Restorative Practices and Reducing Suspensions: The Numbers Just Don’t Add Up

A New Center for Civil Rights Remedies Report Concludes (again) that Schools are NOT Closing the Minority and Exceptional Student Discipline Gap

Reports say that the Chicago Public Schools’ Restorative Practice Policies and Approaches Have Decreased the “Numbers,” but Increased “Havoc and Lawlessness”        

Dear Colleagues,  

   Steve Tobak once said,

“Great innovators don’t see different things. . . they see the same things differently.”

   Today’s discussion is about the continuing problem, in schools across the country, relative to the disproportionate number of poor, minority, and special education students who are suspended or expelled from school (or sent to the principal’s office, or put into alternative school programs) due to their “discipline problems.”

   More specifically, I will first highlight a report published last month by The Center for Civil Rights Remedies that again documents, in great detail, the statement above.  This will be followed with comments on a related February 25^th article in the Chicago Tribune by Juan Perez Jr.  Mr. Perez reported that the Chicago Public School District’s changes, last year, to its Student Code of Conduct, its training in classroom management and use of restorative practices, and its $15 million investment on nearly five dozen vendors to work on school discipline issues with teachers and students has resulted in- - according to one teacher- - “lawlessness.”

   In the end, I will outline the student, staff, and school approaches needed to increase students’ interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional coping skills, decrease their social, emotional, and behavioral challenges, and thereby close the school suspension disproportionality gap.

   Now applying Tobak’s quote. . . It is indisputable that poor, minority, and special education students are being disproportionately suspended or expelled from school for “behavioral difficulties” that inconsistently range from minor infractions to major offenses.  But it is interesting that different “innovators” are “seeing the same things differently,” and responding (often inappropriately) from somewhat singular, “one size fits all” perspectives. 

For example:

   * Policymakers often see the problem as needing changes in policy- - for example, changing an inappropriate zero tolerance policy to a naïve restorative justice policy

   * District administrators often see the problem as needing changes in practices- - that is, adding more training (for example, in classroom management) to increase the competence of teachers and others to prevent and/or respond to students’ behavioral challenges

   * School administrators often see the problem as needing changes in personnel- - that is, adding more people (for example, untrained paraprofessional “behavior interventionists” or, as in Chicago, “restorative practice coaches”) to increase the number of staff available to “manage” disruptive students

   * And, student advocates often see the problem as needing changes in perspective- - focusing on changing how different students are perceived- - along a continuum that actually ranges from some staff’s unintentional or misinformed misperceptions, to other staff’s intentional or ignorant biases or racial prejudices.

   In actuality, all of these changes are potentially needed. . . but they are often applied randomly, in the absence of sound data-based analyses, as top-down mandates, without the necessary training and resources, and in isolated and (once again) singular and “one size fits all” ways.  It’s almost as if we are throwing spaghetti at the wall- - concluding that it’s done when it sticks.

   Disproportionality is a multi-factored student, staff, school, and community issue.  In order to solve it, we need to “work the problem,” and not just “change the numbers.”

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A New National Report on Disproportionate School Suspensions

   Last month, The Center for Civil Rights Project published a new report (Are We Closing the School Discipline Gap?) analyzing the school suspension data from our nation’s schools during the 2011-2012 school year.

CLICKON REPORT LINK HERE

   During this school year:

   *  Nearly 3.5 million public school students were suspended out of school at least once

   *  1.55 million students were suspended at least twice

   *  Suspension rates differed significantly across schools, districts, states, and time- - but high-suspension districts suspended more than 1 out of every 10 elementary school students, and 1 out of every 4 secondary students

   * With the average suspension lasting 3.5 days, nearly 18 million days of instruction were lost by our nation’s students during this single school year

But most importantly, according to the Report:

   *  The biggest difference in suspension rates related to how specific school and district administrators approached and implemented their disciplinary policies.

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   More Data.  Relative to students’ racial, English Language Learner, and special education background or status, the Report provided the following suspension data (see figures below) from the 2011-2012 school year, as well as historically since 1972.

   Finally, while the Report identified a number of large city school districts that had “most improved” their suspension rates over time, it appeared that the “improvement” was due more to policy than practice.  Indeed, many of these districts did not comprehensively change the systemic practices of staff and administrators in their schools. . . they did not increase the number of advanced skill mental and behavioral health and intervention professionals. . . they did not engage in staff and community outreach programs to increase the understanding and sensitivity to individual student differences. . . and they did not embed their school-based approaches into community-wide social, economic, political, and grass-roots initiatives.

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A Chicago Public Schools Case Study

   Chicago provides a telling case study of what happens when policies designed to “change the numbers,” are not complemented by strategic, differentiated practices designed to “change the people.”

   In his February 25^th Chicago Tribune article, Juan Perez Jr. reported that the Chicago Public School District’s changes, last year, to its Student Code of Conduct, its training in classroom management and use of restorative practices, and its $15 million investment on nearly five dozen vendors to work on school discipline issues with teachers and students has resulted in- - according to one teacher- - “lawlessness.”

CLICK ON ARTICLE LINK HERE

   Among the biggest problems cited in the article were the following:

   * Teachers say they have not been given resources to work with the revised Student

Code of Conduct

   * Some schools do not have behavioral specialists on staff to intervene with students, nor resources to train teachers on discipline practices that address students’ underlying needs

   * Approaches have shifted too far such that some staff say there are no consequences, inconsistent enforcement, and/or little collaboration among in-school staff, administrators, and in-school staff from the outside vendors

   * District-provided training in areas like restorative practices and classroom management are not provided to entire schools

   * Resources- - like "restorative practices coaches" and behavioral health teams are allocated to schools based on (high discipline incident) behavioral data

   * Restorative practice coaches are only in the schools on a weekly basis- - regardless of need

   * The new conduct code places stronger limits on the use of suspensions and seeks to avoid consequences that would pull a student from classes or the school building

   * Prekindergarten through second-grade students can't receive an in-school or out-of-school suspension without approval of a district supervisor

   In the end, while the number of in-school and out-of-school suspensions in the District declined between the 2012-13 and 2013-14 school years, racial disparities remained.  But once again, the numbers decreased due to the policies that discouraged and/or controlled educators’ use of suspension, not due to increases in students with more appropriate behavior, and decreases in students presenting frequent or significant behavioral challenges.

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Reality Check

   To set the record straight, please understand that I believe that:

   * It is critically important to decrease the number of students being suspended from our schools nationwide, and to eliminate suspensions that are arbitrary, unnecessary, steeped in prejudice, and that do not match the intensity of the offense.  (We just need to do it the right way.)

   * Legitimate decreases in student suspensions and even discipline referrals to the principal’s office do not always result in simultaneous increases in positive school and classroom climates, student engagement, and prosocial student behavior.  (While we may successfully decrease the intensity of students’ challenging behavior- - such that they no longer need office referrals- - that does not mean that they are engaged and learning in their classrooms.)

   * Suspensions are administrative responses, and they rarely result in decreasing or eliminating students’ future inappropriate behavior, while simultaneously increasing their appropriate behavior.  (In other words, without interventions that change students’ behaviors, the student returns from the suspension with the same problem.)

   * Some teacher referrals to the principal’s office and some administrative suspensions are arbitrary, capricious, and mean-spirited on one end; or due to a lack of student sensitivity (e.g., to cultural or disability issues), knowledge, understanding, and skill on the other end.  (Thus, the root cause of “disproportionality” here is the adults. . . and the adults must be changed if the disproportionality is going to be changed.) 

   * Restorative Justice programs- - if implemented with appropriate integrity and intensity- - are useful programs. . . but only when they are matched to the students who will most benefit from those programs (based on analyses that confirm the underlying reasons for a student’s challenging behavior).

   * Ultimately, schools need to focus on teaching and reinforcing students’ interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional coping skills; while also providing the assessment and intervention services, supports, strategies, and programs that the most challenging students need to address their inappropriate behavior.  (Without school-wide prosocial skill instruction programs and approaches that motivate students to “make good choices,” we will never know how many challenging student behaviors we can prevent.)

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Understanding Students’ Inappropriate Behavior

   When students demonstrate social, emotional, or behavioral challenges, we need to work together to figure out why. Sometimes this can be done by an individual teacher. . . sometimes this is accomplished by a grade-level (or instructional) team working together. . . and sometimes this requires a school-level multidisciplinary early intervention team (like a Student Assistance Team, RtI Team, Student Services Team, or the equivalent).

   Critically, though, everyone in the school needs to be trained in the same problem-solving process that helps to collect and analyze the information and data that determine the underlying reasons for students’ (academic and) inappropriate behavior.  Once these underlying reasons are known, specific services, supports, strategies, and programs can be ascertained- - although this means that schools need to have professionals with extensive knowledge in classroom and other social, emotional, and behavioral interventions (so that problem analysis results are linked with the best problem solution approaches).

    

   Some of the primary reasons why students demonstrate social, emotional, or behavioral problems in the classroom include:

    * There are (known or undiagnosed) biological, physiological, biochemical, neurological, or other physically- or medically-related conditions or factors that are unknown, undiagnosed, untreated, or unaccounted for.

   * They do not have positive relationships with teachers and/or peers in the school, and/or the school or classroom climate is so negative (or negative for them) that it is toxic.

    * They are either academically frustrated (thus, they emotionally act out) or academically unsuccessful (thus, they are behaviorally motivated to escape further failure and frustration).

     * Their teachers do not have effective classroom management skills, and/or the teachers at their grade or instructional levels do not have consistent classroom management approaches.

     * They have not learned how to demonstrate and apply effective interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and/or emotional coping skills to specific (school-based or home-based) situations in their lives.

    * They do not have the skills or motivation to work with peers- - for example, in the cooperative or project-based learning groups that are more prevalent in today’s classrooms.

    * Meaningful incentives (to motivate appropriate behavior) or consequences (to discourage future inappropriate behavior) are not (consistently) present.

    * They are not held accountable for appropriate behavior by, for example, requiring them (a) to apologize for and correct the results of their inappropriate behavior; and (b) role play, practice, or demonstrate the appropriate behavior that they should have done originally.

     * Their behavior is due to past inconsistency-- across people, settings, situations, or other circumstances. For example, when teachers’ classroom management is inconsistent, some students will manipulate different situations to see how much they can "get away with."  Or, when peers reinforce inappropriate student behavior while the adults are reinforcing appropriate behavior, students will often behave inappropriately because they value their peers more than the adults in the school.

     * They are experiencing extenuating, traumatic, or crisis-related circumstances outside of school, and they need emotional support (sometimes including mental health) to cope with these situations and be more successful at school.

   Critically, if we do not know the problem(s), we will never identify and implement the solution(s).

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   To expand on some of the reasons underlying students’ challenging behavior, feel free to watch the webinar below that I presented a few years ago to a national audience:

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Changing Students’ Inappropriate Behavior

   Finally, as noted earlier, many student problems can be prevented by implementing a scientifically-based school discipline, classroom management, and student self-management system.  Based on our 30 years of evidence-based work in this area- - and implementation in thousands of schools in every state across the country, this system has the following interdependent components:

   *  Staff, Student, and Parent Relationships that establish Positive School and Classroom Climates

   *  Explicit Classroom and Common School Area Expectations supported by Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Skill/Self-Management Instruction (that are embedded in preschool through high school "Health, Mental Health, and Wellness" activities)

   *  School-wide and Classroom Behavioral Accountability systems that include Motivational Approaches reinforcing "Good Choice" behavior

   *  Consistency--in the classroom, across classrooms, and across staff, time, settings, and situations

   *  Applications of the above across all Settings in the school, and relative to the Peer Group interactions (specifically targeting teasing, taunting, bullying, harassment, hazing, and physical aggression)
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   For more information about these components, please feel free to watch this short, ten-minute overview.

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Summary  

   It is frustrating for everyone when concerted, well-intended efforts to address major school problems are unsuccessful.  Moreover, when these problems get worse despite efforts that actually invest the right amount of time, funds, personnel, and other resources, the frustration often morphs into hopelessness and despair, or blaming and anger. . . along with a more refined resistance to future efforts.

   Disproportionality. . . whether related to student discipline, placements into special education, access to effective teachers, equal educational opportunities, or civil rights. . . has existed throughout my professional career (and before).  I don’t profess to possess “the silver bullet.”  But I do know that our schools are not succeeding by simply changing policies, and throwing “one size fits all” programs at our practices.  More importantly, I also know that success can occur by integrating and focusing our policies, practices, personnel, and perspectives on both enhancing the skills and strengths of our students, staff, schools, and communities, and addressing the multi-faceted reasons underlying this important issue.

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   As always, I hope that some of the ideas above resonate with you. . . or, at least, provoke some deep thinking.  Feel free to contact me if you would like to reflect on these thoughts or discuss them in greater detail.  Have a GREAT week !!!

Best, 

Howie

Be a Hero to Your District’s Administrators: How to Stop Your Best Teachers from Leaving your School, District, and their Profession

Breaking the Vicious Cycle of Recruiting, Training, and then Losing Your Best Teachers

Dear Colleagues,  

   Having spent another week consulting in a very rural area of the country (and driving to work in 15 degree BELOW zero weather), I continue to reflect on the connection between professional development and teacher mentoring, and teacher recruitment and retention.

   The “rubber hit the road” this week when the building principal changed the focus of our next month’s training. . . moving it from focusing on training the Behavior Intervention Specialists (that their grant hired this year) to focus on the behavioral intervention gaps of the classroom teachers. 

   While at face value this is a good decision, the primary reason for the shift was that the principal was afraid that many of the Behavioral Interventionists would take other jobs in other districts this summer.  Thus, she did not want to invest time in training just the Behavior Intervention Specialists, only to have to re-train new specialists next year.

   Embedded in all of this, however, is the fact that her classroom teachers did not receive the classroom management and behavioral intervention training at the pre-service, university training levels that they need to be successful in their respective classrooms.  This is typical for most teachers across the country (see recent article:  CLICK HERE), who also are not receiving the school-based professional development, mentoring, and supervision in these areas during their first three years in the field or when they accept a job in a new district (see the research of Dr. Richard Ingersoll cited below).

   Here is the “vicious cycle”- -  where schools are “chasing their tails”. . .

   * Virtually all schools nationwide now require systematic teacher evaluations (many using some adaptation of the Danielson model), where classroom management and effective instruction are explicitly part of the observations, evaluations, and feedback.

   * Many schools (see above) are identifying both novice and “experienced” staff with significant classroom management and effective instruction skill gaps that require remediation through professional development and additional supervision.

   * Between 25% to 45% of newly certified teachers nationally are leaving the profession within five years, and many schools routinely lose 10% to 20% of their total staff each year due to staff relocations, retirements, leaving the profession, or becoming administrators.

   * Finally, about 45% of the faculty turnovers occur in about 25% of the nation’s schools- - schools that are disproportionately located in high-poverty and/or urban areas.

     [See articles supporting the data above CLICK HERE and CLICK HERE.]

   So. . . as my wise principal this week deduced, one could legitimately ask,

   “Is it actually cost- and time-effective to engage in some areas of professional development- - knowing that some staff are going to leave and my school will not benefit (and I will need to retrain the new staff)?   and

   “How do I provide the professional development and follow-up mentoring and supervision to directly address the information and skill gaps of my classroom teachers- - who are doing the best that they can, and don’t necessarily know what they don’t know?”

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Adding Fuel to the Vicious Cycle

   Prompted by this week’s experience with my principal and my recognition of the “vicious cycle,” I did a little research.  One thing that I found was a recent focus on the reasons why (new) teachers are leaving the profession.   The other was the incredible time, money, and student achievement impact.

   Relative to the former, Dr. Richard Ingersoll from the University of Pennsylvania has done extensive research over the past 20 years on why teachers leave the profession.  Below are the top nine reasons (see earlier link).

    Add to this a Huffington Post article (CLICK HERE for post) citing the top five reasons for teacher turnover (in reverse order) as:

   #5. Burn Out:  Researchers think that extended hours are wearing out educators- - which may increase their need for prep time (see above) in order to teach their classes effectively, and which suggests that extending the school day may be counter-productive when it increases the time that students are in school and teachers have to directly teach

   #4. The Threat of Lay-Offs:  Whether due to the fact that (a) school districts have less money and need to rift teachers, (b) state per pupil expenditure money is down across the country resulting in the same (see figure below), or (c) teachers are leaving the profession because of concerns that they may be fired due to the teacher evaluation process

  

   #3. Low Wages:  Forcing some educators to leave the profession to take better paying jobs and some to take second jobs which may increase their burn-out, preparation, and effectiveness in school

   #2. Testing Pressure:  Especially when the students’ state/national proficiency score is the single criterion used to define school, teacher, and student success; and teachers are evaluated- - in whole or in part- - on the student results regardless of the students’ readiness, learning speed and style, motivation, or need for remediation or additional services and supports

   #1. Working Conditions: According to the Huffington article, teachers say that they are offered few resources and little support.  More entry-level teachers than senior-level educators are placed in high-need schools, and they receive (as above) minimal (if any) levels of needed training, mentoring, supervision, and functional feedback

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   Relative to the latter area, the same Huffington Post article stated that the loss or movement of teachers across schools costs districts $2.2 billion annually.  In 2007, the National Commission on Teacher and America’s Future put this annual loss at over $7 billion per year.  And then, we can add the financial loses estimated for school principals ($163 million per year according to a 2014 School Leaders Network publication), as well as district superintendents.

   And yet, the real losers are the students due to the “stops and starts” in their educational programs, and the absence of needed academic and mental health services and supports (because, as is often cited, there is no money).

   Hence, another vicious cycle- - the cycle where money that could be used to address the most critical needs of teachers (at least as cited by those leaving the profession- - see above) is being used to respond to the conditions that remain because they are leaving.

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Breaking the Vicious Cycle

   At some point, we need to break this vicious cycle, and stop “chasing our tails.”  It has got to start somewhere because “when you do the same old thing, you get the same old results.”

   But let’s recognize that, according to Ingersoll’s research, most of the reasons why teachers are leaving the profession or leaving their schools are contributory, NOT causal factors.

   That is, to a large degree: 

   * Increasing teachers’ preparation and collaboration time will not necessarily make them or their students more successful.

   Breaking the Cycle:  We need to focus the time and sharing on demonstrable student outcomes based on effective instructional objectives that are linked to well-designed curricula that are functionally assessed in the classroom relative to student learning, mastery, and application.

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   * Increasing teachers’ faculty influence and their opportunities for professional advancement will not necessarily make them or their students more successful.

   Breaking the Cycle:  I am an absolute proponent for creating shared leadership approaches in a school where there are functional committees (see below) led by teachers and focused on annual activities that are explicitly reflected in the School Improvement Plan and process:

   * The Curriculum & Instruction Committee

   * School Discipline Committee

   * Professional Development/Teacher Support Committee

   * Community and Family Outreach Committee

   * Multi-tiered Early Intervention Student Services Team

   * School Leadership Team

Moreover, I believe that “professional advancement” is more than a formal teacher to supervision to administrator pipeline.  Such advancement should include putting teachers into informal leadership and mentorship positions- - for example, using them as collegial consultants, coaches, mentors, and skill-specific experts.

   BUT:  If the strategic planning, staff development, and teacher leadership processes are not focused, once again, on classroom- and curriculum-based (and not proficiency test dependent) student outcomes while simultaneously supporting student needs, then we will not get to the root of what teachers really want:  self-determination, the satisfaction that results when teachers feel they are making a difference, and sustained success.

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   * Decreasing teachers’ teaching load and their class sizes will not necessarily make them or their students more successful.

   Breaking the Cycle:  Clearly, if teachers have excessive teaching loads and over-the-top class sizes, then these factors need to be addressed.  But, on the whole, the research is very clear that decreases in these areas generally do not increase teacher effectiveness or student success (in fact, such decreases may be counterproductive).

   One of the critical issues here is whether there are too many different skill levels in a teacher’s classroom such that effective and equitable differentiated instruction is impossible, and the needed student services, supports, resources, and strategies are unavailable or inapplicable.  

   In order to begin to break this cycle, schools need to look at the academic and behavioral status of all their students in later April or early May, and then group, program, staff, resource, and schedule them (for the upcoming school year) based on their needs.  We have done this in schools across the country. . . and this approach has never failed to refocus these schools on student outcomes and increase students’ academic and social, emotional, and behavioral interactions.

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   * Decreasing students’ behavioral problems and increasing parent support will not necessarily make teachers or their students more successful.

   Breaking the Cycle.  While schools certainly need positive parental involvement and minimal levels of student upsets, what they really need are students who have learned, mastered, and are able to apply social, emotional, and behavioral interactional and self-management skills.

   When students demonstrate behavioral problems, it is critical to determine why the problems are occurring so that we can use the right instructional or intervention approaches to solve the problem.  But “the absence of a problem does not represent the presence of a skill.”  Thus, we need to complement the decrease or elimination of the problem with the social, emotional, or behavioral skills that will both (a) prevent the problem in the future, and (b) help the student to be responsible for future self-monitoring, self-evaluating, and self-correcting strategies.

   Relative to parent support, we first need to recognize- - not to be negative- -  that positive and active parent involvement does not guarantee that their offspring are going to be academically and/or behaviorally successful.  More pragmatically, at some point, students need to learn to be responsible for themselves and accountable to a school’s expectations (if, for example, they are to be “college and career ready”).  If they learn and demonstrate these attributes, they will be successful even though their parents may not be as involved and supportive as we would like.

   And in order for them to learn these skills, we need to teach all students, from preschool through high school, the interpersonal, social problem solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional coping skills that they need to be successful.  This is what will help to break this part of the vicious cycle.  And this is what the school-based research-to-practice has been saying for over 20 years.

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Summary

   Having taught at two Research I institutions for over 20 years, I can tell you that we can positively impact pre-service training at the university level. . . but it will not be enough.

   We need to provide professional development that focuses on teachers’ (a) Knowledge and Understanding, (b) Classroom-based Skill and Application, and (c) Confidence and Competence.  Such professional development needs to be different for (a) new teachers during their first three years in the profession, (b) mid-career teachers during their next six years in the profession, and (c) experienced teachers who are ready for (informal/consultative or supervisor/administrative preparation) leadership or specialization roles in their schools.

   Relative to the vicious cycles that are present in our schools, districts, and states:  we need to complete the functional analyses needed to decide where and how to break one or more of these cycles.  The time is now !!!  This may involve “disruptive leadership”- - but let’s be honest, how many times in the past decade have our (well-meaning) federal and state legislatures (or departments of education) disrupted the educational process?  At least this time, we are doing it to ourselves while, hopefully, retaining our talented teachers, increasing their preparation and success, decreasing and reinvesting our time and money, and increasing student success. . . at real and meaningful levels.

Best,

Howie