Disability as Discipline? Effects of the New York City Suspension Ban on Identification of Students with Disabilities

Across the United States, suspension bans have become a popular policy response to address excessive and inequitable use of suspension in schools. However, there is little research that examines what strategies school staff employ when suspension is no longer permitted. I examine the effect of New York City’s suspension ban on the use of a potential unintended substitute for suspension: special education classification. Using a dosage difference-in-differences strategy, I find that the ban induced an increase in disability classifications at high risk for classroom exclusion. I show that, on average, students with these classifications in schools with high pre-policy reliance on suspension experienced large declines in test scores, whereas general education students experienced slight test score improvements. Notably, I show that these declines are not due to new, ban-induced classifications actively harming student achievement. These results underscore the importance of considering unintended consequences and vulnerable groups when employing a seemingly "costless" and popular policy lever to reduce schools’ reliance on suspension.