The State of School Discipline: Examining the Variation in Suspensions Across the United States

One of the central questions in school discipline research and policy is the extent and variation of exclusionary discipline across regions, states, and districts in the United States (U.S.). This study uses five waves of school-level data (2011–12 through to 2021–22) from the Civil Rights Data Collection and district-level data from the Stanford Education Data Archive to examine trends in the prevalence of and disparities in suspensions across regions and states in the U.S., and to investigate how observable neighborhood and district characteristics predict suspensions at the district-level. Nationwide across the 2011–12 to 2021–22 period, we find that the overall in-school suspension (ISS) rate (5.56%) is roughly equal to the out-of-school suspension (OSS) rate (5.61%). The ISS rate in the South (8.44%) is the highest suspension rate across both types and across all regions. The findings highlight the importance of focusing on both suspension types, especially given the prevalence of ISS in the South. Notably, across all regions, Black suspension rates, regardless of suspension types, are the highest of all student groups. We also find that district-level economic indicators and neighborhood racial composition are significant predictors of school discipline outcomes. Scholarly and policy implications are discussed.