The public availability of school discipline and infraction data provides opportunities for researchers, policy analysts, and the public to examine the disciplinary practices and behavioral contexts of schools. In a forthcoming publication, Center Director Dr. F. Chris Curran and graduate research assistants Lelydeyvis Boza, Katharine Harris, and Tiffany S. Tan examined the availability of discipline and infraction data from state Departments of Education. The work builds on a similar review conducted a decade ago by the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at UCLA.
Key Findings:
- Overall, the availability of discipline data from state DOEs has not changed significantly over the past decade.
- When state DOEs did make discipline data available, they were significantly more likely to disaggregate the data across subgroups than they were a decade ago. We found that around 50% of states reported data (whether at the state, district, or school level) disaggregated by race, gender, and special education status.
- Compared to discipline data, we found that the availability of data on infractions was slightly less common though still available for the majority of states (64.71% of states/DC). When such infraction data did exist, however, it was almost 50% less likely to be disaggregated by student subgroups.
Explore the Data: