From the original FutureEd coverage:
“A 2019 report from WestEd’s Justice and Prevention Research Center summarized the breadth of evidence on restorative practices and found that some schools adopt a universal approach that involves training all staff members and students, while others add the practices on to existing discipline systems.
Studies in cities including Los Angeles and Denver found that restorative practices resulted in lower suspensions rates for all students and narrowed gaps in suspension rates between students of color and White students. In the only study that assigned schools randomly at the time of WestEd’s publication, the RAND Corporation found an initiative in Pittsburgh public schools that used a restorative approach when students committed misconduct decreased overall school-level suspension rates and discipline disparities along racial lines, while boosting PSAT scores for 10th grade students and teachers’ assessments of school climate. The intervention didn’t go so far as to improve scores on state tests, and in the middle grades, scores actually dropped at the schools using the new approach.”