The School To Prison Pipeline

History, policy & advocacy

Introduction

In today’s society mainly anyone growing up in poverty stricken communities, single parent homes, domestic violence or infested and drug infested areas are at risk to being abducted by the school to prison pipeline. The school to prison pipeline is a system designed for at risk teens that do not do well in school. The effect is them being thrown in jail. Economically the black and the Latino community constantly after generation and generation are getting dealt the same hand because each child in the new generation is growing up in a broken home and are falling victim to the same problems that the generation before them have faced. By compiling annual reports on the total number of disciplinary

These kids don’t misbehave in the classroom for no reason. They are probably releasing those emotions that are bottled up from them at home in school. Not coming from a stable background can have quite the effect on trying to learn in a classroom. The problems that need to be fixed are trying to make schools feel more like a “safe haven” rather than a prison. Afterschool programs need to be put into place, to allow kids to stay at school for long so they don’t get involved in street life, or so they can just not have to deal with the outside problems of the world for a little bit longer. Also, school need to change. They need to try and make learning more fun, and more integrated with the children they are teaching. An easy an example of this is teaching these kids about their history, so they have many people to look up to besides just Martin Luther King Jr. or Rosa Parks. Only teaching black and Latino kids about people that don’t even look like them or go through anything they have gone through, makes them bored and uneager to learn. Also, more rewards in to be into place to make kids feel more welcomed and wanting to do good in class. Even though it may seem out of the ordinary for some, suspension needs to stop. Allowing these kids to take a break from somewhere they already don’t want to be is ushering them towards a life of hating school. Suspension not only hurt the school district but also hurt the