City Journal reviews the data on Obama-era suspension policies and notes our report:
The New York Times gloats that the report undercuts conservative claims that the Obama administration policy has resulted in a decline in school safety. But the GAO did not look at school safety rates at all. Numerous reports have documented just such an effect, however. The Manhattan Institute’s Max Eden found that students in New York City schools reported much higher levels of violence and disrespect after Mayor Bill de Blasio limited school suspensions. A student was stabbed and killed in history class in a New York school where teachers reported a dramatic drop in discipline. Two researchers with the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty recently reported on increased school violence across the country. The district attorney in St. Paul called the rise in attacks on teachers a “public health crisis.” The district attorney in Syracuse forced schools to return to traditional disciplinary policies after a teacher was stabbed. Charlotte is experiencing an increase in guns, drugs, and assaults on teachers; school assaults in Durham increased more than 50 percent last year. And the education of students, especially black students, is suffering as well. Wisconsin schools that adopted the non-punitive disciplinary measures advocated by the Obama administration (and now, the GAO) had lower reading and math achievement than schools that stuck with traditional discipline.