In 鈥淪traight Talk with Rick and Jal,鈥� Harvard University鈥檚 Jal Mehta and I examine some of the reforms and enthusiasms that permeate education. In a field full of buzzwords and jargon, our goal is simple: Tell the truth, in plain English, about what鈥檚 being proposed and what it might mean for students, teachers, and parents. We may be wrong and will frequently disagree, but we鈥檒l try to be candid and ensure that you don鈥檛 need a Ph.D. in eduspeak to understand us.
Today鈥檚 topic is restorative justice.
鈥�Rick
Jal: As with many of the things we discuss here, restorative justice is an idea that is admirable in theory but difficult to pull off in practice, in particular because it is so misaligned with much of how we do everything else in schools.
The central notion is that our approach to discipline is frequently misguided. One student breaks the rules, or in some way harms another student, and we punish the offender, often by sending them to the principal鈥檚 office or, in more serious cases, by suspending them from school. The result is that the offending student has very little opportunity to reflect on why what they did was wrong, and they miss more school, which creates additional academic problems. Some schools become discipline mills, where the same students are suspended over and over, with little chance of escaping this downward spiral. Relatedly, as has been covered extensively in the media over the past few years, the , even if we control for other variables that are likely to affect the process.
Restorative justice . The idea here is that when an offense has been committed, students and an adult will come together to talk about the issue. Using a structured protocol, the offender will generally get to hear about what sort of harm they caused and offer some amends, and then the community gets to decide together how to move forward. The idea is to create a space of healing by repairing the harm, as well as to try to end the endless cycle of discipline and punishment.
The challenge is that the ethos of such a circle is so different from what prevails in most schools most of the time. My colleague Sarah Fine鈥檚 found that in the school she studied, students were bewildered by the efforts to do restorative justice because it was such a departure from the adult-centered 鈥渄o as you鈥檙e told鈥� ethos that characterized the rest of the school day. Adults similarly struggled to make these shifts, as they were required to share power and invest in deep relationships. Thus, I think that restorative justice is essentially an approach toward discipline for the school system we want to have, not the one we actually live in.
Discipline is often an issue that divides conservatives and liberals. What do you think, Rick?
Rick: It鈥檚 an important question. I think you鈥檝e aptly captured the disjuncture between the good intentions of the restorative-justice advocates and the their efforts have yielded. Where we disagree, I think, is how we interpret why that is. As I see it, the big problem is that restorative justice is aggressively, naively Rousseauian and ignores much of what we know about human behavior.
One kid insults, bullies, threatens, or assaults another. The solution? Get them together to reflect with an intensely concerned facilitator. To quote Tom Hanks鈥檚 13-year-old character from 鈥淏ig鈥�: 鈥淚 don鈥檛 get it.鈥� It鈥檚 a nice sentiment. But, as a kid who spent plenty of time getting beat up and as an educator who鈥檚 seen a lot of approaches to discipline, I suspect it鈥檚 the kind of idea that usually works better in an earnest workshop than with real students.
Look, kids are still developing. They鈥檙e wired to test boundaries. That鈥檚 what they do. As a result, they benefit from norms, expectations, and predictability even more than grown-ups do. The core impulse behind restorative justice strikes me as willfully na茂ve.
I certainly don鈥檛 deny that restorative programs may work well in some settings, with highly trained staff, supportive families, and invested students. But, more broadly, I鈥檓 reminded of many other well-meaning social reforms that presume things will work swell if those uptight traditionalists would just back off. The results consistently disappoint. Efforts to curtail policing and border enforcement, for instance, haven鈥檛 yielded the hoped-for benefits. Instead, they鈥檝e in crime and illegal immigration. It鈥檚 quite the stretch to imagine that reducing consequences for misbehavior wouldn鈥檛 lead to more misbehavior.
Worse, intentionally or no, my experience is that many programs billed as 鈥渞estorative鈥� ultimately seem to hold that traditional notions of 鈥済ood behavior鈥� reflect an outdated, oppressive construct. While some enthusiasts insist that theirs is just a better way to teach those traditional norms, vocal voices in the restorative-justice community tend to unapologetically blame misbehavior more on 鈥減roblematic鈥� societal structures than on bad choices, suggesting that they don鈥檛 ultimately accept the notion of personal agency鈥攐r that wrongdoers should be held personally responsible for their misbehavior.
Well, that鈥檚 my initial take. Aren鈥檛 you glad you asked? Looking forward to your response. Because I鈥檓 counting on you to alleviate some of my qualms.
Jal: I think you are going way up the ladder of inference. Just because we put kids in a circle to discuss misbehavior doesn鈥檛 mean that we鈥檝e bought into a world with no rules or consequences.
I do think it is interesting to note that the more affluent the school is, the more students are treated with respect for their capabilities and intentions. For example, a recent comparative study that in a more affluent school, students were assumed to have 鈥渋ndelible moral worth,鈥� and 鈥渢aking a break鈥� was framed as an opportunity to regain focus. Conversely, in the working-class school, moral worth was 鈥渃ontingent鈥�: Good behavior led to tickets and prizes, whereas bad behavior resulted in fines and the shredding of tickets. Yet again, we see how behaviorism reigns in higher poverty environments, whereas we treat more affluent students as capable actors who can reflect on their behaviors and redirect themselves over time. What is promising about restorative justice is that it extends a more respectful way of thinking and behaving to all students, including the higher poverty and students of color who traditionally have not been afforded such respect.
At the same time, restorative justice asks more of teachers and other adults than traditional modes of discipline. Everyone knows how to send a kid to the principal鈥檚 office; not everyone knows how to run a restorative circle. The result is the kind of thing we almost always see in the first wave of studies of a reform: , with some studies showing significant benefits and others suggesting negative unintended consequences. The implication, as is almost always the case, is that we should go slow, that people doing complex things need opportunities to learn and reflect in the company of others who already know how to do these things, and that moving too fast without building underlying skills will lead to poor quality, which in turn will spark backlash.
In the long run, though, restorative justice may be here to stay. David Cohen and I wrote a paper about 鈥�,鈥� in which we identified a few features of reforms that have been sustained and institutionalized: They solve a problem that teachers have rather than a problem reformers wished teachers thought they have, they are aligned with prevailing local values, they have a political constituency that support them, and teachers either already know how to enact the reforms or are provided guidance so they can do so. Restorative justice checks many of these boxes: Teachers want to run a classroom in ways that doesn鈥檛 involve constantly sending out or suspending kids, it is consistent with prevailing values in many districts, and there is political support for restorative justice. The missing piece is the guidance, infrastructure, or professional learning, which is why we see such uneven results. It鈥檚 also not likely to be popular in deeply red political communities, but that鈥檚 OK; if restorative justice spread in the places where it was aligned with its values, that would still be progress.
Rick: Well, that鈥檚 all reasonable. I鈥檝e always thought that the Mehta-Cohen take is a smart one and that it鈥檚 sensibly applied here. It sounds to me like you鈥檙e talking about a calibrated response that acknowledges the humanity of students, addresses practical challenges for teachers, and eschews over-the-top discipline in favor of something more focused and purposeful.
I鈥檓 certainly on board with that. And I鈥檒l add that I heartily endorse getting students to reflect on their behavior, take ownership of their actions, and communicate constructively. I don鈥檛 want any readers to think that I鈥檓 taking issue with any of that. My skepticism of restorative justice doesn鈥檛 mean I鈥檓 opposed to helping students communicate or to minimizing disruptive punishments. If that鈥檚 what we鈥檙e talking about, as ways to humanize schools and bolster safety, then I鈥檓 on board.
But, again, that鈥檚 not what I鈥檝e often encountered under the gauzy label of 鈥渞estorative justice.鈥� Indeed, the biggest hurdle to making these practices work isn鈥檛 just the implementation and training issues that you flag but the fact that鈥攊n my experience鈥攖he more prominent proponents don鈥檛 actually seem all that interested in traditional norms, boundaries, or notions of personal responsibility. Instead, piled under mounds of eduspeak is a presumption that , boundaries are outdated, and personal responsibility is a matter of 鈥渂laming the victim.鈥�
When that鈥檚 the case, I expect that implementation will inevitably be a mess. And I think that鈥檚 pretty much what we鈥檝e seen. We could quarrel about how to interpret the (very) mixed evidence, but we鈥檝e certainly seen plenty of data suggesting that students and teachers not infrequently report that schools that adopt 鈥渞estorative鈥� practices feel less safe and more chaotic.
So, where do we wind up? Well, we鈥檙e on the same page to the extent that we think some restorative-justice practices, diligently applied, may be useful鈥攁s long as it鈥檚 in the service of setting boundaries, establishing norms, keeping schools safe and orderly, and establishing caring cultures. To the extent, however, that 鈥渞estorative justice鈥� serves as shorthand for more ideological efforts to replace reality-grounded notions of agency and order with Rousseauian fever dreams, then I don鈥檛 think all the guidance or professional learning in the world will suffice.
