Date of Award
Summer 9-1-2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)
Department
Education: Curriculum and Teaching
First Advisor
Sarah M. Bonner, Ph.D.
Second Advisor
Marshall A. George, Ed.D.
Third Advisor
Catherine Kramarczuk Voulgarides, Ph.D.
Academic Program Adviser
Marshall A. George, Ed.D.
Abstract
Schools utilize a range of consequences to maintain order and safety. Some employ zero-tolerance policies accompanied by exclusionary tactics like suspension (Martinez, 2009; Muschert et al., 2014). Suspensions are criticized for their disproportionate assignment to students who are Black, male, assigned an IEP, and receiving lunch assistance (Cholewa et al., 2018; Skiba et al., 2002), as well as their deleterious associations with academic achievement (Chu & Ready, 2018; Morris & Perry, 2014; Noltemeyer et al., 2015). Charter schools espousing a no-excuses philosophy often adopt a “Sweat-the-Small-Stuff” (STSS) approach focused on correcting minor (mis)behaviors to prevent more egregious ones (Whitman, 2008). Alongside suspensions, these schools often assign classroom-level consequences like demerits or send-outs; however, little is known about the assignment of and academic outcomes associated with these classroom-level consequences or the general efficacy of the STSS approach. This dissertation examines data from high schools in a no-excuses charter network in an urban center within two manuscripts to address these gaps in the literature. The first study analyzes student characteristics and academic outcomes in relation to assigned consequences, while the second study evaluates the efficacy of the STSS approach’s ability to deter students from more severe (mis)behaviors by receiving more frequent minor consequences. Each study demonstrates that many of the trends in extant exclusionary disciplinary literature hold true for classroom-level consequences in this sample of no-excuses charter high schools and that STSS’s efficacy was limited as students progressed through the school’s consequence ladder.
Recommended Citation
Stevens, John G., "Sweating the Small Stuff: Exploring Consequence Assignments and Academic Outcomes in a No-Excuses Charter Network" (2024). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/hc_sas_etds/1226
Included in
Disability and Equity in Education Commons, Secondary Education and Teaching Commons, Urban Education Commons