race—the price of generational trauma, the cost of fatherlessness, the failures of capitalism, the false promise of meritocracy—played itself out in every single interaction Henderson had with an aggressive student, an unengaged parent, or a failed administrator. In response to the chaos he found in the classroom, Henderson proposes a recommitment to the notion that discipline—wisely and properly understood, patiently and justly administered—is the only proper route to freedom and opportunity for generations of poor youth. With applications far beyond the classroom, Henderson’s experiences offer novel insights into the pressing racial, social, and economic issues that have shaped America’s cultural landscape. Sure to ignite discussion and controversy, Sit Down and Shut Up provides a frank evaluation of the broken classrooms of America and offers a bold strategy for fixing them.

A Brookings Institution Press and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute publication From race to speech, from religion to school funding, from discipline to special education, few aspects of education policy have escaped the courtroom over the past fifty years. Predictably, much controversy has ensued. Supporters of education litigation contend that the courts are essential to secure student (and civil) rights, while critics insist that the courts distort policy and that the mere threat of litigation undermines the authority of teachers and administrators. From Schoolhouse to Courthouse brings together experts on law, political science, and education policy to test these claims. Shep Melnick (Boston College) and James Ryan (University of Virginia School of Law) draw lessons from judicial efforts to promote school desegregation and civil rights. Martha Derthick (University of Virginia), John Dinan (Wake Forest University), and Michael Heise (Cornell Law School) discuss litigation over high-stakes testing and school finance in the era of No Child Left Behind. Richard Arum (New York University), Samuel R. Bagenstos (Washington University Law School), and Frederick M. Hess (American Enterprise Institute) analyze the consequences of court rulings for school discipline, special education, and district management. Finally, editors Joshua Dunn and Martin R. West probe the tangled relationship between religious freedom, student speech, and school choice.