Here’s sort of what you wanted to read about: Rand Corporation RCT of “Restorative Justice” which includes measures of achievement.
“The most troubling thing: There were significant and substantial negative effects on math achievement for middle school students, black students, and students in schools that are predominantly black.”
As background, I had come across an article about a high school in my old neighborhood. The school was troubled, and it tried a “restorative justice” program. The article reported that the program reduced suspensions and absenteeism. This smelled to me like “p-hacking,” in which you measure a bunch of different outcomes and only report the ones with good news. I hinted at my suspicions near the end, and Goldstein’s comment, which has more than what I excerpted here, confirmed those suspicions.
My essay is mostly wistful and autobiographical, and you’re welcome to read it if that appeals.
Dear Professor,
I read your essay and found it interesting.
It seems we are in the realm of “normative sociology”–the study of what the causes of social problems should be.
I’m not sure I understand the issue of “no eye contact” and “lack of trust.” It needs to be unpacked and elaborated. It sounds like some of the students are laboring under developmental disabilities. Offhand, that’s what it sounds like. I’m still not sure what is meant by “trust” in this context.
I am also reminded of the anecdote that often a teacher can recognize the kids who are taken to church every week, because church is one place kids learn to practice sitting still and being quiet. Some kids begin school without any practice sitting still.
It sounds like “lack of obedience to authority” is a problem. When you are a student, there are few things more fun than being present when the students rebel and take over the classroom. When everyone disobeys simultaneously it’s hard for punishments to be meted out to the troublemakers.
It’s a bit like a riot, when suddenly all the rules are suspended. College kids burn couches in the street and throw bottles, or looters go for the loot. There’s an equivalent even in the classroom. I saw it once in junior high school metal shop when we had a hapless substitute, and this was at one of the best middle schools in Upstate New York. This was probably 6th grade–perhaps 7th–I realize kids are worse by that age.
To change the subject, Thomas Sowell recalls a conversation with a niece or cousin who had attended a school he had gone to earlier. In his first memoir.
Niece: “I’m just not as smart as you, Uncle Tommy. I went to the same school as you did, but I didn’t learn much there.”
Thomas : “By the time you got there it was the same building but a different school.”
= – = – = – =
I don’t doubt that “restorative justice” can play a role in school. Some kids are acting out for reasons they cannot really articulate or even recognize–they actually need to be listened to, stroked, soothed, calmed down, and have things slowly and patiently and repeatedly explained to them, with suggestions on how to improve, and conversations with their peers about what’s going wrong. It’s probably not a “one size fits all” solution. T
I am also reminded of Martin Sanchez-Jankowski’s explanation of the mindset of high schoolers. I think in _Cracks in the pavement_. His ethnographic sketches are a bracing contact with reality.
In my school we were kept on a short leash growing up since we were expected to become doctors or lawyers. As the song by the Violent Femmes goes, “I hope you know…that this will go down on your *permanent record*.
Whenever we see the term “justice” used with a modifier
( such as “restorative” or any of the hundreds of other uses of “justice” to give weight to an otherwise flimsy concept), it might be worthwhile to pause and evaluate the use of
” justice” when defined as: ‘Justice, in human relationships, is the performance of obligations.”
This should be obvious without the need for a study. Not that the study matters in any case, those in favor of restorative justice will continue to favor it. It doesn’t matter if black children are disproportionately negatively impacted: black people are disproportionately negatively impacted by urban crime, but that hardly matters to the left.
Justice should clearly be both retributive and restorative. If you steal someone’s car, it’s not enough for the offender to be forced to return the car and have some “dialogue” about how grand theft auto isn’t actually a good thing. In many cases, the damage cannot be fully restored, and punishment often imparts a lesson (both to the offender and others). At the same time, if justice focuses entirely on the punishment aspect, you’re potentially giving up real societal goods such as rehabilitation.