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The School-to-Prison Pipeline
I hope the Dignity in Schools Campaign overflows its banks, spilling awareness into every corner of the country.
"Millions of children and youth are denied educational opportunities in the United States," begins the National Resolution for Ending School Pushout, which some 200 organizations in 43 states have so far signed. "This injustice results from systemic inequality and a lack of public commitment to doing what is necessary to keep all young people in school."
Can we sit with this statement a moment, please? Can we sit with it without blame, denial or quick opinions, and simply let it wash at the edges of our sense of national greatness? Our military, political and cultural thrust reaches every corner of the globe. We're the world's only superpower. And we're feeding our own children — a shocking percentage of them, at any rate — into a sort of Darwinian meat grinder of low expectations, zero tolerance and fend-for-yourself hopelessness.
This is our school system in much of Poverty America: an ill-funded, desperate and deteriorating bureaucracy of bad ideas and entrenched disrespect for everyone — especially those who care. When I was an outside writing consultant, some years ago, at several high schools on the West Side of Chicago, I saw first-hand the us-vs.-them mentality that prevailed, as though the schools were colonial outposts in these low-income neighborhoods, run by an occupying army.
"Every year," the resolution continues, "too many students are pushed out of school by degrading environments and harsh disciplinary measures that undermine their learning."
One result of this situation is what is known as the school-to-prison pipeline.
Once again, let us pause and think about this, and ask whether it's right, and if it isn't, why addressing the phenomenon of abandoned children — abandoned to a punishment-based system of discipline, increasingly entrenched over the years, combined with historic racism and inadequate school funding in low-income neighborhoods (where the resources are most desperately needed) — is not a national priority. How long do we think we can continue to throw away the lives of our children, with a shrug, with a fancy dance away from responsibility, before we destroy our own future?
"Young people and parents are the agents of change," said Elizabeth Sullivan, program director for the New York-based Human Right to Education, National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, and one of the conveners of the three-year-old Dignity in Schools Campaign. Punitive, one-size-fits-all discipline is not the best way to revere and nurture the potential of young people, but may well be the best way to snuff it out. Our future either flowers with the nurturing of the young or it withers and dies.
With this in mind, the Dignity in Schools Campaign asks us to recognize the need for — and to demand — a cultural or paradigm shift in our school system. The paddle and dunce cap have outlived their symbolic usefulness by at least a hundred years.
The resolution goes on: "Fundamental human rights principles, recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, offer a framework that shifts our approach to education and school discipline in the United States."
Beginning with this fundamental shift in thinking and attitude, the resolution calls for such fundamental and radical changes in our schools as policies that are "aimed at the full development of the child"; staff "well-trained in positive approaches to discipline"; "high expectations for all students" and a focus on establishing "a culture of youth prepared for lifelong learning." While these are the values held by just about every teacher I've ever met, the system — except where it is beginning to change — defeats them at every turn and burns them out if they care too much.
"We don't value one another as human beings — especially children," said Damekia Morgan, speaking in a video interview at dignityinschools.org. "Our children don't value their own lives — thus they don't value yours, either.
"People have to get angry enough to hold this country accountable," added Morgan, of Families and Friends of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children (one of the groups allied with the Dignity in Schools campaign). "Every child who is born has the right to an education — not just any old education but one that will allow them to live up to their fullest potential."
If you've seen children flushed through the school-to-prison pipeline — a process that begins for some in kindergarten, as misbehaving tots wind up being expelled before they have the faintest idea what the word means — you will feel the pulse of outrage and the cry for fundamental change in Morgan's words.
Educating our young — joyously celebrating the potential they themselves may not yet know they have — is an enormously difficult challenge, especially in neighborhoods devastated by poverty and historical racism, where so many families are in financial and emotional tatters. But if we don't embrace this challenge, we've lost our future in the pipeline.
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50 Comments so far
Show AllThe author paints a bleak and accurate picture indeed. Unfortunately the greatest obstacle to change is the fact that the system is running exactly as the ruling elite wish it to run.
How else do create an underclass of cheap labor,fill the ranks of the military and of course boost the profits of their investments in the prison and security industries. Also lets not forget the the less educated are much easier to manipulate with fear and misinformation
Sioux Rose
MAD LOON: You define what I, too, see. Some on CD have noticed that those methods exposed in Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" have begun to come home to roost.
I taught school in Puerto Rico, and what I experienced is probably the template for any 3rd world region. Those with money send their children to private schools, in most cases uniforms are a requirement. The vast majority are stuck with a very lousy public education system. Many buildings need repairs, bathrooms lack facilities, teachers lack books, etc.
We see the Disaster Capitalism model already unleashed in our midsts as instead of seeing public money go towards homeowners, it was the banks privileged with a bailout. Instead of seeing money directed towards a decent public health care system, it goes to the mlitary industrial complex with Obama now standing up trying to dress up war as some noble purpose in order to collect his unwarranted prize. It's no surprise as we trace the "progress" of this model coming home to our own states and neighborhoods that the gift of learning would be denied many children. Soon only those in private schools, charter schools, or authoritarian private religious schools will have any semblance of an education.
America is in a state of breakdown and the momentum is too great to be stopped. Because its leadership insists upon war, awards itself the authority to do so with impunity... the levers of karma have turned against the nation. We have a tendency to analyze conditions in very limited categorical ways. We may cite the numbers who are unemployed, the numbers who go without health insurance, the numbers who are experiencing home foreclosure, the numbers who are ill or handicapped... taken in sum, a great percentage of our citizenry is hurting or about to be. There are some situated around the world who have been given good cause to take advantage of America's growing weakness. They may well retaliate in response to America's many careless aggressions.
The times will call for great strategy, inner strength, and ingenious new innovations. ALL of the established systems ARE or will break down. Whether taken from the karmic stance of American leadership's position (delinquent and criminal) on climate change, to its continued trafficking in weapons other saner nations have abandoned, to a continued march (and lust) for war... our nation for all intensive purposes is run by equivalent drunks who insist that they require no shift in direction as they rush (US) towards the abyss.
One can not have read Naomi Kleins The Shock Doctrine and not be changed by it's contents.
Too bad those so-called Christians, with their "right to life" frenzy over the fertilized egg and embryo, spending millions and doing whatever it takes to make pregnancy and birth mandatory, can't be bothered with anything happening to those fertilized eggs and embryos once they become babies born, into whatever hell they've been spewed into.
I also wondered why "Christians" were so concerned for life before it was born but showed little concern for it after it was born.
Then someone informed me that the reason was, that the unborn were not yet Baptized or taught to believe in Jesus and so could not get to "heaven". Once the little goobers are popped out, baptize, and indoctrinate then you can do what ever you want with them because they are now "heaven eligible".
NC-Tom
Your quiry is a good one indeed and showcases the hypocracy of the "Right-To-Life" so-called Christians.
Then - the "someone" you refer to takes you on a trip thru a land populated by fairy-tale creatures. This has become the very profitable domaine of assholes like Glenn Beck/ O'Reilly and FAUX News in general.
The realworld answer to your question is - The corporate owned media who dispense this RightWing claptrap and who are in league with the Christian Fundies are run by semi-crazed WHITE MEN who see the unmistakable demographic shift in the US to a majority of "Non-White-Shinned Untermenchen", which scare the living shit out of them. They know the majority of teen pregnancies among Black/Brown/Hispanic/Mexican will NOT be terminated due to "cultural issues" within their respective populations or for lack of $$/access (just can't afford it).
The pregnancies these assholes want to be certain to go full-term are the young WHITE girls, so we can stem the "Brown Tide". They know well that the majority of aborted fetus's are by WHITE girls/women who can afford such and which are frequently supported by thier families as a way to get out of an uncomfortable situation. If they could find a way to make the policy palatable they would surely advocate mass sterilization for Brown skinned teens. This is the hypocracy of the land we live in.
That may very well be the case. However, I think that it really doesn't have much to do with saving babies of any color. Rather, I think the probirthers are mostly after the subjugation of women as is supposedly prescribed in the Bible. That would explain efforts to ban not only abortion but birth control as well. Could it be that Christians and Muslems have a lot more in common than they realize? I say fuck religion!!!
AMEN
LOL. That's the funniest thing I've come across recently. Starting from the last line of barkingsquirrel's post, it took just one word to make that funny!
Well said, shadre. Also, these so-called Christians don't seem to be getting worked up over the fact that mother's milk is contaminated with all kinds of toxic chemicals, and demanding a cleanup of the air, water and food sources.
An excellent article by Mr. Koehler, but I must emphatically agree with Mad Loon and Shadre.
In some cruel and bizarre way, the system is working as designed.
The system is indeed working as designed.. and Louisiana exemplifies this perhaps better than any Gulag-state.
As the one of the most desirable candidates for Gulag-treatment, I feel blessed to not have been birthed or raised among the virulently ill-intentioned, else Angola could easily have become my home too.
Sadly, while the good intentioned folks were saving the whales and in love with their own goodness, Mr. Koehler notwithstanding, the Beast was preparing a place for them as well.
Gulag-treatment shall soon be an equal opportunity experience, aka, the new affirmative-action..!
I doubt that Angola, the New Orleans crime against the poor, and the racist capital of the nation all being in the same state is a coincidence. One of the worst public school systems just happens to be there too. I am not saying that any particular state is being referred to, mind you.
Zero tolerance is one of the dumbest concepts ever turned loose in schools, or anywhere, for that matter. Another example of the conservative "black and white, no gray areas" world view. Conservatives claim to champion the individual, but it only applies to the elite individuals.
Sioux Rose
SMIP: And what a double standard that "zero tolerance." I'd like to see it universally applied IF it's to be applied at all, say starting with the bankers, then moving onto the Blackwater darlings, then extended to those who helped support the torture networks, etc. Ideally most in the senate, congress, and the higher courts would be HELD to account this way. Zero tolerance may have a place after all, wouldn't you say?
Yes, Zero tolerance policies are stupid, unworkable, and are little more than a way for school administrators to grandstand. I think, however, there is another wrinkle here that hasn't been examined. Some folks I know who work in schools have told me that these policies tend to be put in place not by school principals per ce, but by school boards who are reacting to the fear of law suits. If Little Johnny gets upset because some other kid waved a French fry in his face, Mommy or Daddy might sue the school for a few mil for pain and suffering. Sometimes, hard to believe as this might be, they even win. Just one of such suits could bankrupt a school district and school boards know this since they are largely responsible for school finances. Therefore the zero tolerance dicta on anything that may, maybe just maybe, be constrewed as violence by some parent looking for a way to make a quick buck. As for the kid with the wayward French Fry, San Quentin bound! I know we open up a whole can of worms when discussing tort reform but something needs to be done about silly law suits and to reduce the general fear thereof.
Public schools want peace at any price. What they call peace is unquestioning obedience of orders from above. Fat, dim witted physical education teachers and coaches become principals because they can more easily bully teachers and students.
Any student or teacher who speaks up for what is fair or points out how the mission statement of the school is being violated can expect extended sessions of browbeating from 'superiors'.
If you could see what persons are considered superior, you might have a new appreciation of what is wrong with public schools.
yes, agreeing with others before me...
we teach nothing but discipline and destruction, wrapped up in fairy tales regarding the source of all of our earthly products, and the self-justifying fairness of competition-driven life...
we are raised in self-reinforcing intellectual bubbles...given blinders, and pointed down predetermined paths...
the level of change required to address this and many other issues is as fundamental as the ownership of this planet...
true education can only begin once centered upon the living world we share with all other plants and animals here...
as long as our current economic power structures remain, based, as they are, on the devastation of the natural world, our educational systems are a sick lobotomy on the way to a life abrogated...
we are bred to produce, consume, discard and replace, and to be willfully ignorant of the consequences...students sense that...they sense the discontinuity between logical thought and what is presented, and smell the fakery...no wonder they aren't more engaged...stop lying to them, and see what happens...
Colorado leads in this sorry condition. We here are 49th in education spending and 3rd in prison spending. And so we set up a system that pretty much insures a steady stream of new prisoners, or as they like to call them, clients.
This is disgusting. Prisons should NEVER be a for profit system. There are some things that the state SHOULD be in charge of, and prisons are high on that list. That we would rather pay to lock people up rather than to educate them in the first place is proof of a bankrupt society.
And why people think that they can shortchange their kid's educations ands actually get something for their cheapness is beyond me. In EVERY other situation, people seem to know that you get what you pay for. But in education, they seem to think that it's the cheapest that is the ONLY way to go.
SO communities shortchange the pay of people who take care of their kids for longer than the parents do (at least awake), and the end result is that teachers are NOT the best and brightest of us like they should be. The buildings themselves are falling down and are endangering our children's lives on a daily basis. The materials they have to teach with are pathetic, and in many cases, so outdated as to be laughable. They bore kids to death and then complain about discipline problems.
Colorado spends 11 TIMES what it did on prisons 25 years ago ($69 million VS $770 Million PER YEAR). You can bet your ass that education spending isn't anywhere near that level.
And for the record, THIS is what the right in this country WANTS. It is how they think things SHOULD be. They, of course, are the ones who OWN the prison companies, and are making out like bandits (not a pun, but a sad reality). They WANT to keep locking up everyone for everything, regardless of how the rest of the world treats the same infractions. WE have to lock people up. It's the only way these companies make the big bucks. Who CARES if it destroys your society, they are making money!
And that is what this is all about. It's been dumb down and imprison anyone you can ever since REAGAN started this "privatization" kick. The fact is that it was stupid then, it's stupid now, and it will be stupid forever. It's a future destroying thing, and we will NEVER have a future until this BS is stopped and made illegal.
And for the record, it's physically IMPOSSIBLE to add a profit motive on something and make it cheaper. It's just not possible. When you add on a 30% profit margin on top of what you are already spending, it's going to cost you AT LEAST that 30% MORE than if the gov't did it with NO profit motive. It's just plain OBVIOUS and common sense, which, unfortunately, we are drastically short on in this country. Especially in the "leadership" sector.
Sorry for the novel, but this has been a thorn in my side since 1980 when I saw Reagan start to destroy us from the inside out.
"In EVERY other situation, people seem to know that you get what you pay for. But in education, they seem to think that it's the cheapest that is the ONLY way to go."
Actually, people also think that in the charitable world, "it's the cheapest that is the ONLY way to go." Charity rating services, and many individuals, judge nonprofits on one criteria only, which is the amount of money spent on overhead, with the least amount of overhead spending being the best. This is a way of starving nonprofits, most of which have little money to begin with, of the money that they need to pay for their infrastructure and to keep up the fund raising that will allow them to continue their services. Things are so bad now with community based nonprofits, that approximately 50% of staff are needed just to fund raise to keep the doors open. Yet charities are penalized for this necessity by being rated poorly. Ironically, many of these charities are trying to make up for the problems created by the pitifully inadequate public school system in poor communities.
WJM:
"And for the record, THIS is what the right in this country WANTS. It is how they think things SHOULD be. They, of course, are the ones who OWN the prison companies, and are making out like bandits (not a pun, but a sad reality). They WANT to keep locking up everyone for everything, regardless of how the rest of the world treats the same infractions"
Per my comment to NC Tom above- YES, the Right(WHITE) love their prisons... not only because they OWN them, but because they can capture the Brown-Skinned Untermenchen that were missed since the "Brownies" don't abort at the same rate as Whitie does.
No apology, please, for your "novel". Every word you wrote is truth.
When I was a teacher I tried to help and encourage a certain silly student to stay in school. The principal called me in and told me I was undermining the school's goal of getting that student to leave. That made me doubt my own judgement. I was silenced. Now I see that she was wrong, not I.
Joe
on a side note, the privatization of prisons is a nightmare...public prisoners should not equal personal profit...
California is a prime example: it spends more on prisons than schools. One of the most wealthy places in the world cannot scrape up enough money to fund schools to lift it from the lowest per-pupil spending in the entire developed world.
Kids in the public school system have two choices when they leave school: prison or the military. If they are real lucky they can get a minimum wage job at Wal-Mart
I am already witnessing a school to prison pipeline in the works out in the inner cities of my state to imprison more minorities. It's bad enough that minorities get more jail time for even the smallest of offenses. Unfortunately, people in the rurals and suburbs are too oblivious to this and I used to be one of them until I lived the city life and found myself witnessing this horrible double standard. With this "pipeline" in the works, it won't be long before young minorities are targeted and either thrown into prison or forced to enter the military for several years. It won't stop with minorities as this can spread to using this against everyone in the lower class and then the middle class.
As a product of the public school system, a graduate of the private elite universities and returning as an educator to the public school system I have witnessed this first hand. The poorer the school district the less funded they are and the more rules that exist. I have been a teacher for eight years and have yet to suspend a single student. The problem with the inner-city school system is that the disenfranchised portion of our society will always receive the most ineffective and out of touch education. In a school system where children cannot see hope or a light at the end of the tunnel it becomes increasingly difficult to have them sit and listen. Poverty is not synonymous with stupidity and the powers that be know that. If we want change we have to make it happen ourselves otherwise this vicious cycle continues.
They are no longer prisions, they are now called "Profit Centers"
For each child pused into the pipeline, wall street makes money.
What we'll probably see in the future is military service as an alternative to prison for certain crimes, or as a way to get a criminal record expunged. I almost hesitate to say this, since so many people would think it was a good idea. However, I am sure that the powers-that-be have thought of it already and are just waiting until the population is cowed enough to accept it.
Already there. The crime's called "poverty."
This process has already started undocumented immigrants can gain legal status through military service.The military is also overlooking criminal records in their zeal to meet recruiting goals.What you fear is but a small step away.
I hate to tell you this, but the military has ALWAYS been a dumping ground for those who judges would rather not lock up. It used to be fairly common that you had a choice for a lot of crimes, either go to jail or go into the military. It changed once the mandatory sentencing crowd got into the act, what with their for profit prison system ties and all, with damn near everyone going to jail or on probation. They make money BOTH ways.
What is different now is that people are being forced by economic situations to join up whether they have any business in the military or not. There was a story out very recently about a guy who joined up for 4 years so that his wife could get the health care that she needed to save her life. He has to go off and risk his for 4 years just so she could stay alive.
This is all what the righties had in mind when they declared war on the rest of us 30+ years ago. Things started to change once Nixon was essentially kicked out of office and the Viet Nam war was ended BY THE PEOPLE and not by the politicians. They think THEY are the ONLY ones who should have a say in how this country is run, and they are doing everything they can to make sure that it happens. Only thing is that the rest of us have seen first hand what happens when you let righties run things. You end up with W and Cheney.
And that can NEVER be allowed to happen again.
"Only thing is that the rest of us have seen first hand what happens when you let righties run things. You end up with W and Cheney."
And neoconservative Obama, who is to the right of Richard Nixon.
So if only the schools in mostly non-white, poor inner cities got more funding things would be better, right? Have they ever heard of the Kansas City Desegregation Experiment? - http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-298.html
"Kansas City spent as much as $11,700 per pupil--more money per pupil, on a cost of living adjusted basis, than any other of the 280 largest districts in the country. The money bought higher teachers' salaries, 15 new schools, and such amenities as an Olympic-sized swimming pool with an underwater viewing room, television and animation studios, a robotics lab, a 25-acre wildlife sanctuary, a zoo, a model United Nations with simultaneous translation capability, and field trips to Mexico and Senegal. The student-teacher ratio was 12 or 13 to 1, the lowest of any major school district in the country.
The results were dismal. Test scores did not rise; the black-white gap did not diminish; and there was less, not greater, integration. "
While I am all for improving schools and education, more money is seldom ever the answer to improving them.
The Kansas City Desegregation Experiment was an attempt to promote integration by setting up magnet schools, but there was little support from the surrounding (white) communities, so the experiment failed.
I continue to wonder why providing rich, supportive learning environments for kids in wealthy communities is the norm, but providing similar learning environments for poor kids is derided as pointless.
Let's see, for the teaching process to take place, we need a teacher, pupils, a classroom and a willingness to teach and learn. No disrespect to the teachers that actually love what they are doing (they get enough of that from their pupils), but my bet is the latter two are in short supply. Throwing more money at it ain't gonna help.
Can the money not be placed instead of thrown?
That is, why should the presence of actual funding mean that the funding need be misdirected?
Meanwhile, if anyone has a funds-free way to move forward, let's hear it.
Funny that "throwing more money" at schools in low-income districts is so easily dismissed as futile, while it seems normal and good that the schools in wealthy suburbs are well-funded so they can have safe buildings, well-stocked libraries and labs, enrichment courses and experiences, and after-school activities.
If you were a teacher or parent, you'd understand that "a willingness to teach and learn" soon withers in the grim prisons that pass for "schools" for so many of our less fortunate children and teachers.
Who said anything about low-income districts? At least those guys can use poverty as an excuse. The situation is just as bad in rich areas where mommy's spoiled little brat gets punished and daddy shoes up at the school with the bloosucjing lawyer.
Don't give me this poverty sucks crap. The whole public school system is in trouble. High school curriculums are so dumbed down most of the graduates can't make it thru the first year of college. But, no, we don't wnat to hurt the kids feelings. Move on to the next grade whether you're up for it or not. Nevermind actually living in the real world for young people. They get out there find themselved with credit cards and then blame evil banks for their debt.
I think that too many "instructors" believe that they are "teachers".... an instrutor only presents information while the teacher inspires the student to learn more than what is presented. Unfortunately, the system through it's competitiveness, rewards instructors and punishes teachers. IF there is to be a change, it must start by changing the 'teaching' method, drop the competitive style and change to 'cooperative' education. TEACH kids to act as groups, that groups can succeed as an entity and that individual efforts are not always what is important...... just an idea....
This country is, by every standard of the imagination, the biggest canker sore known to man and, perhaps, what it does with its kids is the most egrigious and criminal of all its enterprise. The kids are set to fail since the day they're born. They chewed and spit out by the system as if they were disposable and nobody cares, not before, not during and most certainly not after the fact. What a goddamn shithole this whole country is!
Homeless students are often poster children for school district "reject" policies and practices, despite laws to protect them.
And, in addition to Koehler's well-stated column, I'd add a crucial related issue: babies and preschool kids in poverty are where this whole education movement begins to deteriorate. If they lack parent involvement, nutrition, developmental, socialization, and other essential opportunities, they are as good as lost by the time they get to school.
Homelessness, a symptom of poverty, is the epitome of child development disease.
And over 40% of the more than 1.5 million homeless kids are under the age of 5. More info, www.hearus.us.
Looking back, I think most of the teachers I had throughout my urban public school experience were the same "liberals" Chris Hedges and Adolph Reed have derided.
"The whole public school system is in trouble. High school curriculums are so dumbed down most of the graduates can't make it thru the first year of college."
True chameleon. They totally sugarcoat history too. And they wonder why there's a lack of a social consciousness.
Here in my city, they're trying to address the "racial achievement gap" in a mostly black district.
Do they really want the black kids to "rise" to the same sucky level as the white kids, who if affluent get put into "gifted" programs which don't teach them shit either?
Oh let's not talk of how IQ tests are gender, race, and class biased. Upper middle class white boys set the bat so we're told.
"But the Asian kids do so well. They're not white. What's your excuse?"
LMAO!
Our entire educational system treats school as one long game. The language they use reinforces this. "Scores" and "Achievement" and being able to "Compete"...UGH migraines!!!!
They don't give a fuck if you learn a damn thing. They just want you to pass or fail tests and get out. There's no time to learn or question anything. Listen for the bell so you can feel like you're in a factory. BUZZZ!!! It's time for your next class. BUZZZ!!! Time for another. BUZZZ!!! Time to eat slop in the cafeteria. BUZZZ!!!
I don't envy schoolkids these days.
Well, yeah!... Public education was created here in the US to teach the farm kids to read and cypher enought to run the machinery of the industrial revolution. Public schools were NEVER meant to bring forth the future leaders, only workers.
We have a total prison population of some 40,000 up in Canada.
Stephen Harper seems to feel that not enough and is introducing more "Tough on crime" laws. They are considering cutting out "Prison Farms" where prisoners raise and care for animals and using those lands instead for an expanded prison population.
They then want to emulate many of the US Initiatives such as removing the right of judges to determine sentences and using minimal sentencing laws instead.
They want to get "tougher" on youth crime as well feeling the system does not "punish" enough.
The aboriginals lived here for thousands of years before we arrived and never needed "Prison systems" I think they had a far more enlightened approach.
Follow the money. Who is it that is going to make the money off of this? I'll bet you there is a politician or two that is going to make out really well if they can get this insanity passed in your country as well. And your citizens will pay for it.
BTW, you have a LONG way to go in terms of numbers. Hell, Colorado alone has 23,000 people locked up and God only knows how many on probation. You're going to have to try a lot harder if you want to screw things up in your country as much as we have down here. But trust your righies to try and do it to you. They, I suspect, stand for the same things the righties down here do. Which is to say money and greed. Good luck. You're going to need it with politicians that look at us as some kind of positive example.
I work at an alternative high school that was designed for dropouts, pregnant teens, and other people who the system has failed to service so I see this first hand in the students that come our way.
The main problem I have with our system is that students who do not attend school are referred to truancy court and thrown into juvenile detention centers for committing no offense other than failing to attend school. This is supposed to "scare them" into going back to school. But what really happens is while at the juvenile detention center, these kids befriend seasoned criminals. Most of the kids who are truant need encouraging, caring adult role models and positive peer groups. Instead, we introduce them to the local gang members.
I'd say about half of the poor students around here that are truant are so because of situational challenges in their lives that prevent them from going. There are good kids who are caring for children, watching sick, elderly grandparents, and working to support their families. These kids are being punished by the system for simply dealing responsibly with the life that fate has dealt them.
To me, this population is the most abused and neglected by the system. We are uncompromising, and demand that they go through our conformity meat grinder on our own terms, regardless of their situation. Some can't.
We spend way too much time focusing on criminals who are obviously bound for prison. A far higher percentage of these kids have already chosen their lifestyle and we're pissing in the wind. The bulk of our focus should be on those lost kids who stop showing up to school. We, as a society, need to reach out to them. I encourage all of you who own your own businesses to contact your local alternative high schools and offer internships to some of those kids who are interested in your field. Put these kids to work, teach them some skills, show them the value of completing school, and let them form positive relationships with people besides criminals. We, as a society, need to take ownership of these kids. We have passed this responsibility off onto ineffective and self serving government. Instead of throwing more money at the problem, we all need to start taking a little ownership of the problem.