Discipline and Disability

A release from the US Department of Education:

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) released today the first comprehensive look at civil rights data from every public school in the country in nearly 15 years.

The Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) from the 2011-12 school year was announced by U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder at J.O. Wilson Elementary School in Washington, D.C.

This is the first time since 2000 that the Department has compiled data from all 97,000 of the nation's public schools and its 16,500 school districts—representing 49 million students. And for the first time ever, state-, district- and school-level information is accessible to the public in a searchable online database at crdc.ed.gov.

At Disability Scoop, Michelle Diament reports:

Kids with disabilities represent three-quarters of children physically restrained and 58 percent of those placed in seclusion or some other form of involuntary confinement at school, the Education Department said. Such children are also more than twice as likely to receive an out-of-school suspension.

What’s more, federal officials found that children served under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act account for a quarter of all students who are arrested and referred to law enforcement by schools.

Meanwhile, kids with disabilities represent just 12 percent of the nation’s students.