In December the U.S. Senate held hearings on ending the
“School to Prison Pipeline.” As
discussed previously in this blog and elsewhere, the “school to prison
pipeline” refers to exclusionary disciplinary practices (e.g., suspension, expulsions,
or even arrests) resulting from blind adherence to zero tolerance policies,
which critics harshly state criminalize otherwise normal behavior and are
disproportionately used on minority and special needs students. African American males are 3 ½ times more likely
to be suspended or expelled than are their white peers, and students with
special needs are twice as likely to be suspended or expelled than are their
non-disabled peers. The Senate hearings,
which were held before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution,
Civil Rights and Human Rights and chaired by Senator Dick Durbin, were the
first ever held to address the overall question of school discipline and how it
has gone so terribly wrong. But perhaps
more importantly, the hearings discussed what needs to happen to “plug” the
pipeline.
So how many students are being suspended or expelled? According to data collected by the Civil
Rights Project and released last March, 3 million students were suspended from
our nation’s schools in 2009-2010. As
graphically illustrated in the report, “Opportunities Suspended: The Disparate Impact of Disciplinary
Exclusion from School” and discussed in a previous blog, this is enough
students to fill every seat at every major league ball park and NFL stadium in
the country. And for many of these
students, suspensions or expulsions may be their entry into the school to
prison pipeline. According to a Texas
study, students who are expelled or suspended are three times more likely to
become involved with the juvenile justice system within the year.
One of the keynote speakers at the Senate hearings turned
out to be a 20-year-old college sophomore who described life “under siege” as a
student in the Chicago Public Schools. An
honors student, Edward Ward described what it was like to be on a “constant
state of alert” because of the police presence at his school. With suspensions being meted out for even
minor infractions, Mr. Ward said he could “see the determination to get an
education fade from [his] friends’ faces.”
Mr. Ward told of his cousin who, with no one at home to supervise him
while suspended, got into further trouble dealing drugs, landing in prison, and
ultimately getting shot. No
administrator queried another friend of Mr. Ward’s who was repeatedly given
detentions because she was late or missed classes. Yet the student was
chronically late because she was unable to leave a younger sibling home alone
until a parent returned home.
This last example highlights the arbitrariness and frankly
foolish application of zero tolerance policies.
Steven Teske, the chief judge of the juvenile court in Clayton
County, GA who has characterized zero tolerance as “zero intelligence,” also
addressed the Senate hearing. Judge Teske had been appalled by the sharp
increase of referrals to his court room from schools: from 46 incidents in 1995 to over 1,200 in
2003. The increase correlated with the
introduction of police officers in the school as well as a decrease in
graduation rates. According to the judge, 90% of these referrals were for
misdemeanors that should have been handled in the principal’s office, not the
courtroom.
Judge Teske introduced a tiered response to student
misconduct. Students and parents receive
a warning from the school on their first offense, a referral to a conflict
skills workshop on the second offense, and finally, a referral to the court
system on the third offense. The judge
also created a “system of care” comprised of education, juvenile justice, and
community-based child service providers.
The judge has the data to demonstrate the success of his program. By 2011, referrals to his court had
decreased by 83%, the presence of serious weapons in schools was down by 73%, and
graduation rates had increased by 20%.
Not surprisingly, his model has served as a basis for other programs in
the country.
And there are other programs being developed and instituted
to address the issue of “push-out” of students.
Mr. Ward, the previously mentioned college sophomore, responded to what
he had seen in his school by becoming involved in Blocks Together, a
Chicago-based community organization that seeks to introduce restorative
practices as an alternative to suspension and expulsions in Chicago schools. Blocks Together is also a member of the
Dignity in Schools Campaign. The
Dignity in Schools Campaign in turn has joined with the Opportunity to Learn
Campaign and other groups to launch “Solutions, Not Suspensions.” The Dignity in Schools Campaign has also
released the “Model Code on Education and Dignity,” which advocates the use of
research-based practices like Restorative Justice and School Wide Positive
Behavior Intervention and Supports (PBIS) to improve discipline in schools and
promote better academic performance.
According to the Dignity in School Campaign, PBIS is used in more
than 10,000 schools and is shown to reduce disciplinary referrals and improve
attendance rates and academic achievement.
Such grassroots organizations have begun to effect
change. Several states have passed
bi-partisan legislation that limits use of exclusionary discipline or provides
support to educators in implementing practices that can reduce the use of
suspensions and expulsions. Some cities,
such as Chicago, have expunged zero-tolerance language from its discipline
policies. The numbers of students
suspended in New York City and Baltimore are declining with modifications to
the school policies.
So what can the Senate committee do to eliminate what are
known as “push out” practices? For
starters, the committee can urge re-introduction of several pieces of
legislation that were drafted in the last Congress in both the Senate and
the House that offer training and technical support to school districts which
are implementing non-exclusionary discipline practices. In the House, the
Positive Behavior for Safe and Effective Schools Act advocates the use of PBIS
and provides training in best practices for school discipline, the Restorative
Justice in Schools Act focuses on conflict resolution, and the Youth PROMISE
Act offers strategies to lessen the number of youth entering the justice
system. In the Senate, the Successful, Safe, and
Healthy Students Act would provide funds and technical assistance to schools implementing
restorative justice and PBIS.
There is no easy solution to the crisis of student push-out
in our schools, but clearly the conversation on how to fix it has begun at the
federal level. Witnesses at the conference not only described the school to
prison pipeline and its potentially disastrous effects on our youth,
particularly minorities and students with special needs, but also addressed how
to fix the problem. And many of the representatives
from the different community organizations who attended the hearing felt that
the Senators were listening. We need to expect better outcomes of our school systems and certainly better than a prison sentence as the final destination.