Rethinking the School to Prison Pipeline

In the article "Stop the School to Prison Pipeline" the website Rethinking-schools focuses this editorial on the common pipeline that schools do see forming in urban schools and how to stop it. The article defines the pipeline as forming from deep social and economic inequalities, and when schools were reformed during the civil and human rights movements in the 60's and the 70's. The original reform of education was going to reset schools back to the basics and set all students on an equal playing field, however in the 80's, harsh policies were set for the war on drugs that were soon implemented in schools. 

One case that the article talks about is a young boy being punished too harshly for his actions at his age. He was 11 and was wanting to get to school on time so he dressed in old clothes from a boy scout meeting from over the weekend. He still had a pocket knife in his pocket and as soon as he realized he did, he turned the knife into the office and tried to explain his mistake. Within minutes the boy was in custody and was shorty suspended and transferred to a disciplinary school.

This ties in so well with what the book talks about in Ch 7 with resistance theory and prison pipelines. Students and parents are learning to react to the schools because of the reality that takes place at the schools, although some of their coping strategies may be self-defeating and counterproductive.The article concludes by talking about how to seal the pipeline by creating social justice for all students. "We cannot build safe, creative, nurturing schools and criminalize our children at the same time." We need to start by treating all of our students equally and fairly in one movement to get the communities and families on board.

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/26_02/edit262.shtml