The Impact Of School Suspensions And Expulsions On Dropping Out By Lawrence M. Deridder

In the article, “The Impact of School Suspensions and Expulsions on Dropping Out,” Lawrence M. DeRidder (1990) argues, “the courts have held that children who have been suspended or expelled from school still have right to public education” (

The main points DeRidder shares in the article is the characteristic of students being suspended and expelled, alternative opinions for suspensions and expulsions and student rights. The characteristic of suspended and expelled students is a Black male from a poor socioeconomic grouping. Some of the students have a small cognitive ability which may contribute to the negative behaviors exhibited. DeRidder suggests students from an underprivileged socioeconomic group may have difficulty in conforming to the “middle-class standards” for obedience behavior. Instead of suspending and expelling students, schools should have alternative opinions for those students. Meanwhile, instruction ends as soon as the suspension

Skiba, and Pedro A. Noguera (2010) reports “the gap in achievement across racial and ethnic groups has been a focus of education research for decades, but the disproportionate suspension and expulsion of Black, Latino, and American Indian students has received less attention” (p. 59). The suspension and expulsion of minority students further widens the achievement gap and racial discipline gap when compared to the suspension and expulsion rate of white students. According to Gregory, et. al, “the Children’s Defense Fund (1975) first brought the issue of racial disproportionality to national attention, showing that Black students were two to three times overrepresented in school suspensions compared with enrollment rates in localities across the nation” (p. 59). Therefore, suspensions and expulsion begets low achievement, low self-esteem, not graduating on time and potential