This study explores how two schools serve students who are in danger of or have already experienced the school-to-prison pipeline. The majority of students at these schools faced significant setbacks in traditional settings (e.g., truancy, poor grades, suspension, expulsion, incarceration). At each charter school, the free and reduced lunch…

Schools across the nation report increases in the use of punitive disciplinary methods (e.g., suspension). The need for these disciplinary practices to address serious student misconduct is undisputed. What research has questioned is why some students seem to be suspended more often than others, what effects suspension has on students, and whether…

A study among black male junior high school students examined the degree to which school suspension was related to individual fit with the school environment. "Fit" referred to the congruence between a student's perceptions of school environment (as indicated by educational values, activity preferences, perceptions of racism and school problems,…

This paper presents a history of zero tolerance policies, discusses the breadth and scope of zero tolerance policies in U.S. public schools, examines unintended consequences of zero tolerance policies (especially those conflicting with basic philosophical tenets of the public school system), and makes recommendations for creating and implementing…

Grades awarded to secondary school students in the Cleveland (Ohio) public schools were analyzed to determine relationships between grades and selected school climate variables in a desegregated urban school district. Failures or F grades and schoolwide non-promotion rates were both related to rates of class attendance and school suspensions. Over…

A three-part study of why disproportionate numbers of black and male high school students are expelled or suspended examines student and school characteristics and teacher attitudes. This part of the report looks at school characteristics. In eleven high schools in two large, urban, midwestern school districts, researchers used interviews, student…

Three generations of children have passed through the Baton Rouge (Louisiana) school system since the "Brown" decision (1954) and one generation since the federal court's 1981 desegregation order. The impact of school desegregation on African American children was studied in the East Baton Rouge School District. For the student body as a…

This report describes the methodology and initial results of an evaluation of the universal (school-wide) Positive Behavioral Intervention and Support (PBIS) initiative in Illinois, including (1) strategies for establishing research-based practices and data-based evaluation systems in implementation schools; (2) methodology and initial findings of…

Why so many Latino students drop out of schools is considered from the perspective that much of the literature on this problem is inadequate because it ignores the experiences of Latino youth at home, in school, and in the community, and attempts to explain the failure of the educational system in terms of just one area. Interviews were conducted…