Do elementary schools that document reductions in overall
office discipline referrals document reductions across all student races and
ethnicities?
Evaluation Brief
Claudia G. Vincent, Gwendolyn Cartledge, Seth May, and Tary
J. Tobin1
It is a
sobering and increasingly undeniable reality that, compared to their white
peers, students from minority backgrounds, especially African-American
students, are referred to the office more frequently (Cartledge & Johnson,
2004; Lo & Cartledge, 1996; Raffaele Mendez & Knoff, 2003; Skiba, Michael,
Nardo, & Peterson, 2002), are referred for less severe
offenses (Skiba et al., under review), are suspended or expelled more
frequently (Skiba, Peterson, & Williams, 1997), and tend to be suspended
for longer durations (Tobin &
Vincent, under review; Vincent & Tobin, under review).
Efforts
to make disciplinary practices equitable for students from all racial-ethnic
backgrounds include the use of data collection systems that encourage disciplinary
consistency across students and teachers and allow schools to review potential
trends in their office discipline referral (ODR) data across student groups,
locations, times, or behaviors. The School-wide Information System (SWIS; www.swis.org; May et al.,
2003) is one ODR data collection system that relies on operational, mutually
exclusive, and exhaustive definitions of behavioral violations to minimize
potential bias in disciplinary practices due to varying interpretations of
student behavior. In SWIS, two groups of behavioral violations exist: minor
problem behaviors and major problem behaviors. Minor problem behaviors include
low-intensity defiance, low-intensity disruption, inappropriate language, and
inappropriate physical contact. Major problem behaviors include abusive
language, insubordination, sustained disruption, and fighting.
To assess
equity of their disciplinary practices across student ethnicities, SWIS users
have the option to record ethnicity information for their overall school
enrollment, as well as for each student who is entered into SWIS because he or
she received an ODR. Prior to the
2009-2010 academic year, SWIS users could choose from the following racial-ethnic
categories: (1) American Indian/Alaskan Native, (2) Asian, (3) African
American, (4) Hispanic/Latino, (5) Pacific Islander/Native Hawaiian, (6) White,
(7) Unknown, and (8) Not Listed. Because of the new federal race and ethnicity
categories to be used by schools starting in 2010-2011, SWIS is currently
revising its race and ethnicity categories to match federal guidelines.
Beginning in 2009-2010, SWIS users will be able to choose from the following
race and ethnicity categories: (1)
American Indian/Alaskan Native, (2) Asian Race, (3) African American Race, (4)
Hispanic Ethnicity, (5) Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander Race, (6)
White, and (7) Multiple Races (Dickey, 2009). Each ODR recorded in SWIS is
linked to the race and ethnicity information recorded for the student who
received the ODR. ODR data from schools that use SWIS and agree to share their
data for research purposes become part of an extensive research database that
lends itself to examining trends in disciplinary data across multiple years.
Given the
overwhelming evidence of inequitable disciplinary practices and the
availability of an extensive database of ODR, our goal was to examine if elementary
schools that record a decrease of their overall ODR rate across a 3 year time
span in SWIS show similar decreases in ODR rates for students from different
racial and ethnic backgrounds.
Method
Our
sample included elementary schools that (a) were located in the United States,
(b) were not labeled as “alternative” (c) continuously used SWIS during 3 consecutive
academic years (2005-06 to 2007-08), (d) recorded race and ethnicity
information for their overall school enrollment as well as for individual
students, and (e) recorded an overall major ODR rate during 2007-08 that was at
least 10% lower than their overall major ODR rate during 2005-2006. We chose to
focus on major ODRs, because they tend to generate administrative decisions
that can be of significant consequence to the student. Our focus on elementary
schools allowed us to extract a maximally large sample, because the majority of
SWIS users are elementary schools.
A total
of 69 elementary schools met all inclusion criteria. These 69 schools were
located in 16 states; the most frequently represented states were Illinois and
Maryland with 14 (20.3%) schools each, followed by Missouri and North Carolina
with 8 (11.6%) schools each. Table 1 provides an overview of the schools’ enrollment
by race and ethnicity across the 3 years, as well as the total number of ODRs
and mean ODR rates for each academic year.
Table 1: Student enrollment by race and
ethnicity, total number of major ODR per year, and mean ODR rates per year.
| |
2005-06 |
2006-07 |
2007-08 |
| |
Enrollment |
Percent |
Enrollment |
Percent |
Enrollment |
Percent |
Nat American |
159 |
.54 |
158 |
.54 |
135 |
.46 |
Asian |
1241 |
4.24 |
1278 |
4.40 |
1365 |
4.64 |
Latino |
4300 |
14.68 |
4649 |
15.99 |
5072 |
17.23 |
Afr American |
8843 |
30.19 |
9006 |
30.97 |
8947 |
30.39 |
White |
14,032 |
47.91 |
13,242 |
45.54 |
12,891 |
43.79 |
PacIslander |
74 |
.25 |
61 |
.21 |
343 |
1.17 |
NotListed |
305 |
1.04 |
296 |
1.02 |
584 |
1.98 |
Unknown |
335 |
1.14 |
387 |
1.33 |
104 |
.35 |
Total |
29,289 |
100 |
29,077 |
100 |
29,441 |
100
|
Number of major ODR |
19,319 |
16,406 |
12,129 |
Mean rate/100 students/day (SD) |
.38 (.30) |
.31 (.27) |
.23 (.22) |
To assess
if overall reductions in major ODR meant reductions in major ODR for students
from varying ethnicities, we calculated the following two metrics for each
ethnicity: Number of major ODR per 100 students enrolled [(number of major ODR/student
enrolled)*100] and number of students with major ODR per 100 students enrolled
[(number of students with major ODR/students enrolled)*100]. Number of major
ODR indicates the frequency with which a school gives referrals to students
from a specific race or ethnicity; individual students might receive multiple
ODRs. Number of students with major ODR indicates the number of unique students
from a specific race or ethnicity that received at least one major ODR. To
assess the extent to which ODR were proportionately distributed across student races
and ethnicities in our sample, we calculated the percent of students enrolled
and the percent of students with major ODR by ethnicity.
As
follow-up analyses, we also examined if there were differences in ODR patterns
due to gender within racial-ethnic categories. Because SWIS does not record
overall school enrollment by gender, we had to merge SWIS ODR data with
enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) which
reflect enrollment by gender within each race and ethnicity. No NCES data were
available for 3 schools; thus the sample size for the follow-up analyses was n
= 66. Because NCES data are lagged by 2 years, enrollment by gender data for only
the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 academic years were available.
Because
African-American students tend to be disciplined more than any other student
group and Latino students are the fastest growing student group (Gandara &
Contreras, 2009), our follow-up analyses focused on comparing these student
groups to White students.
Results
Overall, results indicated that elementary
schools that documented a reduction in their overall major ODR rates also showed
reductions in numbers of major ODR for each racial-ethnic category of interest
as well as reductions in number of students receiving major ODR. Figure 1
presents changes in major ODR/100 students by race and ethnicity as well as by
gender for African-American, Latino, and White students. The pattern of
reductions from year to year appears to hold across most races and ethnicities.
African-American students clearly received the highest number of ODR within
each year.
Figure
1: Major ODR per 100 students enrolled by race and ethnicity and by gender
within race and ethnicity.
Disaggregation of the data by gender within
ethnicity showed that the vast majority of major ODRs as well as the majority
of reductions involved male students. Male students received approximately 4-5
times as many ODR as did female students; this ratio did not appear to change
across the two years for which data were available. Of all male students,
African-American boys clearly received the greatest number of ODR in both
years. Of all female students, African-American girls clearly received the
greatest number of ODR in both years.
Figure 2 presents changes in number of students
with major ODR per 100 students enrolled. The pattern of reductions from year
to year appears to hold for all races and ethnicities; however, among all
students with ODR, African-American students were clearly the most frequently
represented. In year 1, approximately 32 of 100 African-American students
received a major ODR, while approximately 15 of 100 White students did. In year
3, approximately 24 of 100 African-American students received an ODR, while
approximately 12 of 100 White students did.
Disaggregation of the data by gender within race
or ethnicity showed that among all male students with major ODR,
African-American boys were the most frequently represented, and among all
female students with major ODR, African-American girls were the most frequently
represented.
Figure
2: Students with major ODR per 100 students enrolled by race and ethnicity and
by gender within race and ethnicity.
Figure
3 provides an estimate about the proportionality of students with major ODR
relative to their overall enrollment for African-American, Latino, and White
students. African-American students were clearly over-represented among
students with major ODR in all 3 years, while Latino and White students were
underrepresented. Disaggregation of the data by gender within race and ethnicity
showed that African-American boys were clearly over-represented among students
with major ODR in the 2 years for which data were available, while Latino and
White boys were approximately proportionately represented. African-American
girls were approximately proportionately represented in the two years for which
data were available, while Latino and White girls were under-represented.
Figure
3: Percent of students enrolled and percent of students with major ODR by race
and ethnicity and by gender within race and ethnicity.
Discussion
It is encouraging to see that patterns
of reductions in overall ODR rates apply to students from varying racial-ethnic
backgrounds. It is less encouraging to see that the disproportionately high
number of African-American students with ODR persisted despite overall
reductions in ODR. Our analysis by gender within ethnicity indicated that these
disproportionately high numbers of students with ODR affected primarily
African-American boys. Our dataset did not include information about schools’
disciplinary practices beyond usage of SWIS. However, our outcomes underscore
the necessity for research into culturally sensitive disciplinary practices. A
number of questions present themselves. For example: Why might operationally
defined behavioral violations as they are used in SWIS lead to differential
outcomes for African-American students? Do behavioral definitions on which ODR
are based take the racial-ethnic backgrounds of a school’s population into
consideration? Do students and teachers interpret inappropriate behaviors
differently? What might contribute to potential differences in interpretation?
How might those potential differences be reconciled? Are the schools’
disciplinary practices adjusted for the cultural differences of their school
population? How could such an adjustment occur conceptually and practically?
Much work remains to be done to create schools where all students regardless of
their race or ethnicity and gender can succeed behaviorally. Future research
might focus on examining data from schools and districts with consistently low
rates for all student groups.
It is important to note that our
dataset had a number of limitations that compromise interpretability of
outcomes. Between 5% and 10% of the ODR in our dataset were linked to students
whose ethnicity was recorded as “not listed or “unknown,” and approximately 2%
of schools’ overall enrollment was recorded as “not listed” or “unknown” in
SWIS. Because these students could belong to any ethnic category, the
calculated ratios (number of ODR/students enrolled, students with ODR/students
enrolled) likely contain error. In addition, discrepancies between NCES and
SWIS enrollment data commonly exist. While these discrepancies are usually
small, the merging of the two data sources also likely introduced error into our
analysis.
References
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Johnson, C.T. (2004). School violence and cultural sensitivity. In J. C.
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C.R. (2009). SWIS ethnicity categories 2009-2010. Retrieved on October 14, 2009
from http://www.swis.org/index.php?page=resources;rid=10139
Gandara, P. & Contreras, F. (2009). The Latino education crisis. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
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1We
gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Dr. Jennifer L. Frank to the
development of this brief.