Roland Martin talks with Damon Hewitt, the Director of Education Practice at the NAACP LDF about the “school to prison” pipeline that was occurring in the Meridian, Miss. school district and what is currently happening to protect black students from being pushed into this cycle.
The “school-to-prison pipeline” refers to the policies and practices that push our nation’s schoolchildren, especially our most at-risk children, out of classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. This pipeline reflects the prioritization of incarceration over education.
For most students, the pipeline begins with inadequate resources in public schools. Overcrowded classrooms, a lack of qualified teachers, and insufficient funding for “extras” such as counselors, special education services, and even textbooks, lock students into second-rate educational environments. This failure to meet educational needs increases disengagement and dropouts, increasing the risk of later courtinvolvement.Even worse, schools may actually encourage dropouts in response to pressures from test-based accountability regimes such as the No Child Left Behind Act, which create incentives to push out low-performing students to boost overall test scores.
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Damon Hewitt on the ‘School to Prison’ Pipeline was originally published on blackamericaweb.com
