What About the School-to-Prison Pipeline Research?

What about all the research that seems to support the school-to-prison pipeline?

So we've got a new page up at principalcenter.com slash pd, that stands for progressive discipline, where I've reviewed a lot of the research on exclusionary discipline, suspension, school safety, and especially the school-to-prison pipeline.

And I've reviewed at least four studies there.

And a lot of people have looked at those studies and said, well, wait a minute, don't they say the opposite of what you're saying?

And a funny thing happens when people are studying the school-to-prison pipeline, that the title of the paper, the introduction and literature review of the paper will talk about this idea of a school-to-prison pipeline as if it's this proven thing.

And then in the methods and results section, we get a completely different story.

So what I've tried to do on that page at principalcenter.com slash pd is explain what these studies actually studied and what they actually show.

And I would love to hear from people who actually read the study.

So I've provided links to all of them and would love to know what you think, what questions remain, what pushback you have against anything that I've said, because I really think we need to question this narrative that out-of-school suspension is always bad.

When a student is violent, when a student is unsafe and just unable to be in the school environment, and especially with older students who are violent with impunity, what else do we have other than exclusion when that is the case?

And there's just this groundswell of belief without evidence that suspension is bad.

And if you look at the evidence that has been put together.

It does not say what people are saying it says.

So you'll find that at principalcenter.com slash PD.

And that brings me to a big announcement as well.

I've decided to do a full course on this at the principal center.

We do lots of courses.

They typically sell for a thousand to $2,000 on instructional leadership topics.

And my primary audience is school leaders.

And this one is going to be of a similar caliber, but it is going to be free for everyone.

So you You don't have to log in or anything.

Everything is just going to be there on the page.

And I've started it as an outline.

So what you'll see there right now is a bullet point outline of what I've said in my videos here on TikTok about school safety and discipline and suspension and the school to prison pipeline.

All that's there in outline form.

I'm just getting started.

So I've got a lot more to add and I'll be adding more videos later.

But I've got a detailed outline.

40-minute video now on exclusionary discipline and when that's appropriate to use.

And I would love for you to share this with people.

A lot of people have asked, hey, what can I share with my administration or the leadership in my district?

And this is the link, principalcenter.com slash PD.

This is called Evidence-Driven Progressive Discipline.

And I would love to know what you think.

Thanks so much for checking it out.