Recently, the ACLU of MAINE was asked to join a state Taskforce on education. The Taskforce was formed after the Maine Legislature passed a law that set an ambitious goal to increase the statewide high school graduation rate to 90 percent by the end of the 2015-16 school year.
The Taskforce will deliver recommendations to the legislature on how to increase graduation rates by November 1st. I have to admit that when I was asked to participate in the Taskforce, I was daunted at how to tackle such a big task. Fortunately, the Taskforce is breaking down the work concretely. I am working with the discipline subgroup, which will look at the impact of expulsion, suspension and zero tolerance policies on graduation rates. The ACLU has a wealth of information and evidence on the ineffectiveness and potentially discriminatory impact of zero tolerance policies. Hopefully, one of the recommendations the Taskforce makes to the Legislature will be to eliminate zero tolerance policies, or policies that pre-determine the consequence for a discipline infraction. Rather, schools would handle each infraction on a case by case basis to ensure the consequence fits the behavior.
I will continue to provide updates on the work of the Taskforce on our blog. Stay tuned!