As violence in schools is an increasingly common sight, it is equally common for schools to have various security measures to control who has access to school premises. Alas, research from Johns Hopkins University suggests that such infrastructure actually harms the performance of students.

Indeed, not only did students at such schools have lower maths scores and were less likely to graduate to college, but they were also more likely to be suspended than their peers in schools with less security.

Educational experience

“When schools feel like prisons, the impact isn’t localized to the students perceived as problematic—it has collateral consequences for kids irrespective of their behavior,” the authors explain. “We’re suggesting there is a safety tax that all students pay in those schools.”

The researchers examined the impact of a range of security measures commonly used in schools, including metal detectors, random dog sniffs, drug testing, dress codes, and ID badge requirements.

“We understand that surveillance is part of schools’ security and safety responsibilities, but we also know that the primary mission of schools is to educate kids. We wanted to know if fortifying schools in this way related in any way to the primary mission of educating kids and sending them off to college,” they explain.

They then developed a model to allow them to compare the educational outcomes of schools with high surveillance and those with less surveillance. The model factored in things such as the social and economic background of pupils.

Worse experience

The results showed that schools with a high level of surveillance also had higher suspension rates, as greater detection seemed to lead to greater punishment. This was true regardless of the particular demographics of the school.

What’s more, such high-surveillance schools also had lower maths scores and the students were less likely to attend college after graduating. Sadly, it was also more likely that Black students attended such high-surveillance schools.

“We’re saying lower scores and lower chances of going to college aren’t due a student being suspended, this is just isolating the impact of being in a school that surveils more heavily,” the researchers explain.

Indeed, the “safety tax” is so pervasive that the researchers believe reducing the excessive use of social control measures could be an easy way to provide a pathway towards both greater parity in STEM achievement and even college enrollment.