Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline: A Survey from the Field
Posted By The Editors | January 29th, 2011 | Category: Education | 2 comments
Print This PostBy Matt Cregor & Damon Hewitt
Reprinted by permission from Poverty & Race, Vol. 20, No. 1, January/February 2011
Our nation’s school discipline rates have reached all-time highs. As suspension, expulsion and school-based arrests rates grow, racial disparities in discipline continue to widen. Despite a wealth of research on the harms of these exclusionary discipline practices and their ties to school pushouts, media outlets are filled with stories of ever younger students being suspended, expelled or arrested for matters that, prior to “zero tolerance” disciplinary policies, were once handled by a call home. As the “School-to-Prison Pipeline” reaches a crisis stage, both new and familiar voices are emerging to reform school discipline. Here we review recent research on school discipline and highlight promising efforts to eliminate racial disciplinary disparities and dismantle the School-to-Prison Pipeline.
A CURRENT LOOK AT THE SCHOOL-TO-PRISON PIPELINE
According to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights