Suspension fails to reduce misbehavior and actually predicts its own recurrence while harming academics
Evidence
The research assembled by the APA task force converged on a consistent picture. Schools with high suspension and expulsion rates showed no reduction in violence, drug use, or other behaviors that had motivated the policies. Students who were suspended were more likely to be suspended again than students who had never been suspended — the intervention predicted its own recurrence. Black students were suspended at rates two to three times higher than white students for equivalent infractions, a disparity not explained by differential rates of misbehavior. And the academic consequences of suspension were significant and lasting: each day of missed instruction had measurable effects on academic performance, and students who accumulated multiple suspensions showed substantially elevated dropout rates. — , The Rod and the Child, 7417
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the prison-abstention and punishment-inefficacy evidence accumulated across this season’s earlier episodes on corporal punishment. — connects to: Punishment only temporarily suppresses behavior, never eliminating it — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 5928; Corporal punishment impairs the very self-regulation it aims to build. — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 6247; Harsh physical punishment alone predicts elevated odds of adult psychiatric disorders — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 10219
Related
- Punishment only temporarily suppresses behavior, never eliminating it (similarity 0.83)
- Harsh physical punishment alone predicts elevated odds of adult psychiatric disorders (similarity 0.81)
- Childhood physical punishment leaves measurable biological traces decades later (similarity 0.80)
- Spanking produces immediate compliance but no other desirable outcome. (similarity 0.80)
- Corporal punishment activates fear rather than teaching the intended rule. (similarity 0.80)
- Racial disparity in school punishment is structural and not explained by behavior or poverty (similarity 0.80)
- Corporal punishment harms children’s brains through the same mechanisms as physical abuse. (similarity 0.79)
- Spanking persists because its benefit is salient while its harm is statistical. (similarity 0.79)
- Corporal punishment impairs the very self-regulation it aims to build. (similarity 0.79)
- Black students are paddled at twice the rate of white students. (similarity 0.78)
- Corporal punishment creates inescapable unpredictable aversive conditions for children (similarity 0.78)
- Longitudinal, neuroimaging, and genetic designs independently confirmed spanking’s adverse effects (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Corporal punishment impairs the very self-regulation it aims to build.
#expands(0.75) — , The Rod and the Child, 6247 - Punishment only temporarily suppresses behavior, never eliminating it
#expands(0.70) — , The Rod and the Child, 5928 - Harsh physical punishment alone predicts elevated odds of adult psychiatric disorders
#corroborates(0.60) — , The Rod and the Child, 10219