Chicago’s public schools have decreased suspension rates and improved teacher and student perceptions of school safety at the same time, according to a report.
Released by the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research last month, the report examines suspension and arrest rates for the city’s public school students from the 2008-09 school year to the 2013-14 school year.
Over those six years, the rate of out-of-school suspensions decreased from 23 percent of enrollment to 16 percent in high schools and from about 14 percent to 10 percent in middle schools, though the entire middle school decline came in the final study year.
But the report also found gender, racial, and ethnic disparities in suspension rates among students. Over six years, the number of in-school suspensions doubled for African-American high school students, but held steady for students of other races and ethnicities.
