Rather than mitigating behavioral issues, exclusionary school disciplinary practices can actually increase student misbehavior and school dropout. However, the impact these sanctions have on students may vary based on school climate, particularly whether the environment is inclusive or punitive. Relying on a sample of over 2,000 students within 26…

African American and Hispanic students receive more punitive school discipline than White students even when students of color commit similar infractions as Whites. Similarly, students with a disability status are more likely to experience harsher discipline in schools compared to their counterparts without a disability label. This study examines…

This article uses a regression discontinuity approach to study the influence of New York City's school grading policy on student math and English language arts (ELA) achievement. We find evidence that students in schools receiving a failing grade realized positive effects in English in the 1st year of sanction, but we find no statistically…

The use of systems of rewards and sanctions within behaviour policies has now been adopted formally in UK schools. Such systems potentially represent competing theoretical ideas when considered alongside current approaches to teaching and learning. There is also opportunity for inconsistent use of rewards and sanctions resulting from the absence…

The Federal education policy No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has initiated high-stakes testing among U.S. public schools. The premise of the NCLB initiative is that all students reach proficiency in reading and math by 2014. Under NCLB, individual state education departments were required to implement annual assessments in grades two through eight…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) has had significant and multilayered consequences for students, teachers, and schools. The purpose of this study was to learn more about the areas of NCLB that teachers support and also the areas of NCLB that teachers see as problematic. The data in this mixed methods study was collected through an…

The No Child Left Behind Act requires state boards of education to identify schools that are unsafe. Schools that are identified by measures such as suspension and expulsion rates are subsequently labeled "persistently dangerous." To our knowledge there is no published research that attempts to characterize fighting behavior among youths…

Under the No Child Left Behind Act, states have been required to set minimum proficiency standards that virtually all students must meet by 2014. Sanctions of increasing severity are to be applied to schools that fail to meet interim targets, known as Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). The authors examine the effect of this legislation using…

When Benjamin Banneker Charter Public School in Boston realized that their students' 2002-2003 math scores on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System fell below the target set by Massachusetts for adequate yearly progress, they saw not one problem (poor math achievement), but two. Because it was the fifth year the school had not hit AYP…