The Dignity in Schools Campaign (DSC) unites advocates, parent and student organizers, educators, and lawyers across the country to reframe the debate around school discipline from one that favors the punishment and exclusion of children who have been failed by unsafe and underperforming schools to one based on human rights, respecting every child’s right to an education and advocating for child-centered, dignified reform in schools to keep children in school. Too many children are being denied their right to an education because school policies and practices fail to protect their dignity and push children out of school. This has resulted in unacceptably high dropout rates around the country. Our aim is to expose systemic problems in our nation’s school systems, provide concrete solutions to improve our collective response to a culture of removal and punishment, and put an end to children being pushed out of schools.
Children Are Being Pushed Out of School
Pushout happens when youth are removed (or remove themselves) from a regular school setting as a result of policies and practices that discourage them from remaining in classrooms and on track to receive a regular diploma. The problem is broader than any one issue and encompasses more than “zero tolerance” policies, suspension and expulsion rates, or due process procedures. There are many policies that can result in a child being pushed out of school. These practices include:
- Unwelcoming school environments and a lack of relevant and engaging curricula which alienate students and discourage them from attending school;
- Encouragement of low-performing, under-credited or overage students to transfer to a GED program or other alternative setting;
- Under-resourced and over-crowded schools where students do not have access to academic counseling and supportive relationships with teachers to help keep them in school;
- Zero tolerance and other exclusionary discipline policies which remove students from school, such as repeated and excessive suspension and expulsion, placement into low-quality alternative school programs, police intervention, and referrals to the juvenile justice system;
- Exclusion of expelled (and sometimes suspended) students from quality educational services during the term of the expulsion (or suspension);
- Failure to use effective prevention and intervention for misbehavior, such as counseling, mediation, and positive behavioral support methods, that can address students’ needs and keep them in school; and
- Exclusion of students and parents from the development of local school policies and disciplinary processes, as well as due process violations.
Challenging Pushout from a Human Rights Perspective
The DSC believes that schools are pushing children out of school by placing arbitrary rules before children‘s education and treating children as “problems” to be dealt with rather than humans in need of guidance and respect. This stems from a societal failure to recognize education as a substantive right that should not be denied to any child. International human rights treaties, like the Convention on the Rights of the Child, recognize that all children have the right to an education aimed at their “full development.” Education must ensure “that essential life skills are learnt by every child…such as the ability to make well-balanced decisions; to resolve conflicts in a non-violent manner; and to develop a healthy lifestyle, good social relationships and responsibility” (United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child). School discipline is an essential part of teaching these necessary behavioral and life skills. In order to do that, discipline must be carried out in a way that protects the dignity of the child, that is just and fair, and that keeps children in school.
The problem of effectively disciplining youth and keeping them in school is multi-faceted – it is legal, social, political, and cultural. We hope to shift the discussion on school discipline from one about violence, rules, test scores and the criminalization of youth to one about equality, dignity, and human rights. We feel that this framework more accurately addresses the many aspects of pushout.
DSC Goals and Objectives
- To bring together stakeholders who have worked against pushout to better define the problem and to discuss the many issues that are part of pushout.
- To reframe the problem as a human rights violation stemming from the absence of a substantive right to an education.
- To provide advocates, organizers, parents, youth and educators with information and tools to challenge pushout in their communities.
- To develop and present viable alternatives and/or solutions to pushout.