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There is extensive evidence suggesting that school suspension is correlated with poor academic performance. However, many studies examining the association between school suspension and achievement focus on the effects of out-of-school suspension specifically. While in-school suspension is offered as a less harmful alternative consequence to out-of-school suspension, the effects of in-school suspension on academic achievement are largely unknown. This article examines the association between in-school suspensions and academic failure on standardized achievement tests. The study utilized secondary data from two cohorts of 380,826 ninth-grade students enrolled in Texas public schools to investigate how many in-school suspensions result in failure on a state standardized achievement test. Our results show that a single in-school suspension is predictive of significant risk for academic failure (greater than 25% chance of failure) on a state-wide standardized test controlling for a host of individual and school characteristics. We also find that this relationship between discipline and risk for standardized test failure is more pronounced for students of color. The implications for school psychologists in terms of curtailing the potential negative impact of in-school suspension on student achievement are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study seeks to determine the underlying factors contributing to the overrepresentation of minorities in school disciplinary programs. Data from 207 Disciplinary Alternative Education Programs (DAEPs) in Texas are analyzed. The data represent more than 62 % of the student population of Texas school districts. Results support the hypothesis that the 'whiteness' of school district undesirably affects the overrepresentation of Black students (but not Hispanic students) in DAEP. Overrepresentation of Black students in disciplinary programs is significantly higher in urban school districts than in rural districts. The findings, however, add a new layer of complexity to the debate on the overrepresentation of minorities in disciplinary programs. This is because not only White school districts are more likely than other districts to exercise their discretionary authority to punish minorities but they also more frequently subject their minority students to mandatory disciplines that are well defined by the state. Plausible explanations of such overrepresentation is offered for future research. Neither wealth nor the districts' type (urban, suburban, rural and mid-size) have been found to have significant impact on discretionary or mandatory disciplinary actions against minority students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]