Policy Recommendations

Investments in education can reduce crime by altering student behavior and improving labor market outcomes.41 However, a 2016 U.S. Department of Education (“ED”) report revealed that state and local governments are investing in the criminal and juvenile legal systems instead of schools.42 According to the report, over the last three decades, state and local spending on prisons and jails increased at triple the rate of funding for public education in every state in the country. While school referrals to law enforcements have often been used to get social services for students in need, an estimated $2 billion in state and federal funding has been spent on SROs since 1999.43 Schools should be safe places to learn, where students and teachers are equipped with the tools to resolve conflict in a proportionate and fair way. Zero-tolerance discipline policies should be replaced with engagement that promotes positive youth development, such as collaborative problem solving, emotional support, and restorative justice.

Below are policies federal policymakers should encourage states to implement to reduce schools’ use of referrals and arrests as well as mechanisms for making such suggestions:

Revive the 2014 School Discipline Guidelines. 44 In December 2018, the Trump administration rescinded ED’s 2014 “Dear Colleague Letter,” returning broad authority to local school districts and boards to set discipline policy. The letter advised school districts that they could be found in violation of the Civil Rights Act if students of different groups were disciplined at different rates—even if their rules governing suspensions and expulsions were written and administered fairly. ED also opened investigations that compelled hundreds of school districts serving millions of students to change their school discipline policies. While the guidance is no longer in effect, the claims that Obama administration officials made about school discipline and racial discrimination are still valid concerns.

Revise Guidance to Limit School Referrals and Arrests. 45 The Federal Gun-Free Schools Act requires that each state receiving federal education funds under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. § 7151) must have in place a law that requires local school districts to expel, for at least one year, any student who brings a firearm to, or possesses a firearm at, a school, unless the local school district’s chief administering officer modifies that sanction in writing, on a case-by-case basis. However, many states and school districts adopt policies that allow for or require referrals beyond what is federally required.46