The Discipline-Literacy Pipeline: What the Data Says About Black and Hispanic Students in Texas and Nationwide

There is a data pattern in American public schools that is too consistent to ignore — and too damaging to leave unaddressed. African American and Hispanic students are suspended at disproportionately high rates. Those same students are reading and performing below grade level at disproportionately high rates. These two facts are not a coincidence. They are connected — and the connection has a name: the discipline-literacy pipeline.

This post breaks down the research, names the problem clearly, and offers a path forward rooted in relationship, mentorship, and community.

The Suspension Data

Nationally, Black students are suspended at more than three times the rate of their White peers. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), Black students represent 15.5% of all public school students — but account for nearly 39% of students suspended from school. That gap is not explainable by behavior alone. Research consistently shows that Black students are disciplined more harshly for the same infractions as their White classmates (Skiba et al., 2014).

The Learning Policy Institute's landmark report "Pushed Out" found that more than 1 in 8 Black students — 12% — received one or more out-of-school suspensions in a single school year. For Hispanic students, the disparities are equally significant. In Texas alone, Latino students represented 53% of total enrollment but accounted for 49% of all students suspended (IDRA). In Dallas schools, 18% of Latino high school students were suspended compared to 23% of African American students — both rates far exceeding those of their White peers.

A 2024 report from the Southern Education Foundation confirmed what many educators have long suspected: Black students are suspended at more than three times the rate of their White and Hispanic classmates — despite decades of research showing that exclusionary discipline does not improve school safety or student behavior.

In Texas specifically, zero-tolerance policies have been identified as a key driver of high attrition rates for Black and Hispanic students. Once a student is out of the building, the academic clock stops — and catching up becomes exponentially harder.

The Literacy Data

Now look at where those same students land academically.

According to the 2024 NAEP results — often called the Nation's Report Card — only 16% of Black 4th graders and 20% of Latino 4th graders scored at or above proficient in reading nationwide (EdTrust, 2024). In Texas, 43% of 4th graders and 39% of 8th graders failed to reach basic reading levels — and those numbers are disproportionately driven by Black and Hispanic students already being pushed out of classrooms through suspensions.

Texas 2036 analysis of the 2024 NAEP data confirmed that Texas continues to struggle with literacy, with reading scores declining significantly since 2022. More than one-third of all Black, Hispanic, and Native American 12th graders fell in the below basic achievement level in reading — meaning they are leaving high school without foundational literacy skills.

When a student is suspended even once, the academic risk compounds immediately. Research from Texas A&M University found that a single in-school suspension is predictive of greater than a 25% chance of academic failure. The National Education Association reports that over 11 million learning days are lost to out-of-school suspension every year nationally. For students already behind in reading, those lost days are catastrophic.

How Discipline and Literacy Feed Each Other

The research is unambiguous: exclusionary discipline and low literacy are not parallel problems — they feed each other.

Students who are suspended miss instructional time. Students who miss instructional time fall further behind. Students who fall further behind become disengaged. Disengaged students are more likely to be disciplined again. The cycle repeats — and it repeats disproportionately on Black and Hispanic students.

A peer-reviewed study published in PMC (2025) confirmed that school suspension leads to measurable adverse academic and behavioral consequences. The problem is not student behavior in isolation. The problem is a school culture and discipline system that has not been built to support the full humanity of Black and Hispanic students.

What actually changes this? Not stricter policies. Not more suspensions. Relationships. A qualitative study from UT Austin identified that schools with the lowest out-of-school suspension rates shared one common thread: educators who intentionally built nonpunitive, relationship-centered connections with students. Culture precedes compliance. When students feel seen, supported, and connected, behavior improves — and so does literacy.

Building a Culture of Behavior, Belonging, and High Expectations

Understanding why students misbehave is not the same as excusing behavior. It is a prerequisite for changing it. Educators who lead with curiosity instead of punishment are consistently more effective at building the kind of classroom and school culture where students — especially Black and Hispanic students — feel safe enough to learn.

Step 1: Identify the Barriers Before Assigning Consequences

Many behaviors that result in suspension are rooted in unmet needs: trauma, food insecurity, language barriers, undiagnosed learning differences, or simply a lack of trust in the adults around them. Research from the American Psychological Association confirms that students who have experienced adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) display elevated behavioral stress responses that are often misread as defiance.

Before a consequence is assigned, the first question should be: what is this student communicating? Effective schools build structured protocols for identifying barriers — including functional behavior assessments (FBAs), restorative conversations, and early-warning data systems that flag students before a single incident becomes a pattern.

Step 2: Implement Tiered Supports — Not Just Tiered Consequences

A Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework applies to behavior the same way it applies to academics. Tier 1 covers school-wide expectations, proactive relationship-building, and universal social-emotional learning (SEL). Tier 2 provides targeted interventions for students showing early signs of disengagement — check-in/check-out systems, small group counseling, mentoring. Tier 3 delivers intensive, individualized support for students in crisis.

The problem in many districts is that Tier 1 is never actually implemented with fidelity. School-wide expectations are posted on hallway walls but never modeled, practiced, or reinforced consistently by staff. You cannot have effective Tier 2 or Tier 3 interventions if the foundation is broken. Culture starts with Tier 1.

Step 3: Give Teachers Clear Expectations and Practical Strategies

Teachers cannot manage what they have never been taught to manage. One of the most consistent findings in school turnaround research is that teachers — particularly those new to high-need schools — receive inadequate training in culturally responsive classroom management, trauma-informed practices, and de-escalation techniques.

Effective professional development in this area is not a one-day training. It requires modeling, coaching, and feedback loops. Teachers need to see what proactive relationship-building looks like in real classrooms. They need concrete language for de-escalating conflict without power struggles. They need to understand the difference between compliance-driven management and trust-driven management — and why only one of them works long-term.

School leaders must also establish clear, non-negotiable behavioral expectations that are consistently applied across every classroom, hallway, and common space. Inconsistency is one of the fastest ways to erode student trust and accelerate behavioral breakdowns. When a student knows that the rules change depending on which teacher they walk into, they learn to test every room. Consistency communicates safety.

Step 4: Make Restorative Practices the Default — Not the Exception

Restorative practices shift the question from "what rule was broken and what is the punishment?" to "who was harmed, what do they need, and how do we repair the relationship?" Schools that have implemented restorative practices with fidelity have seen dramatic reductions in suspension rates — without sacrificing school safety.

Oakland Unified School District, for example, saw a 44% reduction in suspensions after implementing restorative justice practices district-wide. These outcomes are not outliers. They are what happens when discipline is treated as a relational and instructional practice rather than a punitive one.

For restorative practices to work, teachers and administrators must be trained together. The approach cannot live only in the counselor's office. It must be embedded in classroom routines, team meetings, and the daily language of the building.

Step 5: Mentor Students and Use Behavioral Contracts Within the MTSS Framework

One of the most underutilized — and most effective — tools in the MTSS behavior framework is the combination of structured mentoring and student behavioral contracting. These are not punitive tools. Used correctly, they are relational tools that give students agency, clarity, and a trusted adult in their corner.

Mentoring within MTSS typically sits at the Tier 2 level — targeted support for students who are showing early warning signs of disengagement, chronic absenteeism, or repeated low-level behavioral incidents. A school-based mentor, whether a teacher, counselor, administrator, or community volunteer, provides consistent, structured check-ins that keep the student connected to the school community before a crisis develops.

The research is clear on this: students who have at least one caring, consistent adult relationship in a school building are significantly more likely to stay enrolled, improve academically, and reduce disciplinary incidents. For Black and Hispanic students specifically — who are most often the targets of exclusionary discipline — mentoring serves as a direct counterweight to the messaging that school is not a place built for them.

Behavioral Contracting: Giving Students Ownership

A behavioral contract is a written, collaborative agreement between a student, an educator, and often a parent or guardian that clearly defines expected behaviors, specific goals, agreed-upon supports the school will provide, and the outcomes — both positive reinforcement and logical consequences — that follow. The key word is collaborative. A contract that is handed to a student is a punishment. A contract that is built with a student is a plan.

Effective behavioral contracts within MTSS include four elements:

1. Clear, student-friendly language that describes the target behavior specifically — not vague expectations like "be respectful," but concrete, observable actions like "raise your hand before speaking" or "use a calm voice when disagreeing with a teacher."

2. Student voice in the goal-setting process. When students help identify what they want to work on and what they need to succeed, buy-in increases dramatically. This is especially important for adolescents who may have experienced years of adults making decisions about them without including them.

3. Defined supports and check-in structures. The contract should specify who the student's mentor or point person is, how often they will meet, and what the student can do when they feel dysregulated or at risk of a behavioral incident.

4. Positive reinforcement built in. Behavioral contracts that only list consequences for failure are incomplete. Research consistently shows that positive reinforcement — recognition, earned privileges, public acknowledgment — is more effective at sustaining behavior change than punishment alone.

When mentoring and contracting are embedded within the MTSS framework as standard Tier 2 practice — not emergency responses — schools create a proactive culture where students know they are supported before things go wrong. That shift, from reactive to proactive, is one of the most powerful culture changes a school leader can make.

What Wright Consulting FIX Offers

This is where Wright Consulting FIX enters the work.

Our Mentoring Administrators program, built on the WestEd Four Domains for Rapid School Improvement, directly addresses the Culture Shift domain — one of the four evidence-based levers proven to drive school turnaround. Culture Shift is not a poster on the wall. It is a deliberate, structured process of examining how discipline is applied, who it impacts, and what the building's relational environment communicates to students who have been historically marginalized.

Our Community and University Partnerships Initiative takes that work beyond the school walls. Suspension does not just happen inside the building — the consequences live in the community. When families, universities, faith institutions, and district leadership are aligned around a shared vision of student success, the school is no longer the only safety net. The net gets wider. And students — especially Black and Hispanic students — stop falling through it.

Our six-step methodology — Assemble, Diagnose and Align, Identify Partners, Formalize MOU, Launch and Implement, Monitor and Sustain — creates a structured, accountable process for building those partnerships at the district level. This is not soft work. It is systems work. And systems work is what changes data.

If your district is looking at suspension reports and literacy scores and recognizing the pattern described in this post — the answer is not more programs. It is better alignment, deeper mentorship, and a commitment to culture as strategy.

The Path Forward

The data does not lie. Black and Hispanic students are being pushed out of schools at rates that cannot be justified — and their literacy outcomes reflect the cost of that exclusion. The good news is that research-based solutions exist. Leadership development, mentorship, and community partnerships are not idealistic — they are the most practical tools available to district and school leaders today.

Get into the Xone with Wright Consulting FIX. Explore the Mentoring Administrators program and the Community and University Partnerships Initiative at https://www.wcfix.org — or book a Discovery Call to talk about what your district needs right now.

References

U.S. GAO Report: K-12 Education — Discipline Disparities for Black Students (GAO-18-258) | IDRA: Zero Tolerance Policies in Texas | Learning Policy Institute: Pushed Out | Southern Education Foundation: Miles to Go Report, 2024 | Texas Standard: Racial Disparity in School Discipline | EdTrust: NAEP 2024 Results | Texas 2036: NAEP Results | Texas A&M University: In-School Suspensions and Academic Failure | NEA: School Suspensions Lead to Stark Losses in Instructional Time | PMC (2025): The Unintended Consequence of School Suspension | UT Austin: It's All About the Relationships | Skiba et al. (2014): The Color of Discipline