The harsh reality is that a large number of adults in prison are failed special education students. What schools frequently fail to recognize is that the stakes for students who receive special education runs the gamut from a meaningful life to a life behind bars. The following story puts a human face on the experience of one teacher working in a juvenile prison school in Georgia.
Most of the students are functionally illiterate, have limited access to computers, and textbooks are left to mold on loading docks. Children are "manacled to chairs for hours." The students see no meaning in their school work except for the student "newspaper" which gives voice to their stories. The student’s stories appear to be one of the few rays of joy in an otherwise dismal school experience.
Teacher advocacy for educational materials is met with more than indifference, it is met with threats of violence from the prison authorities:
"For my role in pushing to have the books replaced, an administrator threatened to take me out in the parking lot and beat me up for not going through proper channels. It’s unbelievable. A past union representative, I have a newfound appreciation for the importance of good representation and solidarity. "
The next time one of your children’s teachers complains about lack of administrative support, refer them to the above anecdote.
In both public and prison school settings, lack of books has been documented, as in Washington D.C. schools and elsewhere with some degree of regularity. Excessive use of restraint and even violence, albeit not normally manacles, is an all too common violation. Limited access to computers and software is a regular issues for many students with special needs, and is an issue I confront almost every day. The teacher’s description of the culture of his prison school is eerily familiar:
"The obsession with command and control concerns all who find themselves behind the walls of Georgia’s children’s prisons. Employees are afraid to act, because they could lose their jobs for blowing the whistle on bad practices. "
Teachers being stifled in their efforts to reveal "bad practices," is topic that has been previously discussed in this blog. Systematic lack of quality services, such as in Baltimore, has been shown to be an issue in both settings. While there are obvious difference between these students and this school and the average special education program, the similarities are quite striking. Considering the draconian environment of prison schools, it is remarkable the degree to which there is an analogy to special education programs on the outside.