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Are students with disabilities suspended more frequently than otherwise similar students without disabilities? ☆

December 2018
Journal of School Psychology 72(2)

DOI:10.1016/j.jsp.2018.11.001

Authors:

Paul L Morgan

University at Albany, The State University of New York

Marianne M Hillemeier

Pennsylvania State University

Yangyang Wang

Pennsylvania State University

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Students with disabilities (SWD) have been reported to be disproportionately suspended from U.S. schools and so more likely to experience the "school-to-prison pipeline" through suspension's associations with lower academic achievement, dropout, juvenile delinquency, and adult crim-inality. Yet few studies have estimated SWD's risk of more frequent suspension while simultaneously controlling for potential confounds. Negative binomial regression modeling of suspension count data from a nationally representative and longitudinal sample (N = 6,740) indicated that males, those from lower resourced families, and students attending more economically segregated schools were more frequently suspended. On average, students who are Black received about 1.6 times as many suspensions by the end of 8th grade as otherwise similar White students. In contrast, having a disability by 1st grade was not a risk factor for more frequent suspension by the end of 8th grade while simultaneously accounting for other risk factors (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, family SES, prior history of externalizing problem behaviors, being from a English-speaking household, school-level economic composition). Students with specific disability conditions (e.g., emotional disturbances, speech or language impairments) were not at increased risk for more frequent suspension. Students with disabilities who are Black, Hispanic, or of other race/ethnicity were not more frequently suspended than SWD who are White.

Times suspended by the end of 8th grade, students with and without an IEP in first grade and total sample, weighted.

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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of School Psychology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jschpsyc

Are students with disabilities suspended more frequently than

otherwise similar students without disabilities?

☆

Paul L. Morgan

a,⁎

, George Farkas

, Marianne M. Hillemeier

, Yangyang Wang

Zoe Mandel

, Christopher DeJarnett

, Steve Maczuga

The Pennsylvania State University, United States of America

University of California, Irvine, United States of America

ARTICLE INFO

Action Editor: Amy Briesch

Keywords:

Suspension

School-to-prison pipeline

Special education

Longitudinal

Racial/ethnic minorities

Disparities

ABSTRACT

Students with disabilities (SWD) have been reported to be disproportionately suspended from

U.S. schools and so more likely to experience the “school-to-prison pipeline” through suspension's

associations with lower academic achievement, dropout, juvenile delinquency, and adult crim-

inality. Yet few studies have estimated SWD's risk of more frequent suspension while simulta-

neously controlling for potential confounds. Negative binomial regression modeling of suspen-

sion count data from a nationally representative and longitudinal sample (N= 6,740) indicated

that males, those from lower resourced families, and students attending more economically

segregated schools were more frequently suspended. On average, students who are Black re-

ceived about 1.6 times as many suspensions by the end of 8th grade as otherwise similar White

students. In contrast, having a disability by 1st grade was not a risk factor for more frequent

suspension by the end of 8th grade while simultaneously accounting for other risk factors (e.g.,

gender, race/ethnicity, family SES, prior history of externalizing problem behaviors, being from a

English-speaking household, school-level economic composition). Students with speciﬁc dis-

ability conditions (e.g., emotional disturbances, speech or language impairments) were not at

increased risk for more frequent suspension. Students with disabilities who are Black, Hispanic,

or of other race/ethnicity were not more frequently suspended than SWD who are White.

1. Introduction

U.S. schools are systems for academically, behaviorally, and socially educating students. Schools are therefore expected to be safe,

orderly, and civil environments where criminal, violent, or threatening behaviors rarely, if ever, occur. Schools may use suspensions

to deter students from engaging in such behaviors. Speciﬁcally, suspension is designed to decrease the likelihood that violent or

seriously disruptive students continue to engage in potentially dangerous behaviors as well as to protect the safety and ensure the

education of other students (Lamont et al., 2013). Seriously disruptive students who remain in classrooms often adversely aﬀect the

learning and behavior of their peers (Carrell & Hoekstra, 2010;Figlio, 2007;Fletcher, 2010;Gottfried, Egalite, & Kirksey, 2016;Horoi

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2018.11.001

Received 11 April 2017; Received in revised form 22 October 2018; Accepted 28 November 2018

☆

Funding support was provided by Spencer Foundation Midcareer Grant to the ﬁrst author as well as an infrastructure grant (P2CHD041025),

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health. No oﬃcial endorsement should

be inferred.

⁎

Corresponding author at: Department of Education Policy Studies, 310E Rackley Building, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park,

PA 16802, United States of America.

E-mail address: paulmorgan@psu.edu (P.L. Morgan).

Journal of School Psychology 72 (2019) 1–13

& Ost, 2015;Neidell & Waldfogel, 2010). About 7 million students, or about 14% of the school-aged population, were suspended from

U.S. schools in 2011–2012 (U.S. Department of Education, 2016a, 2016b).

Despite its use by U.S. schools, suspension is increasingly questioned as a disciplinary practice because of its possible adverse

eﬀects on students who are suspended. For example, Morris and Perry's (2016) analyses of a longitudinal sample of students in

Kentucky indicated that suspended students tended to later display lower reading and mathematics achievement. Noltemeyer, Ward,

and Mcloughlin's (2015) meta-analysis of 34 studies indicated that suspended students were more likely to drop out of school. Use of

suspension may result in large ﬁscal costs for U.S. states through lost future tax revenue (Rumberger & Losen, 2016). Both cross-

sectional and longitudinal studies indicate that students who are suspended are more likely to engage in substance abuse and violent

behaviors as well as to be referred to courts during adolescence (Hemphill et al., 2009;Hemphill, Heerde, Herrenkohl, Toumbourou,

& Catalano, 2012;Nicholson-Crotty, Birchmeier, & Valentine, 2009). Students who are suspended are also more likely to later engage

in violent criminality and to be arrested in adulthood (Katsiyannis, Thompson, Barrett, & Kingree, 2013;Mowen & Brent, 2016). By

increasing the risk of academic diﬃculties, school dropout, substance abuse, juvenile delinquency, and adult criminality and arrest,

suspension is viewed as an entry point into the metaphorical “school-to-prison pipeline” in which school-based disciplinary practices

and policies increase the risk that students interact with the juvenile and adult incarceration systems (Hemphill et al., 2009;Mowen &

Brent, 2016). For example, being suspended from school is positively associated with committing crimes, including felonies, that

result in arrest and referral to the juvenile justice system (Cuellar & Markowitz, 2015;Mittleman, 2018).

1.1. Disparities in the use of suspension by U.S. schools

In addition to suspension's associations with lower academic achievement, dropout, juvenile delinquency, and adult criminality,

there is also suggestive evidence that U.S. schools may discriminate in their use of suspension. For example, students who are racial or

ethnic minorities have been reported to be more likely to be suspended than students who are White (Skiba et al., 2014;U.S.

Government Accountability Oﬃce [GAO], 2018). These disparities can occur even among otherwise similarly behaving students

(Horner, Fireman, & Wang, 2010;Petras, Masyn, Buckley, Ialongo, & Kellam, 2011), as well as those attending similarly resourced

schools (GAO, 2018). Racial disparities in suspension are thought to at least partially explain achievement gaps (Gregory, Skiba, &

Noguera, 2010;Morris & Perry, 2016). Males, students being raised in low-income households, as well as those who are older for their

grade level have also been found to be more likely to be suspended, including among otherwise similarly behaving students (Petras

et al., 2011;Theriot, Craun, & Dupper, 2010), thereby suggesting that U.S. schools may be discriminating against some socio-

demographic groups in their disciplinary practices (National Research Council [NRC], 2004). However, and alternatively, it may be

that school contexts partially explain these disparities, particularly for racial or ethnic minorities and those from low-income families

who more frequently attend schools where “zero tolerance” disciplinary practices are in use (Kinsler, 2011). Thus, what is attributed

to discrimination due to diﬀerential treatment of similarly situated students may instead result from minority students being more

likely to attend schools whose disciplinary practices involve greater use of suspension.

Students with disabilities (SWD) have also been reported to be disproportionately suspended (GAO, 2018;Sullivan, Klingbeil, &

Van Norman, 2013), leading to suggestions that schools may be discriminating in regards to disability status (Kim, Losen, & Hewitt,

2010;Losen & Gillespie, 2012). For example, suspension rates for students with and without disabilities are estimated to be about

12–15% and 6–7%, respectively (Achilles, McLaughlin, & Croninger, 2007;Losen & Gillespie, 2012;U.S. Department of Education

Oﬃce for Civil Rights [OCR], 2014). Analyses of cross-sectional data from multiple years suggest that the risk of suspension of SWD

began increasing around 2000 (Krezmien, Leone, & Achilles, 2006;Zhang, Katsiyannis, & Herbst, 2004), possibly as SWD began

spending more of their school days in general education classrooms due to mainstreaming (U.S. Department of Education, 2016a,

2016b). General education teachers have been shown to be more likely to self-report attitudes of concern, indiﬀerence, or rejection

towards SWD than towards students without disabilities (Cook, Cameron, & Tankersley, 2007;Cook, Tankersley, Cook, & Landrum,

2000). Among SWD, those identiﬁed as having emotional disturbances (ED), speciﬁc learning disabilities (SLD), or speech or lan-

guage impairments (S/LI) have been reported to be more likely to be suspended (Achilles et al., 2007;Krezmien et al., 2006;Sullivan

et al., 2013). Racial and ethnic minorities with disabilities have been reported to be especially likely to be suspended (Achilles et al.,

2007;GAO, 2018;Krezmien et al., 2006;Losen & Gillespie, 2012), and so to experience the school-to-prison pipeline (Behnken et al.,

2014). This may occur because of a lack of training in eﬀectively managing the classroom behaviors of SWD, especially those who are

more likely to engage in behaviors that teachers view as disruptive or diﬃcult to manage. This may also occur because of a lack of

cultural or language sensitivity in working with SWD who are racial or ethnic minorities (Mendez & Knoﬀ, 2003;Zhang et al., 2004).

To limit the possibility that SWD who are racial or ethnic minorities are being suspended due to discriminatory discipline practices,

federal legislation requires U.S. states to monitor for signiﬁcant disproportionality in the use of suspension by schools districts. Recently

enacted federal regulations expand this monitoring by requiring school districts to use a standard methodology when monitoring for

signiﬁcant disproportionality in the use of suspension and other disciplinary practices (U.S. Department of Education Equity in IDEA

Rule, 2016b). These new federal regulations expand the manifestation determinations and other legal protections already provided

through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) that ensure that schools continue to provide special education services to

SWD whose disruptive behaviors are related to underlying conditions (U.S. Department of Education Equity in IDEA Rule, 2016b). If

signiﬁcant disproportionality in the use of suspension is found using the standard methodology for SWD who are racial or ethnic

minorities, school districts in the U.S. are required to review and revise the policies, practices, and procedures that contribute to the

disparities as well as reallocate their federal funding (U.S. Department of Education Equity in IDEA Rule, 2016b). Federal im-

plementation of these regulations was recently delayed pending further review, including regarding whether the disparities are due to

discriminatory practices or instead to other explanatory factors (U.S. Department of Education, 2018a, 2018b).

P.L. Morgan et al. Journal of School Psychology 72 (2019) 1–13

1.2. Limitations in the knowledge base regarding whether and which SWD are being disproportionately suspended

Current empirical evidence regarding the extent to which SWD, including those who are racial or ethnic minorities, are being

disproportionately suspended as they attend U.S. schools is currently limited in several ways (Mendez & Knoﬀ, 2003). First, most

prior studies investigating whether SWD are disproportionately suspended have used limited statistical controls (e.g., year, race)

(Krezmien et al., 2006;Vincent, Sprague, & Tobin, 2012;Zhang et al., 2004) or cross-sectional designs (Anderson & Ritter, 2017;

GAO, 2018;Goran & Gage, 2011). Thus, the resulting risk estimates have been unadjusted for strong potential confounds (e.g.,

gender, age, family socioeconomic status [SES], prior behavioral or academic functioning). The risk attributed to having a disability

may therefore be partly—or fully—explained by other factors (Duran, Zhou, Frew, Kwok, & Benz, 2011;Theriot et al., 2010).

Second, very few studies have attempted to identify risk factors for more frequent suspension. Most of the available studies

instead have estimated the risk of being suspended dichotomously (i.e., “yes” or “no”) (e.g., Achilles et al., 2007;Bowman-Perrott

et al., 2013;Krezmien et al., 2006;Duran et al., 2011;Hemphill et al., 2009, 2012;Martin, 2014). Yet dichotomizing a variable that

could be measured continuously results in lost data, larger standard errors, reduced statistical power, and possibly biased risk

estimates (Altman & Royston, 2006;MacCallum, Zhang, Preacher, & Rucker, 2002). Identifying risk factors for more frequent sus-

pension is also substantively important. This is because students who are more frequently suspended are especially likely to ex-

perience (a) academic diﬃculties in school due to increased absenteeism and (b) involvement with the criminal justice system due to

less adult supervision and more opportunities to interact with criminally active individuals (Anderson & Ritter, 2017). Mowen and

Brent (2016) recently reported a strong relation between the frequency of suspension and children's risk of later arrest. Those who

were suspended across two, three, or four of the study's survey waves were 136%, 252%, and 400% more likely, respectively, to later

be arrested compared to those suspended only during one survey wave.

Third, and although a few available studies have used more extensive statistical controls, these studies have analyzed single

district- (Sullivan et al., 2013) or state-level (Anderson & Ritter, 2017;Kinsler, 2011) samples not designed to generalize to the U.S.

school-aged population. The few studies that have estimated the frequency of suspension among SWD ﬁnd that those with the speciﬁc

conditions of SLD, ED, or other health impairment (OHI), as well as students who are Black, male, or from lower SES families are

suspended more frequently. However, generalizability of the samples and statistical control for potential confounds have been

limited. For example, Sullivan et al.'s (2013) analyses indicating that SWD were more likely to experience multiple suspensions were

based on data from a single, unrepresentative school district in Wisconsin where 50% of the parents had at least a college degree.

Further, the cross-sectional data available to the investigators meant that prior behavioral functioning could not be controlled for as a

potential confound. Limited generalizability and lack of control for potential confounds also characterize the study by Sullivan, Van

Norman, and Klingbeil (2014) that analyzed data from the same district in Wisconsin. Both of these studies examined a constrained

range of 0, 1, or > 1 suspensions. Neither Mowen and Brent's (2016), nor Petras et al.'s (2011), nor Mendez and Knoﬀ's (2003)

analytical samples included SWD. Anderson and Ritter (2017) examined school-level but not individual-level risk factors for more

frequent suspension.

Because prior studies reporting on the suspension risk of SWD have been unable to adjust for prior behavioral functioning,

academic achievement, and other potential confounds (Sullivan et al., 2014), contrasts between otherwise similar students with and

without disabilities typically have not been possible. Yet contrasts between similarly situated students who diﬀer in their disability

status would better evaluate whether schools are discriminating against SWD when using suspension (e.g., NRC, 2004;OCR, 2016).

The very few studies reporting estimates designed to generalize to the U.S. school-aged population, which might be expected to best

inform federal legislation and policy, have largely examined whether suspension risk varies by speciﬁc disability condition but only

among samples of SWD (Achilles et al., 2007;Bowman-Perrott et al., 2013;Duran et al., 2011). Thus, it is currently unknown

whether, among students who are otherwise similar in their behavior, academic achievement, and additional background char-

acteristics, schools suspend those with disabilities more frequently. It is also unknown how suspension frequency varies by speciﬁc

disability conditions as well as how disability status and race or ethnicity interact.

Establishing whether and to what extent SWD, including those who are racial or ethnic minorities, attending U.S. elementary and

middle schools are being more frequently suspended than otherwise similar students without disabilities has important implications for

federal legislation and policy as well as for educational research and practice. Doing so would better clarify whether, as hypothesized

(Losen & Gillespie, 2012) and thought to be occurring widely (U.S. Department of Education Equity in IDEA Rule, 2016b), U.S. schools

are discriminating against SWD in their use of suspension. This would be particularly important to examine for those SWD who are

racial or ethnic minorities. If SWD who are racial or ethnic minorities are being more frequently suspended than SWD who are White,

this would suggest the need for greater use of culturally and language sensitive behavioral interventions by school psychologists, special

education teachers, and other practitioners to better meet the speciﬁc academic or behavioral needs of students with special needs. More

broadly, such an investigation would help establish whether, as has been reported to occur for the speciﬁc condition of attention-deﬁcit/

hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), being identiﬁed as disabled increases the likelihood of entering the metaphorical school-to-prison

pipeline for students who are racial or ethnic minorities through an attendant greater risk for suspension (Behnken et al., 2014). Finding

this to be the case would suggest that SWD who are racial or ethnic minorities may beneﬁt from additional academic and behavioral

supports to avoid suspension's associated life-course adversities. Investigating which students with speciﬁc disability conditions are

more frequently suspended would also better inform federally mandated monitoring eﬀorts.

1.3. Purpose of study

Given the aforementioned limitations of prior empirical work, the purpose of the current study was to evaluate the extent to

P.L. Morgan et al. Journal of School Psychology 72 (2019) 1–13

which SWD are being more frequently suspended as they attend U.S. elementary and middle schools. To address substantive and

methodological limitations in prior studies, we estimated the risk of being more frequently suspended using negative binomial

regression modeling of the number of times suspended by eighth grade from a nationally representative and longitudinal sample. We

statistically adjusted the risk factor estimates simultaneously for an extensive set of individual student-, family-, and school-level

covariates. Doing so should better approximate contrasts between similarly situated students and so yield rigorously derived esti-

mates of the risk for more frequent suspensions attributable to speciﬁc factors including disability status. We examined the following

research questions:

1. Are students identiﬁed as having disabilities by the end of ﬁrst grade at greater risk of being more frequently suspended by the end

of eighth grade than students not so identiﬁed? Based on prior work (e.g., Sullivan et al., 2013), we hypothesized that SWD would

initially (i.e., in unadjusted estimates) receive more suspensions than students without disabilities.

2. To what extent is any initially observed risk of more frequent suspension for SWD explained by other student- (e.g., race/ethnicity,

gender), family- (SES), or school-level factors (racial, ethnic, and economic segregation), as well as plausibly exogenous individual

student-level behavior and achievement measured at school entry? Based on prior work investigating for potential discriminatory

disability identiﬁcation practices by schools (Hibel, Farkas, & Morgan, 2010;Morgan, Farkas, Hillemeier, & Maczuga, 2017), we

hypothesized that other explanatory factors would fully explain initial but unadjusted associations between having a disability

and the frequency of suspension. We expected that these other explanatory factors would include individual student-level race or

ethnicity, gender, family SES, prior history of externalizing problem behaviors, diﬃculties with attention and other learning-

related behaviors, academic achievement, and school-level racial, ethnic, and economic segregation. We also hypothesized that

these alternative explanatory factors would explain the greater suspension risk previously reported for students with speciﬁc

disability conditions including SLD, ED, and S/LI (Bowman-Perrott et al., 2013;Sullivan et al., 2014).

3. Are SWD who are racial or ethnic minorities suspended more frequently than SWD who are White? We hypothesized that other

explanatory factors (e.g., family SES, prior behavioral functioning) would also account for these interactions (Morgan et al.,

2017).

2. Method

2.1. Data and analytical sample

We analyzed data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Class of 1998–1999 (ECLS-K), a data set collected

and administered by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The ECLS-K is a nationally representative, longitudinal

cohort of children who were followed from kindergarten entry through the end of eighth grade. A multistage, probability sampling

design was employed in which approximately 1300 public and private schools were sampled from 100 geographic regions. About 24

kindergarten students were recruited from each school. Data collection continued throughout elementary and middle school. Surveys

were administered in kindergarten, ﬁrst, third, ﬁfth, and eighth grade. The NCES provided sampling weights to account for attrition

across sample waves. The study's sample contained information on 6740 students who participated in the ECLS-K from kindergarten

through eighth grade. As described below, we used multiple imputation to account for missing data for this sample.

2.2. Measures

2.2.1. School suspension

The dependent variable of interest was the number of times a student had been suspended from school by the spring of eighth

grade. During the parent interview portion of the ECLS-K eighth grade assessment, each parent was asked the number of times his or

her child had received an in- or out-of-school suspension. This was reported by parents as a cumulative total regardless of the ages or

grades at which each suspension occurred. Because this survey was administered to parents during the spring of the student's eighth

grade year, we refer to this variable as the student's number of suspensions through eighth grade.

2.2.2. Disability status

School personnel reported whether an Individualized Education Program (IEP) was on ﬁle. We considered SWD as those students

with IEPs on ﬁle who were receiving special education services due to formally identiﬁed disabilities. Along with the study's cov-

ariates, we used disability status (as indicated by an IEP being reported on ﬁle at the school) to predict the number of times students

were suspended by the spring of eighth grade. To reduce the possibility of reverse causality (i.e., that suspended students missed

instruction and thus performed less well academically, leading to being identiﬁed as disabled, such that any relation between these

variables was due to suspension resulting in disability identiﬁcation rather than vice versa), we conservatively measured disability

status as having been identiﬁed by the spring of ﬁrst grade. We did so because students identiﬁed as disabled received this desig-

nation prior to the preponderance of the time period when they were likely to be suspended (i.e., second to eighth grade). Doing so

helped ensure that any signiﬁcant relations between disability status and suspension frequency were most likely due to earlier

disability identiﬁcation aﬀecting later suspension frequency. Prior work has found that most suspensions occur during middle school,

followed by high school. Very few suspensions occur during elementary school, suggesting that even fewer occur by ﬁrst grade

(Mendez & Knoﬀ, 2003).

Students who had an IEP by the end of ﬁrst grade (i.e., 6.8% of the study's sample) represented only a subset of all students who

P.L. Morgan et al. Journal of School Psychology 72 (2019) 1–13

had an IEP by the spring of eighth grade. However, and by restricting attention to students identiﬁed as having disabilities by the end

of ﬁrst grade, we limited the possibility that any relations observed between disability status and suspension frequency were the

result of more frequently suspended students having been, as a consequence of suspension, identiﬁed as having disabilities. Further,

students with an IEP by ﬁrst grade should have had more severe impairments due to their earlier identiﬁcation and so displayed

greater academic or behavioral diﬃculties than students identiﬁed as having disabilities in the later grades. This made for a more

conservative test of whether disability status increased the frequency of suspension. This is because, if having a disability increased

the risk of suspension frequency, then student with more severe impairments should have been the most likely to be suspended more

frequently. Put another way, if suspension frequency was not elevated for SWD with more severe impairments, it seems unlikely that

suspension frequency would be elevated for SWD with less severe impairments. We also examined the risks of more frequent sus-

pension associated with speciﬁc disability conditions. These speciﬁc conditions included SLD, ED, S/LI, intellectual disability (ID),

OHI, developmental delay (DD), or other disability condition (ODC). We coded ODC as including the following rare disability

conditions: deaf-blindness, deafness, hearing impairment, orthopedic impairment, traumatic brain injury, and visual impairment.

2.2.3. Head Start

Participating in Head Start has been reported to increase the risk for suspension by middle school, although this risk may itself

result from children who participated in Head Start being more likely to later attend under-resourced schools (Aughinbaugh, 2001).

We, therefore, used participation in Head Start as a covariate when examining whether SWD were more likely to be frequently

suspended. Parents reported in the fall of kindergarten whether or not their child had been enrolled in federally sponsored Head Start.

We used a dummy variable for having been previously enrolled in Head Start (1 = yes, 0 = no).

2.2.4. Non-English-speaking household

Students with limited English proﬁciency have been reported to be at decreased risk of suspension (Anderson & Ritter, 2017).

Parents were asked about the primary language spoken in their home during the fall kindergarten survey. We coded those students

whose parents reported a primary language other than English as “1” and those students reported as using English as their primary

language as “0.” We used the kindergarten measure of this variable to help ensure that it was measured prior to the time period when

students were at risk for suspension.

2.2.5. Reading achievement

Greater academic achievement has been reported to decrease the risk for suspension (Arcia, 2006;Mizel et al., 2016). We ac-

counted for reading achievement as a covariate using the ECLS-K Reading Test administered during the fall of kindergarten. All items

were ﬁeld-tested and psychometric properties of items were evaluated using item response theory (IRT) methods. Items assessed in

kindergarten consisted of basic skills such as print familiarity, letter recognition, beginning and ending sounds, and rhyming sounds.

The reliability of the IRT-scale Reading Test scores for the kindergarten assessment was 0.93 (Pollack, Atkins-Burnett, Rock, & Weiss,

2005). We used the fall of kindergarten measure of this variable to ensure that it was measured prior to when students were most

likely to be suspended.

2.2.6. Mathematics achievement

Mathematics achievement in kindergarten was measured by the ECLS-K Mathematics Test. As with the Reading Test, all items

were ﬁeld-tested and their psychometric properties evaluated using IRT methods. The Mathematics Test's items during kindergarten

emphasized basic skills such as identifying numbers and shapes and counting objects. The reliability of the IRT-scaled Mathematics

Test scores in the kindergarten assessment was 0.92 (Pollack et al., 2005). As with the reading assessment, we used the fall of

kindergarten measure of this variable to ensure that it was measured prior to when students were most likely to be suspended.

2.2.7. Behavior

Engaging in problem behaviors, particularly externalizing-type behaviors like ﬁghting or being disruptive, has been reported to

increase the risk for suspension (Mizel et al., 2016). Students are typically suspended due to recurrent acting-out behaviors (Skiba

et al., 2014). General education teachers completed the Social Rating Scale, a modiﬁed version of the Social Skills Rating System

(Gresham & Elliott, 1990) to rate an individual student's behavior in the fall of kindergarten. The teachers used a frequency scale to

rate how often the student displayed a particular social skill or behavior (i.e., 1 = never; 4 = very often). Items used for the Ap-

proaches to Learning subscale measured how well a student self-regulated his or her behavior while completing learning-related tasks

(e.g., attentive, task persistent, ﬂexible and organized) in the classroom. Controlling for prior achievement, these learning-related

behaviors best predict later achievement (Duncan et al., 2007;Tach & Farkas, 2006). The split-half reliability for the Approaches to

Learning subscale was 0.89 (Pollack et al., 2005). The Externalizing Problem Behaviors subscale measures the frequency of acting out

behaviors (e.g., argues with the teacher, ﬁghts, shows anger, disturbs the classroom). The split-half reliability for the Externalizing

Behaviors scale was 0.90 (Pollack et al., 2005). As with the achievement measures, we used the kindergarten measures of learning-

related and externalizing problem behaviors to ensure that they were measured prior to when students were likely to be suspended.

2.2.8. Socio-demographic characteristics

Students who are Black or Hispanic have been reported to have a higher risk of suspension (GAO, 2018;Petras et al., 2011), as

have boys (Sullivan et al., 2013). Students from lower SES families have also been reported to be more likely to be suspended than

students from higher SES families (Hemphill, Plenty, Herrenkohl, Toumbourou, & Catalano, 2014). Children's age, race or ethnicity

P.L. Morgan et al. Journal of School Psychology 72 (2019) 1–13

(coded as White, Black, Hispanic, or other), and gender have also been reported to increase the risk for suspension (Mizel et al.,

2016). Data on these variables were collected from parents during the ECLS-K kindergarten interviews. Family SES was assessed using

a multivariate parental self-report questionnaire measuring maternal, paternal, and/or guardian education levels and occupations as

well as family income at each of the survey waves. Because our dependent variable was the cumulative number of suspensions

received by the spring of eighth grade, we used the SES measure as experienced by students over this time period. Accordingly, we

followed the common practice of averaging these variables across the survey waves.

2.2.9. School characteristics

Attending a racially or economically segregated school has been reported to increase the risk of suspension (Hughes, Warren,

Stewart, Tomaskovic-Devey, & Mears, 2017). We therefore included covariates that captured information about the socio-

demographic composition of the schools that students attended including the percentages of students who were Black or Hispanic and

those eligible to receive free lunch. We averaged these variables across the survey waves so that each represented the combined

school-level racial and economic conditions experienced by the study's students.

2.3. Analysis

We ﬁrst descriptively examined the data including calculating the percent with diﬀerent numbers of times suspended for students

with and without IEPs by ﬁrst grade. We then used negative binomial regression to model the number of times students were reported

to have been suspended. Allison (2012) recommends use of negative binomial regression models when examining count data. This is

because, unlike Poisson models that often ﬁt count data relatively poorly, negative binomial regression models allow for over-

dispersion (e.g., as here, where most students never experienced suspension and so there were a very large number of zero counts),

while also often being easier to estimate than zero-inﬂated Poisson models. Negative binomial regression also allows for greater

ﬂexibility when modeling variance (Winkelmann, 2003). Negative binomial regression models estimate the log of the expected count

as a function of the predictor variables. The resulting coeﬃcients are interpreted as follows: a 1-unit change in the independent

variable (e.g., having a disability) predicts a change in the diﬀerence in the logs of the expected counts of the dependent variable (i.e.,

being suspended) by the estimated coeﬃcient, holding the other predictor variables in the model constant.

We corrected the standard errors in these models for clustering of sample students in the kindergarten schools using the Huber-

White sandwich estimator, thereby adjusting for the non-independence of data from students in the same school when the sample was

drawn in kindergarten (Cameron & Miller, 2010;Primo, Jacobsmeier, & Milyo, 2007). We used SAS PROC SURVEYREG to obtain

these estimates. Multilevel models and Huber-White sandwich estimators provide similar values for standard errors as well as fully

adjust for clustering. Diﬀerence in use is explained more by disciplinary training (e.g., economics vs. psychology) than by speciﬁc

methodological advantages. For example, McNeish, Stapleton, and Silverman (2017) reported that “similar to HLM (hierarchical

linear modeling), the CR-SE (cluster-robust standard error) estimates fully address the clustered nature of the data” (p. 118).

Arceneaux and Nickerson (2009) reported that “clustered SEs, random eﬀects, and hierarchical models all adequately account for the

structure of the data” (p. 184). McNeish et al. (2017) further stated that cluster-adjusted standard errors made fewer assumptions

than multilevel models. Primo et al. (2007), when contrasting clustered standard errors to multilevel modeling, stated that “calcu-

lating clustered standard errors is a more straightforward and practical approach, especially when working with large datasets or

many cross-level interactions” (p. 446). Huang (2016) noted that use of cluster-adjusted standard errors based on Taylor linearization

is “well accepted, easy to implement, and is often considered the gold standard for variance estimation using complex sample data”

(p. 179). However, and as a robustness check, we re-estimated the negative binomial regression models using multi-level modeling

instead of CR-SE. The study's main results (available from the study's ﬁrst author) were consistent across both analytical methods.

We standardized the continuous predictor variables to facilitate comparison of eﬀect sizes. We used weights supplied by the NCES

to account for sample attrition by the eighth grade wave of the ECLS-K and multiple imputation to account for missing data. We used

Blimp software (Keller & Enders, 2017) when conducting the multiple imputation to account for the multilevel nature of the data

(Enders, Mistler, & Keller, 2016;Mistler & Enders, 2017). About 7% of the data were missing. We conservatively imputed 20 data sets

and then obtained parameter estimates for each. The resulting estimates were then averaged using the appropriate techniques in SAS

programming software.

We addressed the ﬁrst research question by describing the detailed distribution of number of times suspended, separately for

students who did and did not have an IEP in ﬁrst grade. We then estimated two regression models. The ﬁrst simultaneous regression

had IEP by ﬁrst grade, the interaction between IEP and race or ethnicity, and a large number of control variables as additional

predictors. The second simultaneous regression repeated this calculation, but in place of whether the student had an IEP by ﬁrst grade

we used dummy variables for the student's speciﬁc disability condition. Use of simultaneous regression is recommended when, as is

the case here, the focus of the analyses is to assess the relative predicted eﬀects of a set of possible explanatory variables on a criterion

variable (Keith, 2015). We could not include interactions between speciﬁc disability conditions and race or ethnicity in this equation

because of small sample sizes for these combinations. Instead, we continued the inclusion of interactions between IEP or not and race

or ethnicity in the model. The results from these two models answer the study's second and third research questions.

P.L. Morgan et al. Journal of School Psychology 72 (2019) 1–13

3. Results

3.1. Descriptive statistics

Table 1 shows the weighted descriptive statistics of the variables. In the sample of 6740 students, 16.6% had been suspended at

least once by the spring of eighth grade. Of those suspended, 10.1% had been suspended once, 3.2% were suspended twice, 1.7%

were suspended three times, 0.6% were suspended four times, and 0.9% were suspended ﬁve or more times. In the spring of ﬁrst

grade, 6.8% of the sample had an IEP. Of the entire sample, 0.7% percent had SLD, 0.2% had ED, 2.1% percent had S/LI, 0.3% had ID,

0.2% had OHI, 0.5% had DD, and 0.5% had ODC.

Table 2 shows the weighted distribution of the number of times students were suspended, separately by disability status in the

spring of ﬁrst grade. Overall, 20.1% and 16.3%, respectively, of students with and without disabilities in ﬁrst grade had been

suspended once or more by eighth grade. This answers the study's ﬁrst research question and is consistent with prior studies.

Speciﬁcally, when SWD are compared to students without disabilities and prior to controlling for other explanatory factors to make

the two groups otherwise similar, SWD descriptively had higher rates of suspension.

Table 1

Descriptive statistics of selected variables (N= 6,740), weighted.

Percentage or M (SD)

Ever suspended by 8th grade 16.6%

Suspended 1 time by 8th grade 10.1%

Suspended 2 times by 8th grade 3.2%

Suspended 3 times by 8th grade 1.7%

Suspended 4 times by 8th grade 0.6%

Suspended 5 times by 8th grade 0.9%

IEP, spring 1st grade 6.8%

White 57.3%

Black 17.3%

Hispanic 18.2%

Other race/ethnicity 7.3%

Male 51.7%

Age, fall kindergarten 68.5 (4.4)

IEP, spring 1st grade, learning disabled 0.7%

IEP, spring 1st grade, emotional disturbance 0.2%

IEP, spring 1st grade, speech or language impairment 2.1%

IEP, spring 1st grade, intellectual disability 0.3%

IEP, spring 1st grade, other health impairment 0.2%

IEP, spring 1st grade, developmental delay 0.5%

IEP, spring 1st grade, other/missing 0.5%

Enrolled in Head Start, fall kindergarten 17.4%

From non-English household, fall kindergarten 11.9%

Family SES, average −0.0 (0.8)

Externalizing problem behaviors, fall kindergarten 1.6 (0.6)

Approaches to learning, fall kindergarten 3.0 (0.7)

Reading Test score, fall kindergarten, IRT-scale score 35.1 (10.1)

Mathematics Test score, fall kindergarten, IRT-scale score 26.4 (9.1)

School's percentage of Black students, average 16.0 (20.3)

School's percentage of Hispanic students, average 13.9 (18.7)

School's percentage of students receiving free lunch, average 33.1 (24.8)

Note. IEP = Individualized Education Program; IRT = item response theory; K = kindergarten;

SES = socioeconomic status. Sample size rounded as per NCES requirements.

Table 2

Times suspended by the end of 8th grade, students with and without an IEP in ﬁrst grade and total sample, weighted.

Number of times suspended Students with IEP by spring of 1st grade

(N= 390)

Students without an IEP by spring of 1st grade

(N= 6,350)

Total

(N= 6,740)

0 79.9% 83.6% 83.4%

1 13.2% 9.9% 10.1%

2 3.1% 3.2% 3.2%

3 2.1% 1.6% 1.7%

4 0.9% 0.6% 0.6%

5 0.8% 1.0% 0.9%

Note. IEP = Individualized Education Program; sample sizes rounded as per NCES requirements.

P.L. Morgan et al. Journal of School Psychology 72 (2019) 1–13

3.2. Negative binomial regression model results

Table 3 shows two negative binomial regression models predicting the number of times students were suspended by the spring of

eighth grade. Model 1 shows no signiﬁcant coeﬃcient of IEP on suspension. The coeﬃcients of the interactions between IEP and race

or ethnicity were also non-signiﬁcant. Further, the coeﬃcients of the interactions between IEP and being Black or Hispanic were

negative. These results show that simultaneously controlling for an extensive set of alternative explanatory factors, we found no

support for the hypotheses that SWD were more frequently suspended than otherwise similar students without disabilities. We also

failed to ﬁnd that SWD who are Black or Hispanic or of other race/ethnicity were more frequently suspended than otherwise similar

SWD who are White.

In contrast, the coeﬃcient for students who are Black was positive and signiﬁcant. This suggests that students who are Black were

suspended more frequently than otherwise similar students who are White. However, this increased risk was unrelated to having a

disability as indicated by the non-signiﬁcant (and, for Black and Hispanic students, directionally inconsistent) interaction terms. The

negative binomial regression estimated the log of the number of events as an additive function of the predictors. Thus, to examine the

multiplicative eﬀect of a variable on the expected number of events, one should exponentiate its coeﬃcient. Exponentiating the

coeﬃcient for Black students in Model 1 of Table 3 gives exp. (0.45) = 1.57. Thus, and on average, students who are Black received

about 1.6 times as many suspensions by the end of eighth grade as otherwise similar students who are White. (We caution, however,

that suspension is a relatively rare event. As shown in Table 1, 83.4% of the sample were never suspended and an additional 10.1%

were suspended only once.)

As for the other variables in the equation, a number of them are statistically signiﬁcant. Males had a much higher rate of

suspension than females. Children who were older when they entered kindergarten had a higher rate than those who were younger.

Students from non-English-speaking households and from higher SES families were suspended less frequently. Kindergarten students

who engaged in externalizing problems more frequently were suspended more frequently during elementary and middle school.

Schools with a higher percentage of low-income students had a higher suspension rate.

Model 2 replaced the general IEP variable with the speciﬁc disability condition for which students were receiving special edu-

cation services. The IEP variable was deleted from this equation because it is redundant of having one of the speciﬁc disabilities.

(Accordingly, students within each disability category are being compared to students without disabilities.) In general, the estimates

Table 3

Weighted parameter estimates of negative binomial regression models of the number of times suspended by the end of 8th grade

(N= 6,740).

Model 1 Model 2

Intercept −2.44

⁎⁎⁎

−2.45

⁎⁎⁎

IEP in 1st grade −0.01 –

Black 0.45

⁎⁎

0.45

⁎⁎

Hispanic −0.06 −0.05

Other race/ethnicity −0.33 −0.34

⁎

Male 0.96

⁎⁎⁎

0.97

⁎⁎⁎

Age, fall kindergarten 0.11

⁎⁎

0.12

⁎⁎

Learning disabled 0.01

Emotional disturbance −0.14

Speech or language impairment 0.42

Intellectual disability 0.36

Other health impairment −1.46

Developmental delay −1.30

Other disability −2.31

⁎

IEP in 1st grade × Black −0.56 −0.53

IEP in 1st grade × Hispanic −0.22 −0.33

IEP in 1st grade × Other race/ethnicity 0.16 0.10

Enrolled in Head Start, fall kindergarten 0.13 0.12

From non-English household, fall kindergarten −0.65

⁎⁎⁎

−0.65

⁎⁎⁎

Family SES, average −0.29

⁎⁎⁎

−0.29

⁎⁎⁎

Externalizing problem behaviors, fall kindergarten 0.32

⁎⁎⁎

0.33

⁎⁎⁎

Approaches to learning, fall kindergarten −0.06 −0.06

Reading Test score, fall kindergarten −0.01 −0.01

Mathematics Test score, fall kindergarten −0.07 −0.07

School's percentage of Black students, average 0.06 0.05

School's percentage of Hispanic students, average 0.03 0.02

School's percentage of students receiving free lunch, average 0.21

⁎⁎⁎

0.22

⁎⁎⁎

Note. IEP =Individualized Education Program; SES = socioeconomic status. Multiple imputation and clustered standard errors

used. All models are clustered on fall kindergarten school. Twenty imputed BLIMP (Keller & Enders, 2017) datasets used.

Continuous variables standardized.

⁎

< 0.05.

⁎⁎

< 0.01.

⁎⁎⁎

< 0.001.

P.L. Morgan et al. Journal of School Psychology 72 (2019) 1–13

in this model are very similar to those in Model 1. As for the speciﬁc disability conditions, only ODC was statistically signiﬁcant. This

had a large and negative coeﬃcient. Thus, students with ODC were suspended less frequently during elementary and middle school

than students without disabilities, possibly because this variable includes conditions such as blindness and other physical disabilities

that may not result in disruptions of academic work in classrooms.

To summarize, the study's ﬁndings indicated that (a) even when disability status and many potential confounds were simulta-

neously controlled, students who are Black were more frequently suspended than otherwise similar students who are White; (b) the

interactions between race or ethnicity and disability status were not statistically signiﬁcant after controls including for family SES,

prior behavior, and school characteristics; (c) these interactions were directionally consistent with SWD who are Black or Hispanic

being less likely to be suspended than SWD who are White; and (d) the strongest relation between speciﬁc disability condition and

frequency of suspension occurred for students with ODC, who were less frequently suspended than students without disabilities.

3.3. Robustness check

As a robustness check, we also estimated three additional regression models (i.e., Poisson regression, zero-inﬂated negative

binomial regression, and zero-inﬂated Poisson regression, results available from the ﬁrst author). We found that Akaike's Information

Criteria (AIC) was lowest for the negative binomial regression of the four types of regressions that we estimated. Results from these

other models were consistent with results reported in Table 3's negative binomial regression. This suggested that the negative bi-

nomial regression results were robust to alternative regression model speciﬁcations.

4. Discussion

Establishing whether and to what extent SWD are being suspended more frequently than otherwise similar students without

disabilities is an important issue of policy, research, and practice because of suspension's adverse life-course associations with lower

academic achievement, school dropout, substance abuse, juvenile delinquency, and adult criminality (e.g., Cuellar & Markowitz,

2015;Hemphill et al., 2012;Katsiyannis et al., 2013;Noltemeyer et al., 2015). For example, more frequent suspension greatly

increases the risk for juvenile arrest (Mowen & Brent, 2016), thereby serving as a potential entry point into the metaphorical school-

to-prison pipeline. Federal legislation and regulations require U.S. states to monitor for signiﬁcant disproportionality in suspension,

including for SWD who are racial or ethnic minorities (U.S. Department of Education Equity in IDEA Rule, 2016b). However, the ﬁeld

has lacked strong empirical evidence as to whether schools may be inappropriately suspending SWD more frequently than otherwise

similar students without disabilities. This is because few studies have estimated the risk of being suspended more frequently, in-

cluding as examined in analyses of a nationally representative sample that simultaneously accounted for a number of alternative

explanatory factors when estimating the risk attributable speciﬁcally to having a disability. Establishing that schools are suspending

SWD more frequently than otherwise similar students without disabilities would provide suggestive evidence that U.S. schools may be

using suspension in ways that are discriminatory (e.g., NRC, 2004; OCR, 2016).

In order to avoid potential reverse causality between SWD and suspension, we coded IEP as 1 only if the student had an IEP by

ﬁrst grade. Because very few suspensions occur prior to middle school (Mendez & Knoﬀ, 2003), these students were unlikely to have

been classiﬁed as having a disability because they had previously been suspended. By measuring the relation between this deﬁnition

of IEP and the number of times suspended through the spring of eighth grade, we were able to estimate the risk of having a disability

on suspension while limiting any eﬀect of suspension on the risk of having a disability.

Simple descriptive statistics showed that SWD have higher suspension rates than students without disabilities. However, multi-

variable regression models including controls for potential confounds fully explained this risk. Importantly, we found no signiﬁcant

interactions between IEP and race or ethnicity. Signiﬁcant risk factors for more frequent suspension included being Black, male,

older, raised in a English-speaking household, raised in a lower SES family, more frequently engaging in externalizing behavior

problems, and attending a school in which a higher percent of students in the school are from low-income families. For example, on

average, students who are Black receive about 1.6 times as many suspensions than otherwise similar students who are White across

elementary and middle school. However, and despite currently being an explicit target of compliance monitoring by federal legis-

lation and regulations (e.g., U.S. Department of Education Equity in IDEA Rule, 2016b), we found no evidence to suggest that SWD

who are racial or ethnic minorities are suspended more frequently than SWD who are White. Thus, and although students who are

Black are suspended more frequently, this risk is unrelated to whether they also are SWD.

4.1. Limitations

Our study has several limitations. We report risk factor estimates. Our study does not allow for causal inferences. As in prior

studies examining for disproportionality in suspension (Wright, Morgan, Coyne, Beaver, & Barnes, 2014), including for SWD (e.g.,

Achilles et al., 2007;Bowman-Perrott et al., 2013;Duran et al., 2011), our analyses relied on a parent's retrospective report of school

suspension. Parents may not always have known how often their children had been suspended. However, and as seems likely, our risk

factor estimates are conservative if the resulting measurement error was random. It is also possible that we would have observed

other results if additional measures of the dependent variables (e.g., the number of days suspended for each disciplinary infraction,

whether the suspension was in- or out-of-school) and data sources (e.g., school records, student reports, or direct observations) had

been available.

Relatedly, data collection for the ECLS-K ended at the end of eighth grade. Although suspension occurs most frequently during

P.L. Morgan et al. Journal of School Psychology 72 (2019) 1–13

middle school (Mendez & Knoﬀ, 2003), we were unable to investigate whether the disparities that we observed continued to occur

during high school. We adjusted for prior behavior and achievement using measures administered during the fall of kindergarten,

which were plausibly exogenous to the occurrence of suspension throughout elementary and middle school. However, we may have

observed other results had we accounted diﬀerently for prior behavior. Alternatively, and because the ECLS-K's measure of sus-

pension surveyed parents about whether their children had been suspended by eighth grade, averaging the teacher behavioral ratings

across the elementary grades would have resulted in a more tenuous assumption of exogeneity. We did average the family's SES and

the racial and economic segregation of schools across kindergarten to eighth grade to account for the changing environmental

contexts that students experienced as they moved from the fall of kindergarten to the spring of eighth grade. The ECLS-K data were

collected until the spring of 2007. Analyses of more recently collected data are needed to replicate these ﬁndings.

4.2. Contributions and implications

Our ﬁndings have implications for federal legislation and policy as well as educational research and practice. We ﬁnd suggestive

evidence that U.S. elementary and middle schools use suspension in ways that may be discriminatory, at least as indicated by the

disparities in suspension frequency not being explained by measured confounds including student-level measures of behavior, family-

level SES, and school-level racial and economic composition. For example, and consistent with some studies (e.g., Petras et al., 2011;

Skiba et al., 2011), we ﬁnd that on average students who are Black are more frequently suspended than similarly situated students

who are White. Speciﬁcally, our analyses indicated that students who are Black receive about 1.6 times as many suspensions than

otherwise similar students who are White by the end of middle school. This increased risk for students who are Black for more

frequent suspension is not explained by potential confounds including student-level behavior, family SES, and school racial and

economic segregation.

Variability in both sample characteristics and statistical analysis may explain diﬀerences between our ﬁndings and those of prior

work. For example, we analyzed a nationally representative sample in which family SES was directly assessed using parental surveys

of family income, occupation, and education level. In contrast, Kinsler (2011) analyzed state-level data and controlled for SES using

school records of receipt of free or reduced-price lunch. The ECLS-K's survey of parental education, occupation, and income, which

are averaged into a single composite variable, should have better controlled for family SES (Harwell & LeBeau, 2010), which is a

strong confound of race and ethnicity (Patten & Krogstad, 2015). Because the ECLS-K data included these more proximal measures of

family SES, our analyses should have better corrected for this strong confound and so allowed more rigorous estimates of the risk of

suspension attributable to race or ethnicity.

Our ﬁndings conﬂict with those reported in Wright et al.'s (2014) study, in which student suspension was dichotomously mea-

sured and most control variables including disability status were contemporaneously assessed at the eighth-grade survey while prior

behavioral functioning was averaged from kindergarten, ﬁrst, and third grade. In contrast, our study's individual-level predictor

variables were assessed in kindergarten and ﬁrst grade while the dependent variable was instead the number of times suspended by

the end of eighth grade. We identiﬁed students as having disabilities if they had an IEP by the spring of ﬁrst grade in order to limit the

possibility of reverse causality (i.e., suspension causing disability identiﬁcation). We therefore did not analyze the number of times

suspended for all students who ever had an IEP. Instead, we analyzed data from ﬁrst grade students who already had an IEP to

examine whether such identiﬁcation increased their likelihood of being suspended. We believe that this allowed for a conservative

analysis as this subgroup of students likely included an above average share of those with more severe impairments given their earlier

disability identiﬁcation. If SWD with more severe impairments were not at elevated risk for suspension, then it seems unlikely that

this would be the case for SWD with less severe impairments. We controlled for student-level behavior in kindergarten, which should

have temporally preceded suspension to further limit reverse causality. In addition, our family- and school-level variables were

averaged across all survey waves and so better accounted for changing environmental conditions students experienced from ﬁrst

through eighth grade. (Averaging across waves was also the best option to represent these environmental variables because the ECLS-

K parent survey did not ask about speciﬁc dates for suspensions.) One resulting practical implication of our study is that school

psychologists, teachers, and administrators should consider early interventions for kindergarten students already engaging in ex-

ternalizing problem behaviors. These students are at increased risk of being more frequently suspended throughout the elementary

and middle school grades.

Another practical implication of our study is that teachers, school psychologists, and administrators should consider whether

students are being suspended in ways that may discriminate based on sex, race, age, or economic background. This is because, as

others have found (Petras et al., 2011;Wright et al., 2014), socio-demographic disparities in suspension frequency are not fully

explained by variability in student-level externalizing problem behavior as well as other student-level indicators of school functioning

that might reasonably be related to the frequency of suspension. Educational practices that might help address these disparities

include increasing access to race- or gender-concordant teachers and/or those experienced in working with older students, as these

teachers may be able to advise on how to appropriately manage problem behavior in culturally sensitive ways that do not result in

suspension (Lindsay & Hart, 2017). Increasing the availability of evidence-based training of culturally sensitive practices may also be

helpful. School-to-home outreach eﬀorts to parents of children from traditionally marginalized populations may also help reduce

socio-demographic disparities in suspension frequency by helping stressed or under-resourced parents better manage their children's

externalizing problem behaviors as well as increasing the consistency of the behavior management approaches used across home and

school (Mason et al., 2016).

We ﬁnd little evidence that U.S. elementary and middle schools are suspending SWD more frequently than otherwise similar

students without disabilities. Our ﬁndings do not support policies or reports (Kim et al., 2010;Losen & Gillespie, 2012;OCR, 2014)

P.L. Morgan et al. Journal of School Psychology 72 (2019) 1–13

that having a disability is itself associated with an increased risk of entering the school-to-prison pipeline via school suspension

(Behnken et al., 2014;Mowen & Brent, 2016) conditional on this study's other explanatory factors. This includes SWD who are racial

or ethnic minorities, who were suspended no more frequently than SWD who are White. That SWD were not suspended more

frequently than students without disabilities as they attend U.S. elementary and middle schools conﬂicts with some prior work

(Krezmien et al., 2006), which did not adjust for potential confounds (Losen & Gillespie, 2012) including prior behavior (GAO, 2018;

Sullivan et al., 2013). However, our ﬁndings are consistent with other studies (e.g., Theriot et al., 2010), including those few that

have similarly accounted for the strong confound of prior behavior (Kinsler, 2011;Wright et al., 2014) and have also failed to ﬁnd

that SWD are more likely to be suspended than otherwise similar students without disabilities. We also fail to ﬁnd empirical evidence

to support federal legislation and policies (U.S. Department of Education Equity in IDEA Rule, 2016b) requiring monitoring for

signiﬁcant disproportionality in the extent to which SWD who are racial or ethnic minorities are being suspended as they attend U.S.

schools.

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Students’ Risks for Out-of-School Suspensions: Indigenous Heritage and Child Protective Services Involvement

Article

May 2023
CHILD MALTREATMENT

Disproportionality in out-of-school suspensions (OSS) is a persistent social and racial justice issue. Available research indicates that Indigenous children are disproportionately represented in both OSS and the child protective services (CPS) system. This secondary data analysis followed a cohort of 3 rd grade students ( n = 60,025) in Minnesota public schools from 2008– 2014. It examined the relationship between CPS involvement, Indigenous heritage, and OSS. Results from a zero-inflated negative binomial regression indicated that Indigenous students had two times the odds of suspension compared to white students (OR = 2.06, p < .001). Furthermore, there was a significant interaction between CPS involvement and Indigeneity on frequency of OSS (OR = 0.88, p < .05). Indigenous students showed a much higher odds ratio of OSS compared to white students, but the distance between the odds ratios of the two groups decreased as the number of child maltreatment allegations increased. Indigenous students may experience relatively high levels of both CPS and OSS due to systematic racism. We discussed implications for practice and policy to reduce discipline disparities.

Taking Note of Our Biases: How Language Patterns Reveal Bias Underlying the Use of Office Discipline Referrals in Exclusionary Discipline

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2023

The comments teachers write when sending students to the office have the potential to increase our understanding of how bias may contribute to longstanding racial disparities in school discipline. However, large-scale analysis of open text has traditionally had a prohibitive cost. Through natural language processing techniques, we examined over 3.5 million office discipline records from national samples of more than 4,000 schools for whether teachers’ linguistic patterns differed when describing incidents depending on the race/ethnicity and gender of the students. Results of such analyses consistently showed that teachers wrote longer descriptions and included more negative emotion when disciplining Black compared to White students, especially for Black girls. In conjunction with psychology of language theory, the patterns suggest that teachers may perceive and process student behavior differently depending on student identities. Implications of the findings and potential for research on naturally occurring language data in education are discussed.

Taking Note of Our Biases: How the Language of Office Discipline Referrals Reveals Disparities by Student Race and Gender

Preprint

Jan 2023

We used automated natural language processing techniques to examine whether teachers who refer students to the office for discipline provide different information to explain the referral depending on the race/ethnicity and gender of the student. Analysis of narratives associated with over 3 million office discipline referrals of over 400,000 unique students from approximately 4,000 schools, replicated in two years of data (2015-2016, 2018-2019) suggested that teachers disciplining Black students tend to describe the incident with more words and using more negative affect than teachers disciplining White students, particularly Black boys and girls. Teachers also tend to use more impersonal pronouns when explaining why they were disciplining Asian versus White students. We present some of the first evidence with naturally occurring language data to document bias in education, motivating new ways to consider how this social and psychological dynamics manifest at scale.

Fixed Effect Estimates of Student-Teacher Racial or Ethnic Matching in U.S. Elementary Schools

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2022
EARLY CHILD RES Q

We used student fixed effects and statistical controls to investigate whether U.S. elementary students ( N = 18,170) displayed greater academic achievement, social-emotional behavior, or executive functioning and were more likely to receive gifted or special education services when taught by teachers of the same race or ethnicity. We observed mostly null effects for student-teacher racial or ethnic matching across the study’s 12 dependent measures in analyses adjusting for Type 1 error. Matching resulted in lower science achievement (effect size [ES] = -.03 SD ) for the full sample. Matching resulted in fewer internalizing problem behaviors (ES = 0.18 SD ) for Black students. We observed null effects for Hispanic students. Robustness checks including those stratified by race or ethnicity and biological sex or by prior levels of low or high level of achievement, behavior, or executive functioning largely supported the study’s null findings. Exceptions were that matching resulted in fewer externalizing problem behaviors (ES = 0.22 SD ) for Black girls and lower academic achievement (ES range = - 0.04 to -0.14 SD ) and fewer externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors (ES range = 0.24 to 0.33 SD ) for students who had previously displayed low levels of academic, behavioral, or executive functioning. Collectively, the analyses provide limited support for student-teacher racial or ethnic matching as a school-based policy to address educational disparities in U.S. elementary schools.

Autism Spectrum Disorder and Illegal Acts

Chapter

Sep 2020

Effects of Tiered SWPBIS Fidelity on Exclusionary Discipline Outcomes for Students With Disabilities: A Conceptual Replication

Article

Sep 2023

School-wide positive behavior interventions and supports (SWPBIS) is a tiered framework that supports the academic, social, and behavioral needs of students. In this study, we conducted a conceptual replication of Grasley-Boy et al. (2022a) and used a series of two-level linear multilevel analyses to examine the impact of SWPBIS fidelity on 10 exclusionary discipline outcomes for students with disabilities (SWD). Specifically, we compared schools that implemented multiple SWPBIS tiers with fidelity to schools that only implemented Tier 1 with fidelity from a sample of 558 schools in 113 districts in California. Findings indicate a statistically significant decrease in multiple out-of-school suspension categories as well as referrals to law enforcement for SWD in schools that implemented all tiers with fidelity. We provide recommendations for using findings to inform school efforts to reduce exclusionary discipline for SWD.

Increased Prescribing of Psychotropic Drugs or School-Based Services for Children with Disabilities? Associations of These Self-control-Boosting Strategies with Juvenile Violence at the State Level

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2023

Maria Tcherni-Buzzeo

The increasing rates at which psychotropic drugs have been prescribed to children and adolescents in the USA in the last three decades (since the early 1990s) have prompted questions about whether this trend is associated with the “great American crime decline.” Medicalization can be considered one of the strategies to remedy children’s neuropsychological deficits and improve their self-control. Another possible remedy is school-based services for children with learning disabilities, mandated by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) of 2004. Using state-level panel data analyses for years 1990–2014 (with the main focus on 2000–2014 outcomes), the current study estimates associations between these two developmental self-control remedies—medicalization and school-based services—and minor, moderate, and severe types of juvenile violence, while controlling for relevant covariates (both time-varying and time-invariant). The results of mixed-effects linear regression analyses accounting for powerful time trends show a strong association between increases in school-based services for children with learning disabilities and declines in all types of juvenile violence. Another strong and consistent finding that emerges in the analyses is the link between reductions in child poverty at the state level and decreases in juvenile violence, both contemporaneously and over time. Psychotropic drug prescribing to children (measured using Supplemental Security Income rolls of children with mental health conditions) exhibits inconsistent or insignificant effects. The findings of this study have substantial theoretical and policy implications and indicate the importance of strengthening school-based services for children with disabilities and reducing child poverty as essential violence prevention tools.

Disciplinary Exclusions

Chapter

Oct 2022

Disciplinary exclusions have been a persistent concern for decades, particularly among racially and ethnically diverse students and students with disabilities. In this chapter, we discuss disparities in disciplinary exclusions and consequences of disciplinary exclusions, and we advance empirical evidence of disproportionate discipline through an in-depth analysis of the 2017–2018 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC). CRDC data indicate that (a) Black students continue to receive significantly more ISS and OSS than White students, (b) Hispanic students do not disproportionately experience disciplinary exclusions at the same rate as Black students, (c) students with disabilities are 122% more likely to receive an ISS and OSS than students without disabilities after controlling for all other school characteristics, and (d) male students are 125% more likely to be suspended than female students. Further, findings regarding Hispanic students complicate broad stroke arguments that racially and ethnically diverse students disproportionately experience disciplinary exclusions. Implementing with fidelity Multitier Systems of Support (MTSS) such as Positive Behavioral and Interventions and Supports (PBIS) has the potential to address these inequities as these systems are data driven and promote evidence-based instructional and behavioral practices.KeywordsDisciplinary exclusions Disproportionality Students with disabilities Discrimination

Methodological Issues and Debates in the Study of Disproportionality in Education

Chapter

Oct 2022

Nicholas A. Gage

Disproportionality remains a difficult and persistent problem in education, particularly in special education. In this chapter, I describe critical features of the statistical calculations for disproportionality and highlight some of the methodological issues that continue to challenge both the calculation and interpretation of disproportionality. The metric used to describe the phenomenon is a critical choice, particularly if the goal is to compare two or more groups. However, as described in this chapter, not all can be aggregated in a rigorous way, leading some researchers to focus on risk ratios as they have a known variance and can be aggregated using a weighted statistical modeling approach. Other issues discussed include minimum cell size decisions and the comparison group used.KeywordsMethodologyDisproportionalityStatistical analysesStatistical modelingRace

Outcomes in Rural and Urban Settings for Students With Disabilities

Article

Apr 2022

Limited quantitative research has examined similarities and differences between the academic achievement and discipline outcomes, including suspensions, of students with disabilities in rural and urban schools. Therefore, we leveraged a statewide longitudinal data set to explore academic achievement and discipline outcomes for students with disabilities in rural schools and compared those outcomes to students with disabilities in urban schools. We then followed up with analyses to evaluate differences by disability category. The full data set of students in urban and rural schools included 1,306,134 observations from 366,529 unique students with disabilities across 11 consecutive years. We used a series of linear mixed-effects models to evaluate academic achievement for students in Grades 3 to 8 and generalized linear mixed-effects models to evaluate two discipline outcomes, in- and out-of-school suspensions. Overall, we found that students with disabilities in rural schools had lower reading scores, fewer in-school suspensions, and more out-of-school suspensions. Unique patterns across disability categories also emerged.

Replicated Evidence of Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Disability Identification in U.S. Schools

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2017

Federal legislation and policy increasingly seek to address minority overrepresentation in special education due to concerns that U.S. schools are misidentifying children as disabled based on their race or ethnicity. Yet whether and to what extent this is occurring is currently in dispute. We estimated racial disparities in disability identification using very large (e.g., Ns = 183,570, 165,540, and 48,560) student-level, nationally representative data sets and multivariate logistic regression including school fixed effects models along with tabulations of percentage with a disability among racial or ethnic groups across academic achievement deciles. Among children who were otherwise similar in their academic achievement, poverty exposure, gender, and English language learner status, racial or ethnic minority children were consistently less likely than White children to be identified as having disabilities. Minority children’s disability underidentification was evident (a) in elementary, middle, and high school; (b) across racially diverse groups and specific disability conditions; and (c) throughout the achievement distribution. Contrary to federal regulatory and policy efforts, minority children have been less likely than otherwise similarly achieving White children to receive special education services in the United States since at least 2003.

Disparate Use of Exclusionary Discipline: Evidence on Inequities in School Discipline from a U.S. State

Article

Full-text available

May 2017

There is much discussion in the United States about exclusionary discipline (suspensions and expulsions) in schools. According to a 2014 report from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, Black students represent 15% of students, but 44% of students suspended more than once and 36% of expelled students. This analysis uses seven years of individual infraction-level data from public schools in Arkansas. We find that marginalized students are more likely to receive exclusionary discipline, even after controlling for the nature and number of disciplinary referrals, but that most of the differences occur across rather than within schools. Across the state, black students are about 2.4 times as likely to receive exclusionary discipline (conditional on reported infractions and other student characteristics) whereas within school, this same conditional disparity is not statistically significant. Within schools, the disproportionalities in exclusionary discipline are driven primarily by non-race factors such as free-and reduced-price lunch (FRL) eligibility and special education status. We find, not surprisingly, that schools with larger proportions of non-White students tend to give out longer punishments, regardless of school income levels, measured by FRL rates. Combined, these results appear to indicate multiple tiers of disadvantage: race drives most of the disparities across schools, whereas within schools, FRL or special education status may matter more.

Racial Threat, Intergroup Contact, and School Punishment

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2017
J RES CRIME DELINQ

Objectives Drawing on the racial threat and intergroup contact literatures, we explore whether (1) a school’s racial or ethnic context increases school suspensions for Black, Hispanic, and White students; (2) intergroup contact among school board members reduces school suspensions for Black, Hispanic, and White students; and (3) a school’s racial or ethnic context effects on school suspensions are conditioned by intergroup contact among school board members. Method Count-dependent multilevel modeling techniques on school- and district-level measures from a representative sample of Florida middle and high schools. Results Larger racial and ethnic student populations within schools increase the likelihood of suspensions for Black and Hispanic students while decreasing suspensions for White students. Further, higher levels of intergroup contact between Black, White, and Hispanic school board members are associated with a lower likelihood of suspensions for all students. Finally, intergroup contact between Black, White, and Hispanic school board members moderates the effects of school racial and ethnic context on school suspensions. Conclusions Important factors are associated with school punishment for Black, Hispanic, and White students. Integrated spaces play an important role in decreasing both punishment disparities and punishment severity.

Multiple Regression and Beyond: An Introduction to Multiple Regression and Structural Equation Modeling

Book

Jan 2019

Timothy Z. Keith

Multiple Regression and Beyond offers a conceptually-oriented introduction to multiple regression (MR) analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM), along with analyses that flow naturally from those methods. By focusing on the concepts and purposes of MR and related methods, rather than the derivation and calculation of formulae, this book introduces material to students more clearly, and in a less threatening way. In addition to illuminating content necessary for coursework, the accessibility of this approach means students are more likely to be able to conduct research using MR or SEM--and more likely to use the methods wisely. This book: • Covers both MR and SEM, while explaining their relevance to one another • Includes path analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and latent growth modeling • Makes extensive use of real-world research examples in the chapters and in the end-of-chapter exercises • Extensive use of figures and tables providing examples and illustrating key concepts and techniques New to this edition: • New chapter on mediation, moderation, and common cause • New chapter on the analysis of interactions with latent variables and multilevel SEM • Expanded coverage of advanced SEM techniques in chapters 18 through 22 • International case studies and examples • Updated instructor and student online resources.

A Downward Spiral? Childhood Suspension and the Path to Juvenile Arrest

Article

Jun 2018

Joel Mittleman

There is growing concern that suspensions trigger a ‘‘downward spiral,’’ redirecting children’s trajectories away from school success and toward police contact. The current study tests this possibility, analyzing whether and in what ways childhood suspensions increase children’s risk for juvenile arrests. Combining 15 years of data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study with contextual information on neighborhoods and schools, I find that suspensions disproportionately affect children already enduring considerable adversity. Even so, suspensions appear to redirect children’s trajectories, more than doubling their risk of arrest. Although suspended children experienced greater escalations in behavioral problems than their peers, post-suspension behavioral changes explained relatively little of the association between early suspension and later arrest. Instead, the most consequential way suspended children diverged from their peers was their heightened risk for repeated school sanction. Suspended children’s risk for repeated school removal explained 52 percent of the association between childhood suspension and juvenile arrest.

A Comparison of Joint Model and Fully Conditional Specification Imputation for Multilevel Missing Data

Article

Aug 2017

Multiple imputation methods can generally be divided into two broad frameworks: joint model (JM) imputation and fully conditional specification (FCS) imputation. JM draws missing values simultaneously for all incomplete variables using a multivariate distribution, whereas FCS imputes variables one at a time from a series of univariate conditional distributions. In single-level multivariate normal data, these two approaches have been shown to be equivalent, but less is known about their similarities and differences with multilevel data. This study examined four multilevel multiple imputation approaches: JM approaches proposed by Schafer and Yucel and Asparouhov and Muthén and FCS methods described by van Buuren and Carpenter and Kenward. Analytic work and computer simulations showed that Asparouhov and Muthén and Carpenter and Kenward methods are most flexible, as they produce imputations that preserve distinct within- and between-cluster covariance structures. As such, these approaches are applicable to random intercept models that posit level-specific relations among variables (e.g., contextual effects analyses, multilevel structural equation models). In contrast, methods from Schafer and Yucel and van Buuren are more restrictive and impose implicit equality constraints on functions of the within- and between-cluster covariance matrices. The analytic work and simulations underscore the conclusion that researchers should not expect to obtain the same results from alternative imputation routines. Rather, it is important to choose an imputation method that partitions variation in a manner that is consistent with the analysis model of interest. A real data analysis example illustrates the various approaches.

Assistance to States for the Education of Children With Disabilities; Preschool Grants for Children With Disabilities. Final regulations

Article

Dec 2016

Department of Education Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services

The Secretary amends the regulations under Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) governing the Assistance to States for the Education of Children with Disabilities program and the Preschool Grants for Children with Disabilities program. With the goal of promoting equity under IDEA, the regulations will establish a standard methodology States must use to determine whether significant disproportionality based on race and ethnicity is occurring in the State and in its local educational agencies (LEAs); clarify that States must address significant disproportionality in the incidence, duration, and type of disciplinary actions, including suspensions and expulsions, using the same statutory remedies required to address significant disproportionality in the identification and placement of children with disabilities; clarify requirements for the review and revision of policies, practices, and procedures when significant disproportionality is found; and require that LEAs identify and address the factors contributing to significant disproportionality as part of comprehensive coordinated early intervening services (comprehensive CEIS) and allow these services for children from age 3 through grade 12, with and without disabilities.

Teacher race and school discipline

Article

Jan 2017

To Educate or To Incarcerate: Factors in Disproportionality in School Discipline

Article

Sep 2016
CHILD YOUTH SERV REV

School Discipline as a Turning Point: The Cumulative Effect of Suspension on Arrest

Article

Apr 2016
J RES CRIME DELINQ

Objectives To examine how school discipline may serve as a negative turning point for youth and contribute to increased odds of arrest over time and to assess whether suspensions received across multiple years may present a “cumulative” increase in odds of arrest. Methods Using four waves of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we use a longitudinal hierarchical generalized linear model (HGLM) to explore how school suspensions contribute to odds of arrest across time while controlling for a number of theoretically important dimensions such as race, age, delinquency, and gender among others. Results Results show that youth who are suspended are at an increased risk of experiencing an arrest across time relative to youth who are not suspended and that this effect increases across time. Further, with each subsequent year the youth is suspended, there is a significant increase in odds of arrest. Conclusion Supporting prior work, we find that youth who receive a suspension are at an increased odds of contact with the criminal justice system, and increases in the number of suspensions received contribute to significant increases in odds of arrest. Findings demonstrate that suspensions present a form of cumulative effect over time.

Are students with disabilities suspended more frequently than otherwise similar students without disabilities? ☆

Abstract and Figures

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