School Discipline Policies and Educational Outcomes for Urban Youth: The Consequences of the Impact Schools Initiative on Academic Achievement

The past several decades have seen drastic changes in school policing and disciplinary policies across the United States with disproportionate impacts on students of color. Focusing on a school policing program that strictly enforced minor disciplinary matters and increased police presence in selected schools, we examine both differential exposure across groups and the effect of the program on grade point average (GPA). Using a matched difference-in-differences design, we find that the program had a negative effect on student GPA and did so for students of different races and genders, though students exposed to the program were more likely to be Black. We suggest that decreased school attendance may be one potential mechanism behind these results.