Dive Brief:

• Florida leads the nation in student suspensions, according to a new study released by UCLA's Center for Civil Rights Remedies on Monday.
• The data is based on the 2011-12 school year (the most up-to-date batch of data from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights) and analyzes not only which states and districts dole out the most suspensions, but what subgroups are most affected by these punishments.
• Black, white, and Latino students were suspended at the same frequency in 2011 as they were in the early 2000s, but suspensions have seen an uptick since the data was first collected in the 1970s. Minority students are also suspended at higher rates than their white counterparts.

Dive Insight:

Daniel J. Losen, the director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies, introduced the report by writing that that the data shows we are nationally closing the discipline gap, "but not enough to swing the national numbers."

Most notable is the fact that state level data was not available for New York and Hawaii because of errors in the way the data was collected by those states.

The report and its findings are incredibly important, as research shows that suspensions increase the likelihood that a student will drop out of school and be pushed into the criminal justice system, making them a massive link in the school-to-prison pipeline.

While many states are beginning to take note of the detriments in reactive, quick-to-suspend disciplinary policies, not all are buying it. After New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña spoke out against quick suspensions, the New York Daily News published an editorial on why fewer suspensions will lead to more insubordination.