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Hello everyone! Welcome to the second Padlet. This Padlet will focus on the current climate surrounding the school to prison pipeline. Here are some thoughts going into answering the questions: Have you or someone you know been subject to school punishments that negatively impacted your/their ability to thrive in the classroom? Can you think of any examples of where a punitive response to school misbehavior is better than a response that focuses on rehabilitation and growth? We challenge you to look at all sides of this nuanced issue and address the concerns of students, policy makers and schools in your responses. Please be respectful of other students ideas, experiences, and opinions :)

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Find an article or provide a personal anecdote about the school to prison pipeline in your local community, Berkeley, or your country. This can be about how certain school policies are contributing to the pipeline or what is being done to dismantle it.

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What are some feasible and effective alternatives to harsh punishment? What can individuals and school districts do to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline? Feel free to build on each other's ideas to come up with a clearer picture as to what your ideal school would look like!

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For inspiration, feel free to look at these slides!

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Feel free to add any additional videos, articles, audio, or graphics about the school to prison pipeline here!

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Examples of effective measures some cities and states have already implemented as an alternative to punishment.

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Hi all! The audio on the above video for some reason is not working unless you click the button under the video that looks like the image below; then it should work.

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A helpful article I found that summarizes the relationship between School-to-Prison Pipeline and race, it also discusses alternatives!

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Yes. When my brother was in eighth grade, he was suspended for disrespecting his teacher. He was suspended for over a month because the administration did not want him participating in the end of the year activities. This was not the first time he was suspended, so I think that’s why they suspended him for a very long time. However, his punishment was unfair. My brother has a 504 plan, meaning that the school administration agreed to provide extra support for my brother. The school never followed through with their agreements. My brother is diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and ADHD, and he did not receive help from his teachers, so I understand why he acted the way he did. He was wrong, and he did deserved a punishment, but not week long suspensions. This hurt his grades tremendously. When he was younger, the program leader of an after school program he was in called the police on him because they thought he was trying to steal a Chromebook. This is what my brother claims happened: His class was upstairs using the Chromebook, and it was time for them to join the other classes downstairs, in the multi-purpose room. He asked his program leader if he can continue to use it when they got downstairs and she said yes, so he put it in his backpack with the rest of his school supplies to carry it down. When he got their, the other program leader asked where the Chromebook was, and my brother’s program leader said it was in his backpack. Instantly, she called the police. The police arrived, grabbed his backpack, and took out the Chromebook. My brother cried, he didn’t know what was going on. Because of that incident, he was terrified of police for a while.

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I think it is interesting how immigration and school-to-prison pipeline is never connected; I found this interview that discusses this issue. It is from a few years ago however. I am not sure if this is that immigration is a more sensitive topic or that the this issue of incarceration is just not as prominent, as the padlet discussion showed from Thursday.

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Photo: Eddy Zheng talks to students about investing in their education at the Asian Pacific Islander Youth Summit he helped start. by Sabrina Holcomb
Mass incarceration and the school-to-prison pipeline have sparked a national conversation on prison reform, but until now, few Asian-American voices have been part of the discussion. Eddy Zheng is working to change that. Zheng became the youngest inmate in California's infamous San Quentin prison after he was tried as an adult for a home invasion robbery at the age of 16. Sentenced to life with a possibility of parole, Zheng spent the next 20 years in prison.

Take NEA's pledge to shut down the school-to-prison pipeline. Click here ›

Determined to turn his life around, Zheng focused on education-his own and fellow prisoners'-as the key to rehabilitation and reconciliation. He earned his GED and associates' degree; co-edited a literary anthology by Asian and Pacific American prisoners; started the first poetry slam at San Quentin; and tried to launch an API ethnic studies program, for which he was punished with an eleven-month stint in solitary confinement. Today, Zheng is a Soros Justice Fellow and community activist who raises awareness about the immigration-to-prison pipeline and the impact of criminal justice polices on API youth and families.

Why do you believe in the power of education to change the lives of immigrant students?
School was a nightmare for me, and I was put out in the ninth grade for truancy. I spoke very little English when I went to prison, but once I learned to read and write and think critically, I was able to take responsibility for my actions. I could reason out how to pay forward and make amends for the harm I've done to my family and victims. I'm not excusing my crime, but I believe that young people who are involved in school and who feel good about being there are less likely to get in trouble on the streets. Over 70 percent of prisoners can't read above a fourth grade level, but prisoners who participate in educational programs are more likely to find employment and less likely to get locked up again.

What were the challenges of being a Chinese immigrant in prison?
There is no official category for APIs throughout much of the prison system. We're labeled as "Others." When I tried to start an API ethnic studies program at San Quentin, I was put in solitary confinement for 11 months. Because of our efforts, there is a ROOTS program about API culture and history at San Quentin today. Many men in the ROOTS program started as juvenile lifers, dating back to the mid-90s prison boom, when the API prisoner population grew by 250 percent. At the time, Asian juveniles in California were more than twice as likely to be tried as adults, compared to white juveniles who had committed similar crimes.

Is that what inspired you to become an advocate for young people?
I didn't want other immigrant children-especially the ones living in poverty, wrestling with language barriers, and struggling in school-to fall into the same trap I did and end up in the immigration-to-school-to-prison and deportation pipeline.

Is there an immigration-to prison-pipeline?
Some API immigrants had access to nurturing environments when they came to the U.S., but others, especially refugees from war-torn countries, ended up in poverty-stricken, violent neighborhoods. Can you imagine carrying the trauma of war, then dealing with cultural barriers and language barriers, and bullying and discrimination in school? Some immigrant students who experience school as a hostile environment may be more vulnerable to getting caught up in activities that lead to the criminal justice system. People point out that other immigrants came to this country in similar situations, and they were able to excel, succeed in school, and get good jobs. That's true, but it shouldn't be used as an excuse not to provide young people with access to the resources they need to survive.

How can educators support policies that dismantle the immigration-to-school-to-prison pipeline?
They can help immigrant children feel welcome in their classrooms and advocate for strong English Language Learner programs in their schools. They can promote Restorative Practices and other healing school discipline programs. And they can support prison education programs, including culturally relevant ethnic studies classes. As a youth mentor, it's satisfying to run into my "kids" who are now successful adults. You know the first thing they tell me? "You never gave up on us."

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Where are Asian-American voices on the school-to-prison pipeline? - NEA EdJustice

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Photo: Eddy Zheng talks to students about investing in their education at the Asian Pacific Islander Youth Summit he helped start. by Sabrina Holcomb Mass incarceration and the school-to-prison pipeline have sparked a national conversation on prison reform, but until now, few Asian-American voices have been part of the discussion.

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https://hub.jhu.edu/2019/10/04/schools-prisons-poverty-symposium/

This article has some interesting takes about how to address Baltimore's school to prison pipeline issue. I would categorize the solutions as twofold: first, divert funding from prisons to schools. The article provides clear statistical evidence to show how funding for prisons has been growing at a much higher rate than funding for schools since the 80s. That trend needs to be reversed. Additionally, engage in "trauma response" oriented policing centered around building relationships. Obviously, this is a huge issue that has taken on a lot more relevance in the last six months. The article was written in 2019, and its idea of "trauma response" policing is a lot less detailed than some current policy proposals in Baltimore today.

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School-to-Prison Pipeline Can Be Dismantled Using Alternative Discipline Strategies

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School-to-Prison Pipeline Can Be Dismantled Using Alternative Discipline Strategies

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Awesome article that I found that discusses the disadvantages of School-to-prison pipeline!

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The school-to-prison pipeline refers to the streamlining of at-risk students from schools to incarceration or related correctional-type facilities that results from punitive discipline practices and criminalizing misconduct in schools. Ultimately, the school-to-prison pipeline is the consequence of zero tolerance policies that originally mandated schools to penalize students for bringing weapons and drugs onto school grounds.

This penalty has grown to include nonviolent offenses that do not pose an immediate threat or harm. An alarming rate of students have been suspended and/or expelled for noncriminal acts such as disruptive behavior, violation of dress code, displays of affection or defiant behavior toward authority. In the 2011-12 academic year, students were referred to law enforcement and 130,000 were expelled due to minor infractions. During that same time, more than students were suspended at least once. It has been discovered that a student is 23.5 percent more likely to drop out of school after receiving exclusionary discipline.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth and students with disabilities are also found to be negatively impacted by this pipeline. LGBT youth are often victimized by their peers and blamed as the cause of problems by their teachers, and students with disabilities are often misdiagnosed and more likely to be held back a grade, which often leads to dropout . With such staggering statistics found in the available research, it is imperative that newer approaches to school discipline be considered and implemented to decrease the negative impacts such policies have on students and to decrease the streamlining of students into incarceration.

Alternative discipline strategies

While strict disciplinary actions such as expulsion are vital for punishing behavior that threatens the safety of others in school settings, it is not effective in correcting more minor problematic behaviors. Schools should instead use more positive-based strategies for addressing and modifying defiant behaviors.

Protecting the most vulnerable students from the dangers of incarceration and recidivism must be of primary concern. The school environment should be one of the main settings to help these students work on eliminating such undesirable behaviors, particularly for those who lack effective discipline at home.

CMCD is another program that is an alternative approach to many of the harsh disciplinary actions associated with zero tolerance policies. Designed to improve the overall environment of inner-city schools, it has the primary goal of having teachers and students collaborate to set classroom rules. Such a method creates a fundamental shift in the ways students are disciplined and expected to behave and allows for a more shared power dynamic. This program also focuses on rewarding positive behavior, which is imperative for improving school climate, especially for schools that have poor attendance and poor academic performance. Such programs as these have made drastic changes within schools and helped to dismantle the pipeline.

Cultural competency training

As previously mentioned, there has been an alarming rate of students of color being suspended and expelled from schools due to minor infractions over the last decade. Several studies have negated the probable cause that the basis of race alone is the reason behind minority students engaging in negative behaviors.

America's historic racial narrative has transformed into implicit bias, which is one of the main causes of the pipeline and helps to explain the disproportionate rate of minorities being disciplined for subjective behavior. Implicit bias training and cultural diversity training are potential solutions to resolve consequences from actions motivated by implicit bias. Implicit bias training allows professionals to self-report their innate decisions and teaches how these decisions impact the lives of youth.

Cultural diversity training allows professionals to become more aware of others' culture, and prompts the exploration of how and why certain stereotypical and discriminatory beliefs exist. Being made aware of the potential stereotypes and biases that exist in the subconscious minds of professionals working with students can have a significant impact on the ways in which school personnel interact with students and can also help make the shift from making biased decisions to choices that are objective and more concrete.

It is up to schools and associated administrators to eliminate the cultural biases and conflicts prevalent in all school systems and work against the academic progress and successful development of all students, with at-risk students from minority groups in particular. Learning from such shifts has the potential to transform how students are disciplined into ways that better facilitate the necessary maturation to become successful adults and members of society.

Policy considerations

Considering the impact policies such as zero tolerance have had on the school-to-prison pipeline, it is necessary to advocate for new policies that reconsider how to discipline problematic students in more effective and rehabilitative ways. The school environment is where students learn and grow, and it only makes sense that in this environment they are also exposed to and experience better approaches to development that occur outside of textbooks and classroom lectures. Students must learn how to act appropriately and how to respond to external stressors that can often provoke undesirable behaviors.

Schools have been a prominent cornerstone for youth's overall development and the learning environment for them to become contributing members of society. However, far too many students have been robbed of their right to be comprehensively educated due to the school-to-prison pipeline. We dim the light for students and the nation's future when we continue to push problem students out of schools and funnel them into the juvenile/criminal justice system, thereby feeding the belly of mass incarceration.

School personnel and administrators, lawmakers, social workers and counselors must make dismantling this pipeline a top priority and consider this small sample of strategies for improving the lives of our most vulnerable students and our school climates. The utilization of such solutions needs to be incorporated into the future and advancement of all schools to strengthen our school systems and the educational experience of all students.
Kendra Cheek is a social work senior at Middle Tennessee State University with a passion for research and serving youth in marginalized populations. She's an emerging leader, currently serving as the secretary for Phi Alpha National Honor Society in Social Work and vice president of the Justin Bucchio is an assistant professor of social work at Middle Tennessee State University, with expertise in child welfare and LGBT foster youth. Justin's experience with social work and the child welfare system stems from his early years in foster care, which ignited his passion for serving youth in out-of-home care. National Association of Black Social Workers

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School-to-Prison Pipeline Can Be Dismantled Using Alternative Discipline Strategies

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The school-to-prison pipeline refers to the streamlining of at-risk students from schools to incarceration or related correctional-type facilities that results from punitive discipline practices and criminalizing misconduct in schools. Ultimately, the school-to-prison pipeline is the consequence of zero tolerance policies that originally mandated schools to penalize students for bringing weapons and drugs onto school grounds.

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This article is interesting to me because in my home state New Jersey, improvement is being made in building programs to help youth find their way. New Jersey's wealth and racial disparity is particularly egregious, which leaves black children most vulnerable.

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Former Attorney General Eric Holder
Although New Jersey has been successful in reducing the percentage of criminal justice system-involved youth over the past decade, hundreds of incidents in New Jersey schools each year push students out of the classroom and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems through a set of insidious practices known as the "school-to-prison pipeline."

Too often and for too long, schools have referred typical student misbehavior to the police, rather than resolving the issue in school. A referral to law enforcement embroils the student in the juvenile or criminal justice system - he or she will be the subject of a police record; his or her family may be charged court fees and sometimes hefty fines; and the student may face incarceration. At school, a police referral brands the student as a troublemaker, prompting heightened scrutiny of the student's actions both in and out of school. That child then becomes less likely to graduate and more likely to end up involved in the criminal justice system as an adult-high school dropouts are three-and-a-half times more likely to become incarcerated than their graduating peers. Significantly, this burden does not fall on all students equally-suspensions, expulsions and arrests disproportionately affect minority students.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, while suspensions decreased between the 2011-12 and 2013-14 school years, racial disparities persisted:

Black students are nearly four times as likely to be suspended as white students.

Black girls comprise 20% of female preschool enrollment, but account for 54% of preschool children suspensions.

Black students are twice as likely to be expelled as white students.

Check out the video by our allies at the Advancement Project to learn more about the school to prison pipeline.

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School-to-Prison Pipeline - Youth Justice New Jersey

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Former Attorney General Eric Holder Although New Jersey has been successful in reducing the percentage of criminal justice system-involved youth over the past decade, hundreds of incidents in New Jersey schools each year push students out of the classroom and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems through a set of insidious practices known as the "school-to-prison pipeline."

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For lower income schools, especially with younger kids, it would be worth it to find specialists who can speak to kids who are acting up and guide them. They can be thought of as guidance counselors who don't deal with the academics of the student, but rather, they help cultivate the other aspects of a student's life. Building an army of these guidance counselors at lower income schools makes it easier for kids to get guidance and love from responsible adults.

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I found these two articles about my hometown Oakland, CA. The first one focuses on the school to prison pipeline and how the teachers strike that occurred this past year is a small step in the right direction. The second article goes more in-depth about the school to prison pipeline in Oakland. It presents a pie chart that breaks down OUSD arrests in 2013. It shows that Black males receive more arrests than Hispanic and Asian males and Black females.

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Teachers, parents, and students rally in support of Roots school. Feb 26, 2019.

By Shane Ruiz

When Los Angeles teachers won a crushing labor victory last month, wages and benefits were only a small part of their demands. Teachers made it clear they were on strike to improve conditions for all the students and communities they serve, and one of their most powerful racial-justice demands was calling for an end to the district's policy of "random searches" of students.

The union made it clear that the searches both frightened and criminalized children, without making anyone any safer.

In winning this demand through their massively popular strike, Los Angeles teachers proved that a militant teacher movement, like the one that's on fire this week in Oakland, has the power to unite communities, families, students, and workers into a mass force for justice. In Oakland, teachers are fighting to end school closures, which are designed to divide Oakland, disrupt the education of children of color, and pave the way for more charters. They are also demanding more services and supports for the students. Like in LA, these strike demands are Oakland's best opportunity to reverse a condition known as the "school-to-prison pipeline."

The School-to-Prison Pipeline

In 2007, the Children's Defense Fund published a report titled "The Cradle to Prison Pipeline Crisis," which outlined a series of social failures that funnel young people into the carceral system. Chief among these is a lack of resources in poor, particularly black, neighborhoods, which leads to behavioral problems at school. Students with behavioral issues are more likely to drop out, leaving them with few legal employment options.

Furthermore, the report outlined, the students with the most behavioral issues tend to need the most resources while getting the least. Low birthweight, lack of access to healthcare and mental health services, early childhood neglect and abuse, and underfunded public schools are all factors that contribute to academic disadvantages for poor and minority students.

The report lays out a searing indictment of our nation's politicians and civic leaders, particularly the gap between how they talk about children's well-being and where they're actually willing to dedicate resources. It centers "poverty, exacerbated by race" as the key driver of the pipeline. The report offers several specific policy interventions, focused on reducing poverty, and calls for "a new civil rights movement" as the vehicle for achieving these goals.

Since the report, a new social movement, the Movement for Black Lives, has taken on the school-to-prison pipeline (STPP) as a key issue. Many organizations in the Bay Area, such as the Black Organizing Project and the Roses in Concrete Community School, have focused on teacher training, restorative justice, and multi-cultural curriculum programs as keys to fighting the school-to-prison pipeline. While these struggles should be celebrated, they have, as of yet, failed to make a dent in the enormous problem. The dropout rate in Oakland has fallen only 2% in the last decade and prisons remain at 131% capacity, despite a Supreme Court ruling in 2011 mandating mass decarceration in California. The efforts of these local organizations and similar ones around the county are well-intentioned, but have so far unable to dismantle the STPP.

Socialists stand with communities of color and OEA in saying that every student in Oakland deserves a first-rate education. That public schools should be palaces, not prisons. Students deserve to come to a space that reflects the beauty and innovation of their spirit. Poor students don't just need science, they need art. Black students don't need to learn to be twice as good of workers, they need to learn to fight capitalism and white supremacy. They need history, literature, books and a teacher that believes in them.

So how can we build a mass movement that actually has the leverage to tackle this enormous problem? A militant teacher movement-and one that expands to workers in all parts of the economy. Labor, with its ability to disrupt the flow of work, offers an essential point of leverage for any social movement that wants to win for poor people of all races, particularly black and brown youth. Poor people, and especially poor black and brown people, have been systematically disempowered in our society. But by coming together to disrupt work, people have the ability to make society sit up and listen.

Teachers are just the most important recent example. Where efforts from above to reform teachers working conditions have failed students, efforts by teachers themselves to reform the entire system have enormous potential. That potential has begun to reveal itself in the massive teacher strike wave that started in West Virginia in 2018, and shows no signs of stopping soon.

"Teacher Working Conditions Are Student Learning Conditions"

In its massively successful strike in January, UTLA won its demand that the district stop conducting "random searches" of students and teachers in classrooms, one of the more egregious examples of school policing.

As LA teacher Grace Hamilton notes, these searches are far from random, but rather target non-magnet and non-honors classes, "which consist mostly of Latino students." These embarrassing displays take rob students of educational time, normalize school securitization, and ritualize humiliation of those students that need the most support.

By taking on this cause, UTLA built political coalition with their own students and families, hosting youth led events like a "Making Black Lives Matter in our Schools" rally and organizing families and teachers to attend school board meetings. UTLA tied the fates of students and teachers together with their inspiring battle cry, "Teacher Working Conditions are Student Learning Conditions."

However, LA teachers did not stop at slogans. By withholding their labor and tying their struggle to their students' community struggles, they won demands to begin decriminalizing the district's approach to its most marginalized students while taking steps to give them more support. Students don't just need to avoid imprisonment, they need a fully funded and just education.

Similarly, the Oakland Educators Association (OEA) has called for several improvements that go to the heart of the school-to-prison-pipeline: ending school closures that will destroy working-class communities of color, increasing resources for high-needs students, increasing retention by paying teachers a living wage, and bringing equity in funding between the public schools in the hills (many with more middle-class and white students) and public schools in the flatlands (mostly poor black and Latino).

A living wage for teachers produces higher retention, and therefore less turnover for students. Additional funding means additional staff for high-needs students, which means those students aren't left behind. Smaller class sizes mean more individual attention, a key driver of academic improvement.

While OEA has not made the STTP an explicit part of its campaign, funneling resources to the students that need it most would mitigate the need for securitization, improve the quality of education, and strategically align teachers and students, enhancing the chances both will win. A successful OEA strike will be a bulwark against further austerity in Oakland, and will lay the groundwork for a full community assault against the billionaires that want to privatize our schools and imprison our children.

The Need for Robust Public Schools

One of the key points that OEA continually returns to both in its outward messaging and its negotiation with OUSD is the profound segregation of our public schools. Schools in the flatlands continue to get significantly less funding per student than schools in the hills. That makes some people in the flatlands become jaded with the public-school system all together and acquiesce to the alternative that's increasingly promoted by opportunistic elites: shutting down public schools and opening privately-run charter schools.

Charters, which suffer from weak oversight, lack teachers unions, and implement restrictive enrollment policies that potentially violate state and federal law, are also culprits in spreading the gospel of "zero-tolerance" policies, a key driver of the STPP according the Children's Defense Fund Report.

The zero-tolerance philosophy, borrowing from the "broken windows" philosophy of policing, argues that minor infractions, like dropping a pencil or having an untucked shirt, lead to worse behavior without strict discipline. In schools that practice this philosophy, students are reprimanded, suspended, and expelled for minor offenses. Many students dropout long before expulsion, with full knowledge that their society does not value them. Students in poor communities of color, which have the highest need for empathy, resources, and patience, are instead told that they are the culprit if they fail.

They get funneled into the pipeline.

Moreover, the public schools that remain have the highest-need students (charters often have selective enrollment), but decreasing funding to care for them as money flows toward private charters and the wealthy white district schools. The students remaining in public schools in the flatlands are left with dilapidated buildings, multiple teachers in a single year or a string of substitutes, books in tatters and a lack of supplies. They are left with the obvious impression that their community does not care about them.

They get funneled into the pipeline.

Despite significant evidence that the "improved performance" that some charters claim is in fact a result of restrictive enrollment policies, charter schools have become ubiquitous in California. Indeed Jerry Brown, who opened the first charter schools in Oakland as mayor, and who prided himself on being an "education governor," consistently sold out public education to private interests. PACs like Govern for California, funded by charter companies, have made it their mission to buy off Democrats like Brown and the newly elected East Bay assemblywoman Buffy Wicks. With 1,275 charter schools now open statewide (the most in the nation) it appears that the charter companies have succeeded.

Militant Teachers Are Key

To be maximally effective, mass movements must have a militant labor component. This is not because workers are magic, but because they have the power to stop production, or in the case of schools, what Marx calls "social reproduction." By social reproduction, Marx was referring to all of the work and resources that go into reproducing the actual people in a society, i.e. healthcare, education and childcare, domestic work, etc. He also meant "reproducing" workers' ability to do their jobs day-to-day by making sure they had enough education, food, and other necessities to do their jobs and show up ready to work.

Over the last century, as American women have left the home and moved into the labor force, almost all the work of caring for our children has moved to schools. Teachers, not coincidentally, are overwhelmingly women, and are starkly underpaid given the importance and difficulty of their work. We should not, though our state governments have, let their low paychecks blind us to the enormous significance and power of teachers in the basic functioning of our society. Not only do they shape the minds of our children, but corporations need teachers to take care of the children of their workers. Without schools, the basic functioning of corporations becomes a crisis they - and the politicians who listen to them - cannot ignore.

As we've seen in the teacher strike wave across the country, particularly in red states like West Virginia and Arizona, strikes are incredibly effective not just at winning concessions for teachers, but in stopping the expansion of charter schools and increasing public school funding. That is because by denying their employer their labor, they created a crisis in society, at least in the locations in which they lived. Not only were teachers not working, but thousands more people had to rearrange their lives; this kind of disruption is bad for business.

But as Arizona Educators United leader Noah Karvelis said after their strike victory, "The war is not over." More strikes and budget negotiations will create opportunities for more strikes and more victories. The #RedforEd wave, as it's sometimes called, has shown us that strikes produce victories. So what victories will we fight for?

Structural Change, Not Reform

As the Movement for Black Lives showed, ending the STPP is of paramount importance to poor black and brown communities. There is enormous popular movement on the issue of police brutality and mass incarceration, more than at any time in American history, and the STPP has emerged as a major flashpoint for activists.

But nonprofits and community organizations seeking to reform teachers and administrations is not enough: we need deep structural change, starting with funding. In order to truly obstruct the STPP, we need to end school privatization and tax the wealthy to pay for quality pubic education for all. And the people who are best positioned to make those demands are teachers themselves, through their unions.

Teachers will continue fighting for better working conditions for themselves and better learning conditions for their students. In the process, they can center ending the STPP as a key demand. In doing so, they can earn the trust of poor black and brown community members for whom this is a major issue. They can also, because of their unique position and leverage, win meaningful victories that materially intervene in the pipeline.

For example, they can continue to demand more resources for the most marginalized, and build on the work of local activists to eliminate "zero-tolerance" policies and replace them with restorative justice models. Teachers can also push even further, arguing that their students need robust public services outside of school to succeed in school. And because they can create a crisis of capital by withholding their labor, they stand a chance at actually winning these demands.

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Oakland has a school-to-prison pipeline. The teachers' strike is our best hope to end it.

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Last month's victory by Los Angeles teachers made clear they were on strike to improve conditions for all the students and communities they serve, including demands for racial justice. Unions and an organized mass movement are the best tools teachers have to make this a reality.

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I would admit that youth guidance could be seen as something youth will want to rebel against. This is why I think the youth guidance should not be someone hosted by someone older but rather a peer or a mentor figure. I think the host could be someone either similar age or slightly younger. This way youth may be more willing to participate and the guidance from the mentor could also relate to the youth more. I think community service is also a must because this is good for the community but also helps build youth's commitment to a certain work as well giving them a "punishment" for the petty crime.

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In order to prevent the school-prison-pipeline, government or school districts need to analyze the existing school discipline policies and see how it affects the students by implementing these policies. It is a very important step because most of the polices are not fair for each student, and thus it creates them to be branded as a criminal. These furthermore affects them to be discouraged in their life. And, there are a few beneficial policies(social services-based truancy intervention programs, peer mediation, after-school programs, intensive guidance counseling, and conflict resolution programs), which contribute to the students being well off on their schools. However, these programs can’t eliminate the pipeline and there are still a few states who execute these. Additionally,

depending on the place of birth and the socioeconomic status, some of the students might have disadvantages in performing their academics, which can reinforce the school-to-prison pipeline. Therefore, education is a key factor not only to prevent harsh punishment but also to reduce segregation and pipeline. I personally think that schools should provide each student with equal opportunities of education whether or not they are punished. And, for the individual’s sides, they have to study with their passion and need to view education as a part of their life.

Moreover, here are some good organizations, campaigns, policies, advocates, which are helpful to dismantle the pipeline:

1. Tallulah Prison-to-School Conversion Campaign

2. MS Coalition for the Prevention of Schoolhouse 2 Jailhouse

3. Providing Support for State-Level Advocates to Challenge the School-to-Prison Pipeline

4. New York City Department of Education’s Impact Schools Policy

5. Challenging Discipline Policies and Practices in Florida Public Schools

Link: https://www.naacpldf.org/wp-content/uploads/Dismantling_the_School_to_Prison_Pipeline__Criminal-Justice__.pdf

Ideal school: No discrimination, cooperating schools

Link: © drubig-photo - fotolia.com

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In my local community in Seattle there have been greater efforts to dismantle the school to prison pipeline in the past few years. The ACLU of Washington has been pushing for the end of zero tolerance policies, the use of school police to address misdemeanors, incarceration for “status offenses”, and laws that treat youths as adults in the criminal justice system. Their efforts are focused on providing treatment, opportunities for rehabilitation if needed, and community-based supports rather than juvenile incarceration that would harm the youths and their future. I think these efforts would definitely help in dismantling the school to prison pipeline in Seattle that black and other minority youths face. I am glad that ACLU and other local organizations such as Best Starts which is focused on King County have been actively raising awareness and combating this pipeline.

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The ACLU of Washington Youth Policy Project is working to dismantle the school to prison pipeline.

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The article attached below discusses several examples of young students being harshly punished for minor infractions, reasons for this, and possible solutions to this problem. One example it touches on is a seven year old from Maryland, who got suspended for shaping a Poptart into a gun. Another example this article gives is students from North Carolina being charged for "disorderly conduct" because a water balloon fight. These are just  a few of the many examples across the country that can be given of students making small mistakes, yet their academic and even criminal records are being wrongfully tarnished because of them. Additionally, this article illustrates that having cops interfere with matters that should be dealt with by the school only, greatly furthers this school to prison pipeline as well. The article also discusses the struggles of being a teacher at a public school as it describes "another malfunctioning part in the pipeline: our paper tiger teachers. Over worked. Stressed out. Underpaid. Undervalued" and continues to pose the challenging question of "How do you restore power and authority to the teacher in the modern school setting without the presence of cops and security guards?" This problem has become a larger issue at poorly funded public schools, where teachers are having trouble controlling students that may act out. Ultimately, the article finishes with the idea that this school to prison pipeline cannot continue because the social cost of these punishments loom larger as reputation and your record become more and more important.

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Until fairly recently, mass incarceration was a fringe subject that no one gave two hoots about. Nowadays every vote grubbing statesman, media rent-a-quote and dinner party bore has an opinion on reforming the American criminal justice system. Yet in all of this brouhaha about the subject matter, you don't hear much about the school-to-prison pipeline and its links to mass incarceration. Little wonder. Institutional racism is a depressing, and reoccurring, subject in modern western society. But, in the right here and now of the problem, how do we, as parents, teachers, advocates and citizens, dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline?

The school-to-prison pipeline is the policy of excluding kids from education and referring them to the juvenile and criminal justice system. And it's a problem, like mass incarceration, that is very much in the public domain already. Not a week goes by without a story in the press about it. The 7-year old in Maryland, suspended for shaping his Pop-Tart into a gun; the senior in Michigan expelled for forgetting the lock knife in her schoolbag, the teenagers in North Carolina, charged with "disorderly conduct" for an end of year water balloon fight; police officers Tasering and beating on students for "acting out"; unruly and corrupt "school resource officers" (security guards), roughing up and shaking down pupils.

First and foremost, racism is the dominant, and undeniable, theme at play in the school-to-prison pipeline. This is down to the fact, the absolute fact, that this byproduct of zero tolerance education affects African-American schoolchildren more than any other pupil demographic. Some commentators, and educationalists, have put forward the case for segregated classrooms to safeguard minorities, and prevent instances of racially motivated mass exclusion. The argument is simple: teachers of color would be less inclined to fail pupils of color. Noble, but flawed. We don't practice segregation in a multicultural society, and, moreover, we should not adopt it as a policy to educate our children in a multicultural society. Children benefit from diversity at school. So does society at large.

Another malfunctioning part in the pipeline: our paper tiger teachers. Over worked. Stressed out. Underpaid. Undervalued. The lot of a teacher in the public sector has never been a happy one. And, speaking as someone who was once punched in the square root of the face by a Math teacher, this is something that I know about first hand. However, back then, thirty years ago, teaching was still seen as a rewarding profession for the middling classes to go into. Not any more. If you want to make dough in the 21st century, you don't don a mortarboard to become Mr. Chips; you graduate to become a property developer, social media entrepreneur, or reality TV star. The solution is simple. Education is due a New Deal. And fresh graduates going into teaching need to be paid a living wage, one that is commensurate with inflation.

That's not the end of it for the teacher. The world is changing all the time and teachers need training to handle unruly students with a variety of behavioral disorders and physical disabilities. Some, like that old Math teacher from Holland Park School in London, lack the deescalating techniques to control a classroom of foul mouthed adolescents, and soon lose confidence in their own ability to communicate the subject matter. One idea being touted round to restore discipline in the classroom is to recruit former soldiers as teachers. This is the kind of solution that works in entertaining B-movies like "The Substitute," (and its innumerable sequels on Netflix) but not so much in real life. We need Mr. Chips like figures, not two-fisted mercenaries (unless they are fully qualified).

Even still, teachers complain about striking the balance between lofty educational ideals and maintaining order. How do you restore power and authority to the teacher in the modern school setting without the presence of cops and security guards? One outlandish suggestion is to revive the administration of corporal punishment and make school just like it was in "the good old days". Caning was popular in English schools until it was banned in the mid 1970s (its practice in the fee paying private sector, however, lasted well into the 1980s). Fear and the threat of "six of the best" from a teacher, usually a stern faced priest, always brought about immediate discipline, not to mention disfigurement and lasting emotional damage. Maybe it's not such a good restorative practice.

So, how do we dismantle the ticking bomb of the school-to-prison pipeline? By recognizing its component parts and diffusing it long before it goes off. The social cost, and collateral damage, in real terms, in the long run, is far too high for a modern western society. Still, at least it gives the bourgeois talking heads and crashing bores of this world something to talk about on Sunday afternoons round the grill. Suffer the little children, when will we stupid adults learn to do something about it? Like mass incarceration, we only ever do something when it's far too late to do anything. It's the tragedy of another lesson unlearned for the adult world.

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Until fairly recently, mass incarceration was a fringe subject that no one gave two hoots about. Nowadays every vote grubbing statesman, media rent-a-quote and dinner party bore has an opinion on reforming the American criminal justice system. Yet in all of this brouhaha about the subject matter, you don't hear much about the school-to-prison pipeline and its links to mass incarceration.

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First, one of the alternatives is to let students who have made mistakes remain after school, in order to have a one-on-one consultation with the teacher. Second, the homeroom teacher makes the student in trouble aware of their fault and sends a documented letter to the parents.  Teachers make an appointment to meet with students and their parents. Third, it is a way to get students to do useful things in school, such as cleaning and volunteering. If students are punished for their faults by expelling or suspending school, the period of inactivity will be prolonged, making it harder for students to adjust to school life afterwards. Therefore, this punishment should not be enforced unless it is really necessary. In other words, rather than having a student quit their studies through suspension or expulsion with just one mistake, we should give younger students more chance to develop their potential. Therefore, rather than punishing them harshly, we need to focus on helping them survive in society without committing crimes. It is also a good idea to allocate more budget to schools that admit expelled students to protect and guide them in school education. Actually, it is the most important to provide additional programs to correct the bad behavior of students, such as counseling or civic education. It can prevent that re-entry students get expelled again and follow the pipeline to prison.

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"School-to-Prison Pipeline Can Be Dismantled Using Alternative Discipline Strategies"

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"School-to-Prison Pipeline Can Be Dismantled Using Alternative Discipline Strategies"

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This article discusses methods such as the On-Campus Intervention Program (OCIP) and Consistency Management and Cooperative Discipline (CMCD) program and how they are alternative approaches to punishment and expulsion that "have the ability to create a shift from a punitive learning environment to one that is warm and welcoming for all students".

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The school-to-prison pipeline refers to the streamlining of at-risk students from schools to incarceration or related correctional-type facilities that results from punitive discipline practices and criminalizing misconduct in schools. Ultimately, the school-to-prison pipeline is the consequence of zero tolerance policies that originally mandated schools to penalize students for bringing weapons and drugs onto school grounds.

This penalty has grown to include nonviolent offenses that do not pose an immediate threat or harm. An alarming rate of students have been suspended and/or expelled for noncriminal acts such as disruptive behavior, violation of dress code, displays of affection or defiant behavior toward authority. In the 2011-12 academic year, students were referred to law enforcement and 130,000 were expelled due to minor infractions. During that same time, more than students were suspended at least once. It has been discovered that a student is 23.5 percent more likely to drop out of school after receiving exclusionary discipline.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth and students with disabilities are also found to be negatively impacted by this pipeline. LGBT youth are often victimized by their peers and blamed as the cause of problems by their teachers, and students with disabilities are often misdiagnosed and more likely to be held back a grade, which often leads to dropout . With such staggering statistics found in the available research, it is imperative that newer approaches to school discipline be considered and implemented to decrease the negative impacts such policies have on students and to decrease the streamlining of students into incarceration.

Alternative discipline strategies

While strict disciplinary actions such as expulsion are vital for punishing behavior that threatens the safety of others in school settings, it is not effective in correcting more minor problematic behaviors. Schools should instead use more positive-based strategies for addressing and modifying defiant behaviors.

Protecting the most vulnerable students from the dangers of incarceration and recidivism must be of primary concern. The school environment should be one of the main settings to help these students work on eliminating such undesirable behaviors, particularly for those who lack effective discipline at home.

CMCD is another program that is an alternative approach to many of the harsh disciplinary actions associated with zero tolerance policies. Designed to improve the overall environment of inner-city schools, it has the primary goal of having teachers and students collaborate to set classroom rules. Such a method creates a fundamental shift in the ways students are disciplined and expected to behave and allows for a more shared power dynamic. This program also focuses on rewarding positive behavior, which is imperative for improving school climate, especially for schools that have poor attendance and poor academic performance. Such programs as these have made drastic changes within schools and helped to dismantle the pipeline.

Cultural competency training

As previously mentioned, there has been an alarming rate of students of color being suspended and expelled from schools due to minor infractions over the last decade. Several studies have negated the probable cause that the basis of race alone is the reason behind minority students engaging in negative behaviors.

America's historic racial narrative has transformed into implicit bias, which is one of the main causes of the pipeline and helps to explain the disproportionate rate of minorities being disciplined for subjective behavior. Implicit bias training and cultural diversity training are potential solutions to resolve consequences from actions motivated by implicit bias. Implicit bias training allows professionals to self-report their innate decisions and teaches how these decisions impact the lives of youth.

Cultural diversity training allows professionals to become more aware of others' culture, and prompts the exploration of how and why certain stereotypical and discriminatory beliefs exist. Being made aware of the potential stereotypes and biases that exist in the subconscious minds of professionals working with students can have a significant impact on the ways in which school personnel interact with students and can also help make the shift from making biased decisions to choices that are objective and more concrete.

It is up to schools and associated administrators to eliminate the cultural biases and conflicts prevalent in all school systems and work against the academic progress and successful development of all students, with at-risk students from minority groups in particular. Learning from such shifts has the potential to transform how students are disciplined into ways that better facilitate the necessary maturation to become successful adults and members of society.

Policy considerations

Considering the impact policies such as zero tolerance have had on the school-to-prison pipeline, it is necessary to advocate for new policies that reconsider how to discipline problematic students in more effective and rehabilitative ways. The school environment is where students learn and grow, and it only makes sense that in this environment they are also exposed to and experience better approaches to development that occur outside of textbooks and classroom lectures. Students must learn how to act appropriately and how to respond to external stressors that can often provoke undesirable behaviors.

Schools have been a prominent cornerstone for youth's overall development and the learning environment for them to become contributing members of society. However, far too many students have been robbed of their right to be comprehensively educated due to the school-to-prison pipeline. We dim the light for students and the nation's future when we continue to push problem students out of schools and funnel them into the juvenile/criminal justice system, thereby feeding the belly of mass incarceration.

School personnel and administrators, lawmakers, social workers and counselors must make dismantling this pipeline a top priority and consider this small sample of strategies for improving the lives of our most vulnerable students and our school climates. The utilization of such solutions needs to be incorporated into the future and advancement of all schools to strengthen our school systems and the educational experience of all students.
Kendra Cheek is a social work senior at Middle Tennessee State University with a passion for research and serving youth in marginalized populations. She's an emerging leader, currently serving as the secretary for Phi Alpha National Honor Society in Social Work and vice president of the Justin Bucchio is an assistant professor of social work at Middle Tennessee State University, with expertise in child welfare and LGBT foster youth. Justin's experience with social work and the child welfare system stems from his early years in foster care, which ignited his passion for serving youth in out-of-home care. National Association of Black Social Workers

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School-to-Prison Pipeline Can Be Dismantled Using Alternative Discipline Strategies

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The school-to-prison pipeline refers to the streamlining of at-risk students from schools to incarceration or related correctional-type facilities that results from punitive discipline practices and criminalizing misconduct in schools. Ultimately, the school-to-prison pipeline is the consequence of zero tolerance policies that originally mandated schools to penalize students for bringing weapons and drugs onto school grounds.

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In this article, a youth activist, George Galvis, describes his first encounter with early punishment: “I was 11. There was a fight and I got called to the office. The cop punched me in the face. I looked at my principal and he was just standing there, not saying anything. That totally broke my trust in school as a place that was safe for me.” It was very impactful to see Galvis describe the emotions that he felt when these early punishments were forced on him.

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By The Editors of Rethinking Schools

Illustrator: Seth Tobacman

Illustration: Seth Tobacman

"Every man in my family has been locked up. Most days I feel like it doesn't matter what I do, how hard I try-that's my fate, too."
-11th-grade African American student, Berkeley, Calif.

This young man isn't being cynical or melodramatic; he's articulating a terrifying reality for many of the children and youth sitting in our classrooms-a reality that is often invisible or misunderstood. Some have seen the growing numbers of security guards and police in our schools as unfortunate but necessary responses to the behavior of children from poor, crime-ridden neighborhoods. But what if something more ominous is happening? What if many of our students-particularly our African American, Latina/o, Native American, and Southeast Asian children-are being channeled toward prison and a lifetime of second-class status?

We believe that this is the case, and there is ample evidence to support that claim. What has come to be called the "school-to-prison pipeline" is turning too many schools into pathways to incarceration rather than opportunity. This trend has extraordinary implications for teachers and education activists. It affects everything from what we teach to how we build community in our classrooms, how we deal with conflicts with and among our students, how we build coalitions, and what demands we see as central to the fight for social justice education.
What Is the School-to-Prison Pipeline?
The school-to-prison pipeline begins in deep social and economic inequalities, and has taken root in the historic shortcomings of schooling in this country. The civil and human rights movements of the 1960s and '70s spurred an effort to "rethink schools" to make them responsive to the needs of all students, their families, and communities. This rethinking included collaborative learning environments, multicultural curriculum, student-centered, experiential pedagogy-we were aiming for education as liberation. The back-to-basics backlash against that struggle has been more rigid enforcement of ever more alienating curriculum.

The "zero tolerance" policies that today are the most extreme form of this punishment paradigm were originally written for the war on drugs in the early 1980s, and later applied to schools. As Annette Fuentes explains, the resulting extraordinary rates of suspension and expulsion are linked nationally to increasing police presence, checkpoints, and surveillance inside schools.

As police have set up shop in schools across the country, the definition of what is a crime as opposed to a teachable moment has changed in extraordinary ways. In one middle school we're familiar with, a teacher routinely allowed her students to take single pieces of candy from a big container she kept on her desk. One day, several girls grabbed handfuls. The teacher promptly sent them to the police officer assigned to the school. What formerly would have been an opportunity to have a conversation about a minor transgression instead became a law enforcement issue.

Children are being branded as criminals at ever-younger ages. Zero Tolerance in Philadelphia, a recent report by Youth United for Change and the Advancement Project, offers an example:

Robert was an 11-year-old in 5th grade who, in his rush to get to school on time, put on a dirty pair of pants from the laundry basket. He did not notice that his Boy Scout pocketknife was in one of the pockets until he got to school. He also did not notice that it fell out when he was running in gym class. When the teacher found it and asked whom it belonged to, Robert volunteered that it was his, only to find himself in police custody minutes later. He was arrested, suspended, and transferred to a disciplinary school.

Early contact with police in schools often sets students on a path of alienation, suspension, expulsion, and arrests. George Galvis, an Oakland, Calif., prison activist and youth organizer, described his first experience with police at his school: "I was 11. There was a fight and I got called to the office. The cop punched me in the face. I looked at my principal and he was just standing there, not saying anything. That totally broke my trust in school as a place that was safe for me."

Galvis added: "The more police there are in the school, walking the halls and looking at surveillance tapes, the more what constitutes a crime escalates. And what is seen as 'how kids act' vs. criminal behavior has a lot to do with race. I always think about the fistfights that break out between fraternities at the Cal campus, and how those fights are seen as opposed to what the police see as gang-related fights, even if the behavior is the same."
Mass Incarceration: A Civil Rights Crisis
The growth of the school-to-prison pipeline is part of a larger crisis. Since 1970, the U.S. prison population has exploded from about 325,000 people to more than 2 million today. According to Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness, this is a phenomenon that cannot be explained by crime rates or drug use. According to Human Rights Watch ( Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs, 2000) although whites are more likely to violate drug laws than people of color, in some states black men have been admitted to prison on drug charges at rates 20 to 50 times greater than those of white men. Latina/os, Native Americans, and other people of color are also imprisoned at rates far higher than their representation in the population. Once released, former prisoners are caught in a web of laws and regulations that make it difficult or impossible to secure jobs, education, housing, and public assistance-and often to vote or serve on juries. Alexander calls this permanent second-class citizenship a new form of segregation.

The impact of mass incarceration is devastating for children and youth. More than 7 million children have a family member incarcerated, on probation, or on parole. Many of these children live with enormous stress, emotional pain, and uncertainty. Luis Esparza describes the impact on his life in Project WHAT!'s Resource Guide for Teens with a Parent in Prison or Jail:

After [my dad] went to jail I kept to myself a lot-became the quiet kid that no one noticed and no one really cared about. At one point I didn't even have any friends. No one talked to me, so I didn't have to say anything about my life. . . . Inside I feel sad and angry. In this world, no one wants to see that, so I keep it all to myself. (See Haniyah's Story and Sokolower.)

Revising the Curriculum
As we at Rethinking Schools began to study and discuss these issues, we realized the huge implications for curriculum. Many of us, as social justice educators, have developed strong class activities teaching the Civil Rights Movement. But few of us teach regularly about the racial realities of the current criminal justice system. Textbooks mostly ignore the subject. For example, Pearson Prentice Hall's United States History is a hefty 1,264 pages long, but says nothing about the startling growth in the prison population in the past 40 years.

Mass incarceration and the school-to-prison pipeline are among the primary forms that racial oppression currently takes in the United States. As such, they deserve a central place in the curriculum. We need to bring this all-too-common experience out of the shadows and make it as visible in the curriculum as it is in so many students' lives. As Alexander begins to explore in our interview, it is a challenge to engage students in these issues in ways that build critical thinking and determination rather than cynicism or despair, but a challenge we urgently need to take on. Aparna Lakshmi, a Boston high school teacher, offers an example.
'Accountability' and Criminalization
The school-to-prison pipeline is really a classroom-to-prison pipeline. A student's trajectory to a criminalized life often begins with a curriculum that disrespects children's lives and that does not center on things that matter.

Last spring Federal Policy, ESEA Reauthorization, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline, a collaborative study by research, education, civil rights, and juvenile justice organizations, linked the policies of No Child Left Behind and the "accountability" movement to the pipeline. According to George Wood, executive director of the Forum for Education and Democracy:

By focusing accountability almost exclusively on test scores and attaching high stakes to them, NCLB has given schools a perverse incentive to allow or even encourage students to leave.

A FairTest factsheet cites findings that schools in Florida gave low-scoring students longer suspensions than high-scoring students for similar infractions, while in Ohio students with disabilities were twice as likely to be suspended out of school than their peers. A recent report from the Advancement Project noted that, since the passage of NCLB in 2002, 73 of the largest 100 districts in the United States "have seen their graduation rates decline-often precipitously. Of those 100 districts, which serve 40 percent of all students of color in the United States, 67 districts failed to graduate two-thirds of their students."

The more that schools-and now individual teachers-are assessed, rewarded, and fired on the basis of student test scores, the more incentive there is to push out students who bring down those scores. And the more schools become test-prep academies as opposed to communities committed to everyone's success, the more hostile and regimented the atmosphere becomes-the more like prison. (This school-as-prison culture is considerably more common in schools populated by children of color in poor communities as opposed to majority-white, middle-class schools, creating what Jonathan Kozol calls "educational apartheid.") The rigid focus on test prep and scripted curriculum means that teachers need students to be compliant, quiet, in their seats, and willing to learn by rote for long periods of time. Security guards, cops in the hall, and score-conscious administrations suspend and expel "problem learners."

Schools without compassion or understanding occupy communities instead of serve them. As our society accelerates punishment as a central paradigm-from death penalty executions to drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen-the regimentation and criminalization of our children, particularly children of color, can only be seen as training for the future.

Linda Christensen describes the dangerous pull of high-stakes testing on even the most seasoned teachers, and the powerful role of student-centered curriculum as resistance.
Education Activists and the Pipeline
As teachers and education activists, many of us are active in the fight to save and transform public schools-building campaigns to end standardized testing, to protect our union rights, to prevent the privatization of the public school system. At education conferences, there are often well-attended workshops on the criminalization of youth or related topics.

But the movement to end the school-to-prison pipeline and the movement to defend and transform public education are too often separate. This must be one movement-for social justice education-that encompasses both an end to the school-to-prison pipeline and the fight to save and transform public education. We cannot build safe, creative, nurturing schools and criminalize our children at the same time.

Teachers, students, parents, and administrators have begun to fight back against zero tolerance policies-pushing to get rid of zero tolerance laws, and creating alternative approaches to safe school communities that rely on restorative justice and community building instead of criminalization. (See Haga.) A critical piece of that struggle is defying the regimen of scripted curriculum and standardized tests, and building in its place creative, empowering school cultures centered on the lives and needs of our students and their families.

Some of the most exciting work with youth is being built around campaigns to stop police harassment in schools and on the streets, stop gang injunction legislation that criminalizes young people on the basis of what they wear or where they live, and increase budgets for education and social services instead of law and order. Youth provide leadership in these movements in ways that are different from what we often see in classrooms. Learning from these campaigns and making the critical connections to our own work will enable us to build a viable, principled movement for public education.

Our resistance grows from classrooms that are grounded in our students' lives-academically rigorous and also participatory, critical, culturally sensitive, experiential, kind, and joyful. When combined with a determination to fight the school-to-prison pipeline at every level, that resistance has enormous capacity to build and sustain true social justice education.

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Stop the School-to-Prison Pipeline - Rethinking Schools

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By The Editors of Rethinking Schools Illustrator: Seth Tobacman "Every man in my family has been locked up. Most days I feel like it doesn't matter what I do, how hard I try-that's my fate, too."-11th-grade African American student, Berkeley, Calif.

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An idea that can be used instead of punishing kids is to have motivational speaker come in and discuss the implications and outcomes of negative decisions. These speakers could speak from personal experience and talk about why it's not worth it to get into altercations or into manners of the sort. Motivational speakers especially who were once in in the school to prison pipeline but have escaped or experienced to fullest would make good speakers. As for one they could relate to the kids who are going through it. They could give the kids tips on what todo and what not to do, in order to try prevent further negatives being implicated into a child's life

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoKkasEyDOI

This is an interesting video that talks about the origins of the school to prison pipeline and its current effects. It speaks notably about how even though juvenile crime rates have been decreasing, suspensions have almost doubled since the 1970's. Furthermore, even though cops had been placed in schools to prevent mass shootings like Columbine, they mostly just end up taking the disciplinary issues that schools do not want to face.

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This is an infographic that highlights the city of Richmond's School to Prison Pipeline, which is a city nearby where I live. It shows the school offenses that students commit and the quantity of students that are in the free lunch program.

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I think it is important to keep students who are acting up in school so that their decisions can be monitored. This can also encourage students to use their time and energy to focus on academics and creativities rather than on impulsive behavior. I think detention should be fun. Students would not change their ways if detention was just sitting in a classroom. Maybe detention would be more like an after-school club where students get to learn more creatively or interact with their classmates.

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I think the most simple approach would be making sure there are appropriate and clear expectations and consequences in place to prevent misconduct. I still think that we as a society should hold students accountable for their behavior. But what is important is to teach them responsibility, respect and form the boundaries of acceptable behavior. Relying on suspension and expulsion as a last resort and should only be used for severe infractions. Equip staff with strategies to address problem behaviors while keeping students engaged in learning.

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I believe that more than punishment, what solves the issue of misconduct by a student is the realization by the student that a wrong has been done and the impact his/her actions had on other people or the community as a whole(depending on the misconduct).
If only students could realize the effects their actions have and understand the difference between what is right and what is wrong could the incidence of misconducts be reduced, which in turn would help with the pipeline.
For this, each school could make mandatory certain classes based on ethics and the important of basic human values. What would also help is to shape the curriculum in such a way which promotes academics in a more collaborative way where students often work in groups so that they learn to respect and work with each other.
In cases where a minor misconduct has been made, the student should be given guidance from a child psychologist and can be recommended community service to give back and connect more with the community and its values. They can also be made to carry out an activity of self reflection for the act they took part in.
More more serious misconducts, they should be left with fewer privileges or increased coursework, and prison should only be a last resort for very serious cases of conducts like bringing a gun to school.

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I think that education means more than just punishing students when they go out of way.  Rehabitation programs need to be installed in the schools to make it easier for those students to get back to their normal life. No one wants to go down a path of crime if they can choose, but it it often against their own will. Thus if we can offer them a path out, I am sure that many students will take it. This includes counseling, learning programs, and even if it comes to it, financial support.

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From this video, the girl Gloria talked about her experience towards Prison to School Pipeline. Something that I noticed in the "crime" is how it was determined. According to Gloria, the police came to Gloria and say, "we know it is you who cost this," and this is certainly an assumption without making any search for evidences. I think this is really important to be noticed. Because of those unreasonable assumptions with personal judgements, victims are placed in jail wrongly, and their believe and trust towards justice system are ruined completely.
https://all4ed.org/a-real-crime-the-human-cost-of-the-school-to-prison-pipeline/

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I guess this is more of a stretch compared to the other points made, but I wanted to explore some other ways that this issue could be tackled. I believe, one of the most important ways that the prison-to-school problem could be reduced is by educating students about this situation and about its implications. One fun way to educate kids about this is by creating apps/games as mentioned in the news article

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From paper waste to police brutality, 145 children and teens took a deep dive into the social issues that most concern them this summer. They studied news articles on their topic; learned about organizations working on the issue; studied the problems' history and explored contributing causes; expanded out to related issues and narrowed in on specifics. Sounds like a good social justice project, right?

Yet it was the final product that took the work of students who took the recent STEM Kids NYC course outside the realm of what most expect from a social justice project.

No, there were no reports, posters, presentations nor a single PowerPoint or video - instead, each student (aka computer scientist) created a digital app to illuminate their issue and even motivate users to take action. Some even developed a game to drive home their message. The social justice issues that students chose included food insecurity, police brutality, sexual harassment, school-to-prison pipeline, mental health awareness, income inequality, financial literacy and sustainability.

The program, which is also offered this fall, gives kids as young as seven computer science experience as they build their own apps and games in JavaScript using Code.org and AppLab.

With the emphasis on urban schools, underrepresented populations and marginalized communities, STEM Kids NYC has been providing Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education since 2015 to close the gap between current science curriculum and the preparation students need to succeed in a STEM career.

Setting up an outlet for students to express themselves

The motivation for the course stemmed from a moment when founder Yvonne Thevenot, a former computer scientist, tried to imagine how it would feel to be a kid or teen now facing all that's currently going on in the world.

Around her she saw students with strong emotions in the wake of COVID-19 closures, which removed familiar structures and safe spaces for many. As they grappled with that, police took yet another Black life with George Floyd shortly following Breonna Taylor's murder, triggering the resurgence of Black Lives Matter movements. In many economically marginalized communities in the New York area like those her nonprofit serves, she knew that youth are already dealing with carceral systems in their high school and in their own neighborhoods where they're being policed and overpoliced.

"I just knew that they needed an outlet, a way to process all they were witnessing or hearing - much of it, not PG rated. Some of our kids were having trouble sleeping," explains Thevenot. "I really wanted to use education as a way to channel that anxiety, that trauma."

Image: Yvonne Thevenot

Developing students as activists for causes they believe in

The idea behind teaching youth to create a social justice app is to empower them and let them know that they can do something about an issue, as opposed to just being the spectator, she shares.

Thevenot previously taught a social activism component as part of STEM summer camp for youth on which she expanded to develop a formal curriculum to be taught by a team of science and technology teachers.

Teachers devoted the first segment of the six-week program to laying the groundwork for the students' activism.

"To help them get underneath what was on the surface of their heart and into facts, I wanted them to really declare an issue that they felt strongly about, then we would take them through segments of doing research on that issue," explains Thevenot.

"If you want to spark a movement, you have to be the one that has the most facts around it!" she adds, noting Greta Thunberg as an example of someone who has a vast wealth of information that didn't just come overnight.

That was the stance teachers took with middle school and high school students, which enabled them to build a more informed app around their issue. The purpose of their app, the end product, was to either illuminate the issue they'd studied or do some type of interactive engagement or education.

The outcome was beyond what Thevenot hoped for.

Students expressed surprise that they could combine computer science and technology with a real-world problem they care about. Most were so motivated by the project that they're not only continuing with their app, but many plan to get involved with local organizations that are tackling their issue.

Laying the foundation for future success

As important as learning to code, do mathematics and everything STEM Kids NYC teaches is that young people, especially those from marginalized communities, begin to identify themselves as future engineers and computer scientists. Whether they're 4 or 14, Thevenot and her teaching staff address students as "engineer" or "computer scientist" or whatever title applies to the subject they are studying.

Whether or not they decide to pursue a STEM profession when they are older is up to them, but this way they feel that it's a real option for them. Simultaneously, they're developing the belief and the skills and know-how to go with it.

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MultiBrief: Building social justice apps builds STEM skills, self-worth for students

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From paper waste to police brutality, 145 children and teens took a deep dive into the social issues that most concern them this summer. Sounds like a good social justice project, right? What took the work of students who took the recent STEM Kids NYC course outside the realm of what we'd expect from a project on social activism was their final product.

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I think that especially in this climate, police on campus has been large issue discussed in protests and policy. A major factor that could be a resource for the school to prison pipeline is taking way the police presence in schools. Education should not be criminalized, especially when small acts of disciple that could be carried about by instructors are instead being carried out by on-campus police (in high schools and even middle schools!). Police intervention should be a last resort in the presence of immediate student danger, but not for simple things like students arguing or talking back to teachers or police.

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Whether it be a result of increased police presence at schools, or the overuse of suspensions and expulsions, students across the nation are increasingly coming into contact with the criminal justice system through their schools.

It's gotten so bad that a simple dress code violation, bringing nail clippers to school, or a snippy comment in class could get you suspended.

Youth advocates coined the phrase "school-to-prison pipeline" to describe school policies and institutional practices that funnel students out of the classroom and into the criminal justice system-and it's caught on. Today, political giants like President Obama, the ACLU and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, have all called for an end to it.

At the core of the school-to-prison pipeline are punitive, "zero-tolerance" school discipline policies that disproportionately affect students of color and those with disabilities.

African American students are suspended at a rate three times higher than white students, according to the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, and one in four boys of color who also have a disability receive an out-of-school suspension.

The "pipeline" isn't just hurting students-it's also expensive for taxpayers. The average cost of incarcerating someone in California in 2013-14 was $62,396 compared to the $9,194 the state spent per pupil in k-12 schools, according to Californians for Safety and Justice.

So what can schools do to disrupt this pipeline and keep students in classrooms and out of the criminal justice system, both saving our country money and improving the lives of young people?

California has been a national leader in banning school suspensions, so we asked students and educators there what they think could shut down the school to prison pipeline once and for all. Here's what they suggested:

Police should be a last resort, not a first response
Unfortunately, it's not so uncommon to hear of school-based police officers resorting to violence with students, like in the case of Joshua Kehm, the Texas officer who lifted and slammed 12-year-old Janissa Valdez to the ground during a confrontation she was having with another student.

Maryjane Davis, 17, of Fresno knows how it feels to be treated like a criminal at school. When a classmate picked a fight, striking her twice, Davis swung back. Davis claimed self defense, but the school officer who broke up the fight arrested her and sent her straight to juvenile hall-without, she said, even calling her parents first. Davis now believes something should be done to keep other students from experiencing a similar fate.

"Schools should actually just sit down with their students and talk things out before just quickly arresting them and sending them over to juvie," she said. "If you actually treat [the student] like an adult and talk to them with respect, they're going to talk to you with respect and treat you as you want to be treated."

Improve the staff-to-student ratio
Being removed from school and getting locked up are correlated. In the Bay Area, about two-thirds of Oakland Unified School District students who drop out eventually get tangled up in the criminal justice system.

And while schools in California have increasingly been moving away from punitive policies and adopting conflict resolution practices, there aren't always enough counselors or staff to implement the programs that would keep kids on campus. According to the California Department of Education, California ranks dead last in the nation with a ratio of 945 students per 1 counselor, compared to the national average of 477 to 1.

"We only have one therapist that comes on campus like twice a week to talk to all the kids that have issues, and that doesn't really work out," said 15-year-old Imani Salter of Oakland. "We have counselors but they only [give us] educational information. Even if [schools] can't have a therapist on campus, they need to find a way for [both] parents and students to get access to some type of counseling."

Put less emphasis on standardized tests
Low standardized test scores can result in schools losing funding and even being shut down entirely. But reliance on standardized tests has also been shown to contribute directly to the school-to-prison pipeline.

When classrooms are reduced to "test prep centers" where success is determined primarily by test scores, students are more likely to disengage from their education altogether, according to a study by Fairtest. Also, high school exit exams have been linked to increases in school dropout and juvenile incarceration rates.

"We're not judged (as teachers) by how well we develop the individual (student), we're judged on how well we can prepare these kids to take these math and language-arts tests," said Sergio de Alba, a sixth-grade teacher in Los Banos, Calif. "We need to invest in the whole student... It needs to be about growing as an individual."

Provide more college and career-prep
Being unprepared for life after high school can have dire consequences for students, leading to dropout and affecting college and job retention rates. Yet only about half of high school graduates complete a college-prep or career-readiness course, according to a recent study by The Education Trust.

When these resources aren't offered at school, students from disadvantaged backgrounds without good support systems at home are less likely to pursue a higher education or identify career opportunities.

"I believe if students start to feel they have a purpose or goal they want to attain and are educated on how to achieve that, they will more likely pursue a higher education, whether that is community college, university or a vocational program," said Stefanie de la Cruz, a college and financial aid counselor for the Merced Union High School District.

More alternative discipline practices
Research shows that taking students out of class hurts them academically in the long-term, and schools all over the nation have responded by employing alternative forms of discipline to help their kids stay in school, and on track.

One of the alternatives that has seemed to work is restorative justice, which allows students to resolve conflict through conversations that may include the student, the person the student hurt and their teachers and parents.

Dr. Brenda Lewis, assistant superintendent at Kern High School District, has seen the program do wonders for her schools.

"Since 2010, when we initiated our exploration of and planning for Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports and Restorative Practices, Kern High School District has reduced the total expulsions from 1,096 students in 2010-2011, to 66 total expulsions in school-year 2014-2015," Lewis said.
With additional reporting by Myles Bess and Daniel Jimenez. This content was made possible by a grant from The California Endowment and produced independently by Fusion's Rise Up: Be Heard Journalism Fellowship. Kody Stoebig is a Visalia native who currently works with The kNOw, a youth media organization in Fresno, California. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Fresno Pacific University where she earned a degree in communication and served as the editor of her school newspaper, the Syrinx. Kody's work at The kNOw has centered strongly around youth development and community health. She has a passion for social justice and for giving others a platform to share their stories. As a fellow, she would like to focus on "stories surrounding gender issues and the unfair stigma those with mental health issues face in our society." Maria Marcelina Crystal Vega, from the Central Valley town of Los Banos, is a queer Xicanx and soon-to-be UC Davis graduate majoring in psychology and anthropology with a minor in religious studies. At Davis, they have written for the school newspaper, the Aggie, and have been very involved with their college radio station as a volunteer, DJ, and news reporter. They are a passionate advocate for education and community empowerment. They currently work as a recreation leader for an after school program and also as a peer educator for Planned Parenthood Mar Monte. They are interested in reporting on social justice topics involving underrepresented groups such as the LGBT+ community, reproductive justice and youth.

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Kody Stoebig and Maria Marcelina Crystal Vega

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5 ways to end the school to prison pipeline

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Whether it be a result of increased police presence at schools, or the overuse of suspensions and expulsions, students across the nation are increasingly coming into contact with the criminal justice system through their schools. It's gotten so bad that a simple dress code violation, bringing nail clippers to school, or a snippy comment in class could get you suspended.

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The San Benito County Office of Education work together with Youth Alliance to teach bring the ida Dismantling the School to Prison Pipeline concept. It shows how the suspension students could result in more students drop out of college. The effort now is to bring up a team, systems, structures and policies that build safe, holistic and healing schools for all of the students. With less disciplinary exclusion, student feel less shame, alienation, and rejection that cause them to build up some mental health issues

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The San Benito County Office of Education, in partnership with the Youth Alliance, invites the community to the Dismantling the School to Prison Pipeline workshop on March 20 at Paine's Restaurant in Hollister. Tia Martinez, Principal at Forward Change Consulting, is expected to present the historical and current landscape of what is nationally known as the "School to Prison Pipeline."

The School to Prison Pipeline is a descriptor for the fact that students who have been suspended have far higher dropout rates and are significantly more likely to become involved in the juvenile justice system than their peers. Data at the state and national levels show that these outcomes disproportionately affect youth of color and youth with disabilities.
In an effort to scale up the systems, structures, and policies that build safe, holistic, and healing schools for all students, participants will review the statewide school discipline trends and discuss best practices in the creation of a continuum of positive supports for their school and community. Participants will have the opportunity to work in school district or community teams to problem solve and create an action plan to support all students.
Local school district or community teams are encouraged to attend, including teachers, counselors, behavioral health professionals, law enforcement, administrators, parents, and young adults. We will work to identify areas for improvement and partnerships needed to support the educational success of all.
Some research: "There is little evidence that suspension and expulsion benefit students or their communities. Psychologists have found that disciplinary exclusion policies can increase "student shame, alienation, rejection, and breaking of healthy adult bonds," thereby exacerbating negative mental health outcomes for young people. Behavioral problems among school-age youth are associated with high rates of depression, drug addiction, and home-life stresses. For students with these mental health concerns, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has found that suspension can increase stress and may predispose them to antisocial behavior and even suicidal ideation.
-American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). (2003). Policy statement: Out-of-school suspension and expulsion." Pediatrics. 112 (5). 1206-1210.
To register for this workshop, go to https://sanbenito.k12oms.org/ and use the calendar function to find the workshop link.
If you would like more information about this topic, please call Monica Barragan at (831) 637-5393 ext. 126 or email mbarragan@sbcoe.k12.ca.us.

The San Benito County Office of Education is committed to supporting educational systems in which all students have the opportunity to thrive and learn. As part of this commitment, the office launched the implementation of Restorative Justice in its alternative education sites in partnership with the community-based organization, Youth Alliance.
Youth Alliance (YA) is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit serving youth and their families in San Benito and South Santa Clara counties, that strives to create thriving and equitable communities through comprehensive, innovative, and culturally relevant services that support youth and families to become change agents in their own lives and in their community.

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The San Benito County Office of Education, in partnership with the Youth Alliance, invites the community to the Dismantling the School to Prison Pipeline workshop on March 20 at Paine's Restaurant in Hollister. Tia Martinez, Principal at Forward Change Consulting, is expected to present the historical and current landscape of what is nationally known as the "School to Prison Pipeline."