The Children's Defense Fund Studied school suspension data from HEW's Office of Civil Rights and held independent interviews with administrators, students, and community members in districts around the country. They concluded that suspending children from school happens arbitrarily and very frequently, for non-serious reasons, without fair review of the decision, does a disservice to the child, and is educationally useless. These findings are found in this six-chapter book, with numerous tables and appendixes providing supplementary statistical and background information, documents, and correspondence. Chapter 1 includes interviews with educators talking about their efforts to handle discipline problems without suspensions. Chapter 2 goes into the reasons why children are suspended and why suspension is harmful. Chapter 3 includes data on the use of suspension. Chapter 4 details the issue of racial discrimination in suspension, and recommends federal compliance guidelines. Chapter 5 argues for the end of suspension for non-substantive reasons and proposes a plan for due process in suspension. Chapter 6 examines schools where alternatives to suspension are being tried. The concern of the book as a whole is to dispel what are thought to be popular assumptions that suspension is infrequent, necessary, or helpful to the child; to argue that the incidence of violence in the schools is over-rated and in any case not addressed seriously or usefully; and to protect children's right to be different in behavior, race, or otherwise, without risking suspension. (CD)