Education Reform in the New Jim Crow Era
Friday, 17 May 2013 00:00By P.L. Thomas, Truthout | Op-Ed
Officer Craig Davis, a former municipal policeman now with the Houston school district force, monitors a hallway at E.L. Furr High School in Houston, March 20, 2013. (Photo: Michael Stravato / The New York Times)There are significant parallels between the war on drugs and market-oriented education reform, and both create an underclass - especially among African American males, according to Thomas, who traces the history.In the United States, the intersection of the criminal justice system and public schools has intensified in the wake of school shootings, prompting similar solutions from supposedly opposite ends of the political spectrum. As noted in a New York Times editorial, "The National Rifle Association and President Obama responded to the Newtown, Conn., shootings by recommending that more police officers be placed in the nation's schools."
As the editorial points out, however, research tends to show that police in the hallways creates schools-as-prisons and students-as-criminals, increasing, rather than eliminating, the problems. In another piece, Chloe Angyal highlights thedisturbing connection between incarceration and education:
Punishment rates in schools mirror the rates in the 'real world' - though what