Whether it is a change to policy or the implementation of a new program, suspension reforms must balance the need to reduce suspensions’ concentrated negative impacts on students with the need to ensure safe schools conducive to learning for all. Navigating this tension is difficult, especially in the postpandemic world, where teachers and principals are reporting difficulties managing student behavior. These difficulties have induced states to propose legislation that largely resembles the zero-tolerance discipline policies of the late 1990s and early 2000s, setting back nearly a decade of progress on discipline reform.

In 2015, New York City implemented two reforms to address the use of suspension in schools: suspension restrictions, which required written approval to suspend students for some disruptive behavior, and a restorative practices (RP) pilot program, which sought to shift from a punitive model of discipline (i.e., suspension) to one that aims to hold an offending student responsible for their actions through nonexclusionary means. As more districts reimplement suspension to address student behavior, it is critical to understand how discipline reforms and alternatives are working in cities and school districts that have implemented these policies.

Key Findings

• In analyzing the joint and independent impacts of these programs on suspension rates, on average and for historically marginalized groups, the data show the suspension restrictions reduced suspension rates, leaving little room for RPs to further reduce suspension rates.
• Additionally, the restrictions reduced suspensions for low-level offenses and appeared to have spillover effects onto suspensions for more severe behaviors. RP funding did not provide differential spillover effects in this context.
• The suspension restrictions reduced racial and ethnic disparities in suspension rates, but RPs did not appear to provide any further reductions for Black or Hispanic students. By 2019, white and Asian students’ suspension rates in pilot schools were reduced by 2.8 percentage points, Black students’ suspension rates were reduced by 8.8 percentage points, and Hispanic students’ rates were reduced by 6.3 percentage points.

Implications

Overall, these data point to the efficacy of suspension restrictions. They do not suggest that RPs are ineffective. But some suspension reforms have been thwarted by implementation difficulties and may yield unintended or costly consequences in the context of implementation infidelity. These concerns may motivate the recent rollbacks on progressive suspension reform. But the evidence regarding RPs and suspension restrictions, especially when these reforms are implemented with fidelity, does not suggest that rolling back these reforms would benefit students and teachers, nor would these rollbacks solve the issues motivating these policy changes. Although there might not be an observable direct reduction in suspension rates attributable solely to RPs, the provision of and training in a direct alternative to suspension in the wake of restrictions likely reduced any unintended consequences that may ensue when only restrictions are present.

Additionally, these results do not suggest that RPs are ineffective, especially amid the qualitative evidence regarding their importance to students and teachers. Observable metrics fail to provide a holistic picture of the use of RPs in schools. Moreover, RPs may simply need more time to allow for additional impacts to be observed. Future research should focus on how RPs may influence more amorphous constructs, such as school climate, or affect peers at low risk of suspension, and special attention should be paid to the effects of RPs on these outcomes by race and ethnicity.

Additional Resources

• Externalities in the Classroom: How Children Exposed to Domestic Violence Affect Everyone’s Kids
• Survey: Principals Say They Need Better-Trained Teachers and More Resources to Address Student Misbehavior
• Discipline Reform, School Culture, and Student Achievement
• Rethinking Discipline: The Effects of State Discipline Reform Laws on Students
• Do School Suspension Reforms Work? Evidence from Rhode Island
• From Retributive to Restorative: An Alternative Approach to Justice
• Doing Discipline Different: Evaluating the Implementation of Restorative Justice as an Alternative to Punitive Discipline in New York City Public Schools
• Listening to ‘Frequent Flyers’: What Persistently Disciplined Students Have to Say about Being Labeled as ‘Bad’
• Can Restorative Practices Improve School Climate and Curb Suspensions? An Evaluation of the Impact of Restorative Practices in a Mid-Sized Urban School District
• Justice for All? Suspension Bans and Restorative Justice Programs in the Los Angeles Unified School District
• Up the Down Escalator? Examining a Decade of School Discipline Reforms
• Lawmakers across U.S. Push for Harsher School Discipline as Safety Fears Rise