Go See The Principal

That's how most teachers would deal with disciplinary problems in the classroom in the 1950s. Usually, seeing the principal was enough to straighten matters out. The offending pupil may have received a stern warning, been sentenced to detention or suspended from school for a day or two. In all my years in school the last - suspension - was very rarely invoked. It seems that this situation has changed, as have so many others in the 21st century.

The Council of State Government tracked the disciplinary experiences of every incoming Texas seventh grader over three years through high school. The results of the study are not pretty. Being asked to stay away from school for a period of time or forever was the fate of 31% of  the students; and this punishment was not a one time thing, on average it happened four time to each student. Adding in in-school suspensions brings the rate to 60%; some students were punished this way as many as eleven times. 

White students were punished in these ways less than non-whites. Russ Skiba, a professor who studied the report, said, “What we really need to do is go in to those districts and see if these really are choices being made. We don’t really know enough about the reasons for African-American and Latino over-representation in school discipline. We have enough data to show that it’s more than just poverty and any greater misbehavior. My guess is it’s very subtle interactional effects between some teachers and students.” Nonetheless, whatever the reason, these suspensions become part of the student's 'personal record', which likely complicates their further education. 

Why the change in student discipline? Are kids less well behaved? Are teachers more sensitive?