To understand the ongoing controversy over school discipline mandates, it is important to recognize just how limited the federal government’s power is in this area. Outside of special education, the federal government only has authority to prohibit disciplinary practices that discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, or sex. (The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, in contrast, creates specific rules for disciplining students with individualized education plans). In 2014 the Obama administration launched an aggressive effort to substantially curtail use of out-of-school disciplinary measures (that is, suspensions and expulsions), which many claim have no educational value and contribute to the “school-to-prison pipeline.” But the only way federal regulators could address the issue was by claiming that these punishments were being applied in a racially discriminatory manner.
By focusing on case resolutions that span the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations, the report seeks to downplay the obvious policy shifts of the past decade. Most of the policy changes recommended in the report are sensible and relatively uncontroversial. They include
- Collecting and regularly reviewing data on disciplinary actions to identify possible discrimination;
- Establishing clearer, less subjective rules on what constitutes misconduct and appropriate the punishments for various levels of misconduct;
- Making sure that school policies are consistent with state law;
- Reducing the role of School Resource Officials (i.e. law enforcement personnel with arrest power located within schools) in routine disciplinary matters;
- Improving communications with parents, especially those with limited English proficiency;
- Developing alternatives to out-of-school punishments;
- Providing better training to school personnel;
- Hiring more school counselors and mental health professionals; and
- Providing students with “tutoring, afterschool and summer learning, and enrichment programs to help students make meaningful academic and behavioral progress.”
Why has the department retreated from its hardline 2014 stance? Perhaps the White House has pressured the department to avoid hot-button educational issues prior to the 2024 election—as it seems to have done with the department’s recent proposal on transgender students’ assignment to sports teams. So far, though, we have little information on the nature of the debate within the administration. Nonetheless, it is possible to identify four factors that likely influenced its deliberations.