Guest Viewpoint: Shut down the 'school-to-prison pipeline'
By Johanna Wald
8/12/03 -- The phrase "school-to-prison pipeline" startles many who first hear it because, instinctively, they recognize that these two institutions should not be linked.
Schools are supposed to lift up, expand horizons, and open doors of opportunities. Prisons are designed to hold down, contain danger, and shut out. Thus, when it is suggested that one has become a feeder to the other, many understand that systems have gone awry.
New research presented at a conference sponsored by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University and Northeastern University's Institute on Race and Justice titled "Redirecting the School to Prison Pipeline" begins to pinpoint where and how these two systems have become linked.
While the relationship between educational failure and the likelihood of becoming embroiled in the criminal justice system has been well-established, these studies represent a multidisciplinary attempt to explore the ways in which schools may either contribute to, or prevent, the flow of students into the criminal justice system.
The burgeoning prison population in this country -- now more than 2.1 million -- underscores the urgency of achieving such an understanding, particularly when we consider that 68 percent of all adult inmates in state prisons have not completed high school, and that as many as 70 percent of incarcerated juveniles suffer from learning disabilities.
These staggering figures are likely to grow even higher as dual "get tough" trends in both school discipline and within the criminal justice system continue unabated. The overrepresentation of youths of color among those most harshly sanctioned within both systems is so glaring that it becomes impossible not to connect the two.
Indeed, many have, coining phrases such as "the prison track" and "the school-to-prison pipeline" to describe an increasingly punitive and isolating journey through school that lands far too many youths -- disproportionately poor and minority -- under court supervision or incarcerated.
Studies presented at the conference begin to unravel this process and to point out critical benchmarks along this journey. Authors examined the ineffectiveness of suspensions in deterring inappropriate behavior and the correlation between multiple suspensions and subsequent academic failure.
Several studies chronicle the disproportionate flow of minority students into "alternative" disciplinary schools of questionable quality that do not meet their academic needs.
Others document the growing practice in many districts of referring students to law enforcement for behavior committed in school that in the past would have been handled solely by the school disciplinarian.
The difficulty that many vulnerable students have navigating ninth grade and re-entering public school after lengthy suspensions or placement in secure facilities, are two other themes that emerged in several papers. And two studies suggest that poor coordination between juvenile and educational systems intensify the academic difficulties of court-involved youths -- and increase the odds that they will drop out.
This research challenges the common assertion that these are inherently "bad" kids, somehow destined for prison.
Although there clearly is a small minority of students whose violent behavior warrants removal from school, most are neither dangerous nor incorrigibly disruptive. Rather, they are struggling academically and desperately need, as one academic researcher noted "more school, not less."
Too often school officials' responses to these youths' misbehavior -- to exclude and isolate -- only accelerates their journey through the pipeline.
Many of these youths are cut off from what may be the only stable environment they know, often provided with an inadequate curriculum, isolated from healthy peers and adults, and treated as if they are already criminals. Many will drop or be pushed out of school before acquiring the skills they need to succeed in life, thus increasing by threefold the likelihood that they will be arrested.
The cycle can be broken -- and the pipeline redirected -- if we muster the political will and resources to do so. Unfortunately, the current fiscal crisis and school accountability structures represent formidable obstacles to redirecting the school-to-prison pipeline.
In today's test-driven educational environment, teachers and principals are rewarded for raising test scores, not for their success in holding onto and graduating more students.
In many states, despite severe budget shortfalls, legislators still seem more willing to invest in costly juvenile halls and prisons than in the intensive academic and social support programs in schools that could well reduce the need for such facilities.
The impact on real lives of such choices can be glimpsed in a bulletin published by the Justice Policy Institute several years ago. Second Chances, Giving Kids a Chance to Make a Better Choice chronicles how 25 delinquent youths became productive, successful citizens.
One young man noted that his life turned around after a teacher took the time to teach him fractions. That was the moment, he wrote, when "something inside of me was sparked." He ultimately enrolled in a premedical program at a leading university.
If today's current harsh policies toward youths had been in effect when these young people were in trouble, they would be in prison today, instead of becoming lawyers, counselors, politicians, authors, and athletes.
The human and financial waste of continuing these policies is more than we should be prepared to tolerate.
With the relationship between school failure and subsequent incarceration becoming clearer, we should redirect public resources and accountability structures toward keeping as many youths as possible in school until they graduate and are prepared to pursue advanced training or education.
The payoff of refocusing a school pipeline away from prison toward opportunity could be enormous, not only in actual dollars saved from reduced legal, court, and corrections costs, but in the number of our nation's youths diverted from lives of despair.
Johanna Wald is a policy analyst at the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University.
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| Reproduced with permission from the 2003 issue of School Board News. Copyright © 2003, National School Boards Association. Opinions expressed in this newspaper do not necessarily reflect positions of NSBA. This article may be printed out and photocopied for individual or educational use, provided this copyright notice appears on each copy. This article may not be otherwise transmitted or reproduced in print or electronic form without the consent of the Publisher. For more information, call (703) 838-6789. |