Barring students from school is all too common in America. Across the country, schools turn to suspension as the preferred solution to many different kinds of student misconduct ranging from fighting to skipping school. Of course school authorities have to take action when students engage in serious misbehaviors. But an accumulation of evidence suggests that schools would do well to find alternative ways to proceed in many situations. Alternatives to suspension can do a better job of correcting student misbehavior – and may also improve safety for everyone at school and in the broader community. On their own, some school leaders are already taking important steps to reduce reliance on suspensions.

Suspensions Can be Ineffective and Harmful

Research shows that suspension is often a temporary solution that may exacerbate the problem it is intended to address. Suspension often seems like a good way to remove troublemakers from the scene of difficulties, improve security, and focus attention from parents and authorities on student misbehaviors. But there are also clear downsides. Suspension isolates students and increases time spent out of school for students who may already have records of truancy. more...

Half a century ago, President Lyndon Johnson launched America’s War on Poverty; yet by the 1980s President Ronald Reagan famously declared that “we waged a war on poverty and poverty won.” To back up this claim, conservatives point to official U.S. statistics showing that the percentage of Americans living in poverty, around 15%, has changed very little over the decades.

But the official poverty measure is outdated – so I teamed up with several colleagues to produce estimates using a more accurate one. When we use the improved measure, it turns out that U.S. social programs and taxes have had a powerful effect on reducing poverty since the mid-1960s. Back then, government programs did little to alleviate poverty, but today public programs and taxes cut the percentage of people living in poverty by almost half, from the 28.7% it would be without government efforts to 16% after public programs are included. Far too many Americans continue to have inadequate incomes, but U.S. policies have helped millions avoid poverty. more...

Immigrant rights activists are pressuring President Barack Obama to pull back on record-high deportations, pointing to the more than two million forced removals that have happened on his watch. Two million is a significant milestone, because it means that President Obama has already presided over as many deportations as President George W. Bush carried out during his entire two terms as president. Before that, the sum total of all immigrants deported prior to 1997 added up to two million, so Bush and Obama have vastly accelerated forced removals.

As deportations reach an all-time high, research I have done with Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo finds that they are overwhelmingly targeting Latino men, many of whom have lived with families across the United States. Mass removals heavily focused on a specific segment of the immigrant population are causing major social disruptions with lasting consequences. more...

Relationships between members of the United States Congress and the judiciary are shifting, as Democrats and Republicans alike reassess whether the courts are political allies or foes in this highly polarized era. My research tracks what members of the House of Representatives have had to say about judges and the judiciary in recent years—specifically, I have teamed up with a colleague to analyze public statements published on official House websites from 2010 to 2014, a pivotal and contentious period in recent politics. more...

Almost half a century ago, the U.S. federal government expanded financial aid to college students to make college more affordable—but today the odds of getting a degree are more tightly linked to family income than ever before. Getting a college degree remains a good investment, but the current distribution of federal and state financial aid dollars leaves many families of modest means out in the cold. Between 1992 and 2004, the odds that a high school graduate who took at least Algebra II would decide not to go to college went up among all income-groups except the very wealthiest. Sadly, students from families of modest means have also become more likely to drop out from public colleges and universities—leaving with debts, not degrees. more...

After two decades of trial-runs, school voucher programs occupy a growing place across the U.S. educational landscape. In Arizona, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio, Utah and Wisconsin, public funding supports private school attendance by students with varied needs and limited family resources. At least ten states offset private tuition with refunds or credits offered through their tax codes. As such programs proliferate, it is important to take stock of what researchers have found so far about the impact of vouchers on student achievement and school performance. more...

In 1987, a United Nations report on “Our Common Future” highlighted the importance of environmental as well as economic and social factors in the development of societies that further human well-being. The reason for stressing environmental sustainability is clear. Resources garnered from the environment provide necessities for human life such as food, clothing, and shelter. Harnessing energy and harvesting resources are essential components of production processes that contribute to economic advancement. In fact, without a hospitable and supportive environment, societies cannot exist and economies cannot operate. more...

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently released its Fifth Assessment Report, presenting the latest accumulation of scientific evidence about the threat of global warming and calling for urgent actions to meet the threat. Earlier reports have pointed in the same directions, but the political, economic, and simple human obstacles to facing and coping with the dangers of global warming remain today as they were twenty-five years ago on the eve of the Intergovernmental Panel’s First Assessment Report. People in the United States and across the globe are no more likely to reduce greenhouse gas emissions dramatically in 2014 or soon thereafter than they were in 1990. Modern political and economic systems are not geared to cope with this sort of challenge. And there is an enduring collective action problem: no single individual or organization, not even a few working together, can execute necessary solutions. Most must learn to act together, or the game is over—the causes and dire effects of increasing global warming simply will not be handled in time. more...

In 2006, the Massachusetts legislature passed and Governor Mitt Romney signed into law a health care reform with subsidized health insurance coverage for low-income people, a health insurance exchange to help people not otherwise covered choose among available plans, an individual mandate requiring residents to obtain coverage if affordable, and an expansion of Medicaid to include children and long-term unemployed adults. The reform in Massachusetts turned out to be a blueprint for the Affordable Care reforms passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama in 2010. ObamaCare, as the federal reform law is sometimes called, is only now going into full effect, as debate continues to swirl about its provisions and its likely effects. No one can tell what the national reform’s impact on Americans’ health will turn out to be, but we can get an idea of possible benefits by looking at what is known so far about the aftermath of the earlier Massachusetts reforms. more...

“They just have too many people in prison that shouldn’t be here,” says Crystal, the 21-year-old wife of a prisoner. She goes on to comment on the system as a whole:

There’s a lot that’s in prison because they didn’t have an adequate lawyer, or they couldn’t afford it, so they got a public defender that didn’t care, you know, or that went along with the DA or somethin’ an’ that’s how they got here!… I don’t even feel like we have a justice system anymore. Cuz I mean, it’s crazy. I feel like everybody should be treated equal in the justice system, even if you have a lot of money, and even if you don’t have no money… what kind of justice system do we have if I can get off of a case because I have more money? more...