Abstract:

Identifying effective ways to manage student behavior has been a consistent policy concern, even becoming a focus of US DOE and US DOJ guidance to states and school districts. In this study, I evaluate the efforts in Massachusetts to implement legislative reform, Chapter 222, to reduce student discipline incidents and of out-of-school suspensions. I leverage a difference-in-differences and event study design to compare the outcomes between high and low discipline incident rate school grades before and after the implementation of Chapter 222. In high-incident school grades, Chapter 222 caused significant reductions in student incidents and suspensions, particularly for students at high risk of committing incidents or being suspended (i.e., students with disabilities and Black, Hispanic, and students in low-income households). In high-incident school grades, Chapter 222 also contributed to improvements in ELA achievement, absences, and dropout rates. This study highlights how rather than inducing negative spillovers on learning, reductions in student discipline incidents and suspensions can potentially improve academic performance for at-risk students.