Johanna Lacoe

Unequally safe: the race gap in school safety

School safety is a critical issue for school staff, policy makers, and parents. Efforts to promote safety often focus on reducing school violence and disorder, including zero-tolerance disciplinary policies, metal detectors, and police officers in schools. Yet little is known about how safe students feel at school and how safety varies within schools. Using survey data for the population of middle school students in a large urban school district, this article identifies gaps in feelings of safety between Black students, Hispanic students, and their White and Asian peers. Key characteristics of schools and neighborhoods that relate to safety gaps are identified.

Mortgage Foreclosures and the Changing Mix of Crime in Micro-neighborhoods:

Objectives: The main objectives of the study are to estimate the impact of mortgage foreclosures on the location of criminal activity within a blockface. Drawing on routine activity theory, disorder theory, and social disorganization theory, the study explores potential mechanisms that link foreclosures to crime. Methods: To estimate the relationship between foreclosures and localized crime, we use detailed foreclosure and crime data at the blockface level in Chicago and a difference-in-difference estimation strategy. Results: Overall, mortgage foreclosures increase crime on blockfaces. Foreclosures have a larger impact on crime that occurs inside residences than on crime in the street. The impact of foreclosures on crime location varies by crime type (violent, property, and public order crime). Conclusions: The evidence supports the three main theoretical mechanisms that link foreclosure activity to local crime. The investigation of the relationship by crime location suggests that foreclosures change the relative attractiveness of indoor and outdoor locations for crime commission on the blockface.

Too Scared to Learn? The Academic Consequences of Feeling Unsafe in the Classroom:

A safe environment is a prerequisite for productive learning. Using a unique panel data set of survey responses from New York City middle school students, the article provides insight into the relationship between feelings of safety in the classroom and academic achievement. The survey data include the reported feelings of safety for more than 340,000 students annually from 2007 to 2010 in more than 700 middle schools. Findings show a consistent negative relationship between feeling unsafe in the classroom and test scores. The study provides insight into the mechanisms through which feeling unsafe in the classroom relates to test scores and presents multiple robustness checks to support the central finding.

Rolling Back Zero Tolerance: The Effect of Discipline Policy Reform on Suspension Usage and Student Outcomes.

ABSTRACT Beginning in the early 1990s, states and districts enacted zero-tolerance discipline policies that relied heavily on out-of-school suspensions. Recently, districts nationwide have revised these policies in favor of more tempered disciplinary responses. In 2012–2013, Philadelphia reformed its discipline policy to limit suspensions for nonviolent student misconduct and granted principals greater discretion in responding to more serious occurrences of student misconduct. Employing a difference-in-differences approach, we find that Philadelphias reform resulted in a modest decline in suspensions for nonviolent infractions in the year of reform; however, total suspensions remained unchanged while serious incidents of student misconduct increased. Further, the truancy rate increased and district math and English language arts achievement declined following the policy reform. These findings should inform policymakers and practitioners on the implications of district-level reforms for suspension usage and the potential consequences for student outcomes.

Do Suspensions Affect Student Outcomes

Discipline reformers claim that suspensions negatively affect suspended students, while others suggest reforms have unintended consequences for peers. Using student panel data from the School District of Philadelphia, we implement student fixed effects and instrumental variable (IV) strategies to examine the consequences of suspensions for offending students and their peers. A suspension decreases math and reading achievement for suspended students. The effects are robust to IV estimates leveraging a district-wide policy change in suspension use. Suspensions are more salient for students who personally experience suspension than for their peers. Exposure to suspensions for more serious misconduct has very small, negative spillovers onto peer achievement, but does not change peer absences.

Reforming School Discipline: School-Level Policy Implementation and the Consequences for Suspended Students and Their Peers

States and districts are revising discipline policies to reduce out-of-school suspensions (OSSs), but the consequences of these reforms are largely unknown. We examine a reform in Philadelphia that prohibited OSS for classroom disorder infractions. Employing a difference-in-differences approach, we examine the relationship between the reform and student suspensions, achievement, and attendance. For students suspended before the reform, classroom disorder OSS decreased and attendance (but not academic achievement) improved following the reform. Postreform changes in peer outcomes varied with school-level implementation: in schools that eliminated classroom disorder OSS, peer math achievement and attendance were unaffected, whereas peer math achievement declined and attendance decreased in schools that did not fully implement the district-level reform.