Chapter 9: Applying Critical Race Theory to District-Level Behavior Policy: Empty Promises

A school district’s behavior policy and how it is implemented by school staff affects the current and future lives of young people and their families. Research shows disciplinary actions students experience in schools significantly influence their life trajectories, in some cases having the power to set them on a path to dropping out, becoming involved with the juvenile justice system, or even being imprisoned as adults (Casella, 2003; Gregory, 1997; Noguera, 2003; Skiba, Arredondo, & Williams, 2014). Since the adoption of zero tolerance policies in the 1990s in the United States and Canada, issues of racial disproportionality in exclusionary discipline have risen and garnered international attention (Martinez, 2009; Ontario Human Rights Commission, 2003; Skiba et al., 2011). Exclusionary discipline refers to consequences that remove students from the general education environment such as suspension and expulsion (Carter, Skiba, Arredondo, & Pollack, 2017). Some people argue that minority students misbehave more frequently (Gregory & Mosley, 2004; Nicholson-Crotty, Birchmeier, & Valentine, 2009). However, the literature shows that students of color, in fact, misbehave at the same rate as their White peers, and are thus treated unfairly in schools since they are disciplined more frequently and more severely for the same behaviors (Gregory & Mosley, 2004; Nicholson-Crotty et al., 2009).