Policy doesn’t end when a bill becomes law.
PoliCrunch measures what happens next.
We use public data, policy records, and AI-assisted analysis to follow laws from passage through local implementation to measurable outcomes—finding where policy works, where implementation diverges, and where evidence points to reform.
Explore our research How PoliCrunch worksFrom policy promise to real-world result.
Thousands of policies are passed across federal, state, and local governments. Far less attention is paid to what happens after they take effect. PoliCrunch investigates that gap.
What did lawmakers say the policy would change?
How did agencies, counties, cities, or districts put it into practice?
Use public data to test whether the promised result actually occurred.
Test whether a policy should be replicated, modified, or replaced with an alternative.
Akshara Krishnan
Akshara Krishnan is the founder of PoliCrunch, a student researcher, nationally ranked speaker, and youth policy advocate.
She serves as one of two youth members on California’s State Advisory Group on Youth Justice and has worked with the City of Dublin and Hayward Police Department, giving her experience with policy at the state, city, and agency levels.
Akshara is a nationally ranked International Extemporaneous speaker, national semifinalist, California state finalist, and champion at national- and state-level tournaments. Years of researching policy questions for competition taught her to compare approaches, evaluate evidence, and ask not just what governments are doing, but whether it is working.
That question led to PoliCrunch. Governments pass thousands of policies, but far less attention is paid to measuring their results after implementation. Without that analysis, policymakers elsewhere have limited evidence to decide whether to replicate a policy, modify it, or pursue an alternative. PoliCrunch uses public data, policy records, and AI-assisted analysis to help close that gap.
Investigations
Each investigation starts with a policy promise and follows the evidence through implementation to measurable impact.
California banned suspensions for “willful defiance.”
Did schools stop excluding students—or did discipline change form?
SB 274 expanded California’s prohibition on suspensions for disruption or willful defiance through grade 12. PoliCrunch is analyzing statewide and district-level discipline data to determine what changed after implementation.
See the findings ↓ MethodologyThe first results
California’s first full school year after SB 274 shows fewer suspensions statewide. But the aggregate decline leaves two questions unanswered: who benefited, and what happened inside individual districts?
A 12.1% relative decline from 2023–24 to 2024–25.
Down from 8.6%, but substantial disparity remains.
Down from 5.6% the previous school year.
Black students were still suspended at 3.16 times the White rate.
What changed?
California previously restricted suspensions for disruption or willful defiance among younger students.
SB 274 expanded that prohibition through grade 12.
Schools can instead refer students for appropriate in-school interventions or other means of correction.
What should happen?
If the policy works as intended, fewer students—particularly newly covered high-school students—should lose instructional time for subjective behavioral offenses.
Total exclusion ↓
Did the behavior disappear—or did its label change?
A falling defiance count does not by itself prove successful implementation. PoliCrunch tests whether districts reduced exclusion overall or whether discipline may have shifted into other suspension-eligible categories.
Intended implementation
Consistent with fewer students being excluded from school after the policy change.
Implementation signal
A signal for closer review—not evidence by itself that a district intentionally relabeled behavior.
How we test implementation
PoliCrunch combines statewide administrative data with district-level policy review. AI helps process records and identify patterns; transparent quantitative criteria determine the published analysis.
Compare district discipline outcomes across 2022–23, 2023–24 and 2024–25, including suspension rates, incidents, offense categories and student-group data.
Examine high-school students newly affected by SB 274 and compare changes against grades where defiance restrictions already existed.
Measure changes in reported disruption/willful-defiance discipline and test whether other suspension-eligible categories move unusually as defiance falls.
Measure whether suspension disparities affecting student groups narrowed or widened after implementation.
Review district handbooks, board policies, administrative regulations and discipline guidance to understand what sits behind significant statistical signals.
SB 274 Implementation Tracker
A district-by-district view of what happened after California changed the rules.
| District | Exclusion | Defiance | Offense Shift | Equity | Policy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| California districts | Analyzing | Analyzing | Analyzing | Analyzing | Reviewing |
Statewide progress. An unanswered local story.
California’s statewide suspension rate declined during the first full school year after SB 274 took effect. Suspension rates also declined among Black students and students with disabilities.
But statewide averages can hide substantial differences between districts. Although rates declined, Black students remained suspended at more than three times the rate of White students.
The next question is not simply whether California’s number went down. It is whether the policy changed discipline consistently across the state—and for whom.
A signal is not a conclusion.
A change directly measurable in published data.
A statistical pattern that warrants closer examination.
A conclusion supported by quantitative evidence and additional review.
Why implementation matters
Legislatures debate bills. Governors sign them. Headlines announce that policy changed.
Then implementation is distributed across hundreds of agencies, districts, counties, and communities—where the same policy can produce very different results.
PoliCrunch starts where the legislative process usually ends.
We trace the promise written into policy through local implementation and public data to determine what actually changed—and whether the evidence supports expanding, changing, or replacing the policy.
Data & transparency
PoliCrunch is designed to be reproducible. As the district analysis is completed, cleaned data, variable definitions, calculations, methodology, and revisions will be published alongside the findings.
California Department of Education discipline and CALPADS reporting data.
California Senate Bill 274 and relevant California Education Code provisions.
2022–23 through 2024–25, with the 2024–25 school year as the first full year under the expanded prohibition.
California changed the rule.
Now we’re asking whether the system changed with it.
Tracking policy from passage to outcome.
Investigation 01 · SB 274
