Place-Based Education Investment and Racial Disparities in School Discipline

• In Event: Unpacking Place-Based Policies: Mechanisms, Spillovers, and Partnerships Shaping School Outcomes and Community Change Across Contexts

Abstract

Ethnoracial disparities in school discipline have persisted in the United States for over five decades. Although rates have declined following major reform efforts after their peak in 2011, substantial racial and ethnic gaps remain. This paper analyzes an additional, understudied lever in the process of school culture and disciplinary changes: place-based education interventions. These federal policies have the potential to shape both school environments and neighborhood contexts, and are therefore a useful analytic and heuristic tool to aid investigations into school culture, safety, and child well-being. 

We utilize the largest program implemented by the U.S. Department of Education, Promise Neighborhoods, to investigate the relationship between place-based education interventions and shifts in school disciplinary outcomes between 2010 and 2018, with particular attention to racial/ethnic gaps in in-school and out-of-school suspensions. Using geospatial techniques, we construct a novel, multi-source dataset linking federal Promise Neighborhood application records obtained by Freedom of Information Act request to school-level administrative data on student enrollment and disciplinary outcomes, and to neighborhood-level demographic data from the U.S. Census. We align these sources spatially to the boundaries of each Promise Neighborhood to capture both school and community context.

We then use the dataset to analyze changes in in-school and out-of-school suspension rates and assess shifts in Black-white discipline disparities within Promise Neighborhood school clusters. Our empirical strategy compares trends across multiple groups, including planning compared to implementation sites, and Promise Neighborhood school clusters relative to matched comparison schools located in the same school district. This design allows us to examine how place-based investments are associated with changes in overall suspension rates as well as Black-white discipline disparities.

By situating school culture and disciplinary changes within broader community investment frameworks, this study contributes to policy debates on cross-sector strategies to reduce educational inequities and promote more empowering school environments to foster child and youth well-being.

Author

• Alexandra Cooperstock, Teachers College, Columbia University
  Presenting Author