Indiana is #1! (At expelling students)
Bill to restore student, parent rights shelved
Indiana expells more students than any other state. They’re number 9 and climbing for suspensions, too. The culprit? Yup. Zero tolerance policies.
Those startling statistics were shared with state lawmakers Wednesday by advocates who say zero-tolerance policies are causing schools to throw children out at alarming rates — with no alternatives for lessons.
House Bill 1228 was introduced to restore due process rights to students facing expulsion.
“The goal is to educate our children, and I’m not sure we’re doing it when we expel 5,000 to 6,000 children a year,” Rep. Jeb Bardon, D-Indianapolis, the bill’s co-author, said during a hearing on the legislation.
The bill would allow students and parents to use legal representation and to appeal expulsions. These rights were eliminated almost a decade ago. Yesterday this bill was shelved by the House Judiciary and sent to a summer study committee.
Despite some fierce opposition from the Association of Public School Superintendents, I’m betting that this one has an excellent chance to pass during the next legislative assembly. There are some good people in Indiana that recognize the problem.
In 2003, the state’s 293 school districts suspended 267,724 students and expelled 5,795. That’s down from 305,767 suspensions and 9,039 expulsions in 1999, according to a fiscal analysis by the Legislative Services Agency.
Russell J. Skiba, an Indiana University professor and director of the Safe and Responsive Schools Project based at IU, said schools with higher suspension rates tend to have lower overall student achievement, and black students are disproportionately represented in the process.