Charter Schools: A Multimodal Story of Discipline Policies and Pushout

• In Event: 75.041 - MTCC Roundtable Session 33
  In Roundtable Session: 75.041-4 - Intersectionalities of Lived Experience: Social Context as Evidence to Democratize Educational Research

Abstract

The charter school reform movement is based on a model of market capitalism that applies business models to the field of education. The model presumes that as schools compete for “customers” (students), these “organizations” (schools) will be forced to adopt the best practices in the field in order to raise students’ academic achievement. Schools that perform better attract more students, while others run the risk of school closure. However, the truth is not what one might expect; the data from this study reveals that charter schools use their discipline policies to maintain a status of students’ high academic achievement by pushing out students who they deem do not belong. The discipline policies provide a quick, efficient and seemingly unbiased mechanism to remove students who are a drag on the overall status of the school (Ravitch, 2015).
This project examines differences and intersectionalities between charter schools and public schools’ discipline policies and the effects that these policies have on students’ educational outcomes. The author will share an analysis of policy documents from multiple public and traditional charter schools that document how school regulation policies contribute to the disproportionate rates of discipline and subsequent student push-out of students—especially for students of color (Buras, 2013).
This multi-modal analysis of discipline policies has important implications for future educational research and reform in that the evidence suggests a correlation exists between the rhetoric of discipline policies, suspension, and push-out and the perpetuation of the achievement gap. Such findings must become part of our collective understanding of the dilemmas facing disenfranchised students.
Using critical theory as a lens to view these neoliberal policies enabled the author to explore the intersections between autonomy, competition/innovation, and high stakes accountability within the educational marketplace and more specifically, within public charter school discipline policies. Data utilized in this project include quantitative statistical analysis of graduation, attrition, transfer, suspension, and expulsion rates, set in tandem with policy analyses of the rhetoric and terminology used in student/parent handbooks. School systems for this study were selected nationally based upon whose charter schools’ discipline rates were disproportionately higher than the traditional public schools in their districts.
This study is significant in that it provides concrete evidence exposing how charter school policies contribute to student push out, leaving the most vulnerable students with fewer academic options—one suspension increases the probability of dropout, or jail (Amurao, 2013). To date, the story of charter school push-out has not been conducted from a critical policy analysis or critical discourse analysis of public charter school discipline policies. The multi-modal findings of this study offer an important counter narrative about charter schools. In short, the study highlights differences between educational institutions and tells a story of disparity that has damaging real-life consequences for many of our nations’ students. Such educational research should be considered in our efforts to “Democratize Evidence” and reform schools in this “Post-Truth Era” (p. 1).

Author

• Amando Branion, Wareham Public Schools