Focused Classroom Coaching and Widespread Racial Equity in School Discipline

Area of Science:

• Educational Psychology
• Classroom Management
• Equity in Education

Background:

• Teacher coaching programs aim to improve classroom practices.
• Previous research indicated coaching improved discipline equity in focal classrooms.
• The generalizability of these effects to other classrooms was unknown.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine if teacher coaching effects on discipline referrals generalize beyond focal classrooms.
• To assess the impact of coaching on African American student discipline referrals and racial referral gaps.
• To determine the broader impact of coaching on teachers' entire course loads.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of discipline referral records from 7,794 U.S. secondary classrooms.
• Randomized controlled trial with teachers assigned to intensive coaching or a control group.
• Comparison of referral data between coached teachers' diverse classrooms and control teachers' classrooms.

Main Results:

• The teacher coaching program showed no generalized effects on reducing discipline referrals for African American students.
• No significant reduction in racial discipline referral gaps was observed in classrooms with coached teachers.
• Effects observed in focal coached classrooms did not extend to other classrooms taught by the same teachers.

Conclusions:

• Teacher coaching programs may not automatically generalize to reduce racial discipline gaps across all classrooms.
• Equity-focused interventions need to consider broader implementation and generalizability.
• Further research is needed to develop effective strategies for reducing racial disparities in school discipline.