"No Excuses" School Discipline

• In Event: The Centrality of Access in Charter School Debates

Abstract

The second participant has written several articles, reports, and a forthcoming book on charter school discipline. This work examines disciplinary practices and policies at “no excuses” charter schools like KIPP, Success Academy, Uncommon Schools, Achievement First, and Yes Prep, which are among the most widely regarded urban charter schools for their academic performance. The participant brings to the symposium a deep knowledge of how school disciplinary policies intersect with charter school access for Black and Latinx students and families in under-resourced communities, and a commitment to highlighting the voices and stories of charter school parents, students, teachers, and administrators. Two potential topics for discussion are outlined below:

“For these families, it’s like winning the megamillion, the powerball.”

These words from a charter school director on the school’s enrollment lottery day illustrate the
lack of choice and access for families desperate for better options for their children’s education.
Not only do low-income families sitting on a waiting list at an oversubscribed charter not have a
choice in the matter (“This is what our options are,” one mother said. “We’re sitting here with a
ticket.”), they also are not empowered agents weighing multiple school options as middle-class
families do. The families I spoke with knew little about the particular charter school’s disciplinary practices besides hearing that it was a “good” school. Although charter school leaders have publicly justified their rigid disciplinary practices — and any access implications — on the basis that parents are “voting with their feet,” many low-income parents are simply trying to find a viable option where their children will be safe and learning. Their “choice” is not an endorsement of a school’s model per say, but reflects the limited options available in the educational marketplace.

“This is not a model for everyone.”

Charter school leaders I spoke with emphasized the importance of school choice in justifying their rigid disciplinary practices. They did not see the no-excuses model as fully scalable precisely because it was not a model for everyone. However, with the growth of charter management organizations (CMOs), many of which subscribe to a no-excuses philosophy, the diversity of options available for children and families in urban areas is shrinking. Almost 75% of CMOS are found in cities, and the average CMO serves almost exclusively Black and Latinx students. CMOs grant schools some autonomy but tend to be fairly prescriptive, making them potentially less flexible and open to innovation. In a national study of CMOs, nearly all of the CMO principals reported that they had school-wide behavioral standards enforced consistently across school (95 percent versus 76 percent in district), and nearly three-quarters of CMOs required students or parents to sign responsibility agreements (74 percent versus 54 percent) — again with access implications. Thus, while charter schools were started as a way to diversify educational options, urban charter schools, in particular, seem to be converging around a similar set of no-excuses practices, limiting access for students not willing or capable of complying with their demands.

Author

• Joanne Golann, Vanderbilt University