Secondary students lose instruction due to out-of-school suspensions at more than five times the rate of elementary students (37 vs. 7 days per 100 enrolled)¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associationalr2·q2
Currency · newest study 2020 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2025: baselines and conditions change
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? In 2015-16, secondary students lost 37 days of instruction per 100 enrolled due to out-of-school suspensions, compared with 7 days per 100 elementary students. → Losen 2020
Evidence¶
Losen 2020¶
Losen, D. J., & Martinez, P. (2020). Lost opportunities: How disparate school discipline continues to drive differences in the opportunity to learn. Learning Policy Institute; Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the Civil Rights Project, UCLA. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED608537
q2 · i? · associational · r2
Descriptive analysis of the 2015-16 CRDC days-of-lost-instruction data, aggregated by school level, showing "37 days lost per 100 middle and high school students compared to just 7 days per 100 elementary school students." No inferential test is reported.
"in secondary schools, the rate of lost instruction is more than five times higher than the elementary rates: 37 days lost per 100 middle and high school students compared to just 7 days per 100 elementary school students."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Students in alternative schools experience extraordinarily high lost-instruction rates, with Black boys losing 235 days per 100 enrolled — related
- Black secondary students lost 103 days of instruction per 100 enrolled, 82 more days than their White peers — related
- In many large districts, secondary students lost more than a year of instruction per 100 enrolled, up to 416 days in Grand Rapids, MI — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
- Race-by-gender disparities are more pronounced: Black boys lost 132 days per 100 enrolled and Black girls lost 77, seven times the rate of White girls — related
- Black students lose five times as many instructional days to suspension as White students — related
- Secondary suspension risk declined and the racial gap narrowed slightly since 2009-10, while elementary rates did not decline and some districts saw large increases — related
- Intersecting identities compound suspension risk: 0.1% of Asian girls without special education services in elementary schools were suspended versus 27% of Black boys with disabilities in secondary schools — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
secondary-suspension-lost-instruction-five-times-elementary |
title |
Secondary students lose instruction due to out-of-school suspensions at more than five times the rate of elementary students (37 vs. 7 days per 100 enrolled) |
description |
Secondary students lose instruction due to out-of-school suspensions at more than five times the rate of elementary students (37 vs. |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2020 |
source_checked |
2026-10-20 |
recheck_by |
2025 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-10 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — losen-2020 |
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