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Students drop out of school for a variety of reasons, yet are “pushed out” when they exhibit traits that are deemed undesirable to school officials, such as misbehavior and academic failure. While much of the previous research on pushouts views the phenomenon as a discrete occurrence often attributed to either misbehavior or academic failure, we recognize the underlying relationships between punishment and achievement, and therefore conceptualize pushing out as a process of both disciplinary involvement and academic exclusion over time. Using structural equation modeling (SEM) with a nationally representative longitudinal study of high school students (HSLS-09), we find that significant relationships among punishment and math achievement (including math attitudes, ability, and course-taking) have the effect of pushing students out of high school over time. We note the importance of race and ethnicity within these relationships and close with a discussion of policy implications. 

Black girls are more likely to receive in-school suspension (ISS) in comparison to their non-Black peers. However, research on the effect of in-school suspension on students’ academic achievement, specifically math achievement of Black girls, is still very limited. Mathematics is an important foundational component of science, technology, and engineering fields, which are domains in which Black girls are underrepresented. Using the nationally representative Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002), this study explores the relationship between in-school suspension and the highest math course completed in a multi-level analysis of 860 Black female participants from 320 high schools. Our findings revealed that in-school suspension was associated with lower mathematics course-taking. Implications for policy, practice, and research are discussed. 

Even the least severe forms of exclusionary discipline are associated with detrimental effects for students that attend schools that overuse them. With a nationally representative longitudinal study of high school students, we utilize propensity score weighting to limit selection bias associated with schools that issue high numbers of in-school suspensions. Accounting for school social order and individual suspensions, we find that high-suspension schools are negatively associated with students’ math achievement and college attendance. We also find that when we account for high and low-suspension schools, attending an urban schools is associated with an increase in both math achievement and college attendance. 

Policy responses to gun violence within K-12 school systems have not stopped the increasing frequency of their occurrence, but have instead increased racial and ethnic disparities in multiple forms of discipline. The crisis prevention policies that follow school shootings tend to exacerbate racial and ethnic discipline disparities (a) within schools as practitioners enact policies with discretion and bias, (b) between schools where policy is complicated by racial segregation, and (c) indirectly where academic consequences accrue to those who are not disciplined but attend schools with elevated school rates of discipline. Among the most promising policy alternatives to punitive disciplinary policy is restorative justice.