Report: A, B, C, D, STPP: How School Discipline Feeds the School-to-Prison Pipeline (2013)

Overly punitive school discipline feeds the school-to-prison pipeline and contributes to the failure of New York’s public school system to educate the city’s most disadvantaged students. Research consistently demonstrates the importance of keeping students with the greatest academic and economic needs in school. Under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, these are the same students who are at greatest risk of being pushed out through suspensions and arrests. Black students, who are disproportionately arrested in school compared with white students, are the least likely to graduate from high school with a Regents Diploma. Black students and students with special needs are disproportionately suspended from city schools. And black students with special needs have the highest suspension rate of any group. Low-income students are also disproportionately suspended. This report reviews the policies and practices that produced these results and provides recommendations to help end the school-to-prison pipeline (STPP) in New York City, and for the first time, links school suspension to NYPD stop-and-frisk patterns in four out of five boroughs.