Prison is the New School

8/12/2019 Prison is the New School

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How Education Policies Funnel Poor Minority Students into Prisons

A Literature Review by:

Lucille Lu

July 2014


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11th grade level, whereas only 15% of adults for the overall population do not have a high school

diploma (Western & Pettit, 2010; Meiner & Reyes, 2008). Serving prison time has almost

become a norm for black males who have dropped out of high school. Through the rise of mass

incarceration and the prison boom, this has become increasingly the case. While only 10 percent

of young black male dropouts were in prison or jail in 1980, this rate climbed to 37 percent by

2008 (Western & Pettit, 2010). These striking facts portray the link between low levels of

education, especially in racial minority groups and low socioeconomic classes, and incarceration

rates.

Given the statistics, we see the huge connections between education, particularly urban

schools, and prisons (Hirschfield, 2008; Houchins & Shippen, 2012; Meiners & Reyes, 2008).

These connections between educational inequalities and the prison industrial complex can only

exist through the support of existing systems and institutions outside of the criminal justice

system itself. Darling-Hammond expresses that inequality is an active policy (Darling-

Hammond, 2010). This paper examines those inequalities as they pertain to our schools and how

educational inequality plays a role in incarceration. More specifically, how do education policies

funnel poor minority students into prisons?

The Children Left Behind

When Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2002, school reform

began to focus on improving test scores (Thompson & Allen, 2012). While it may have had good

intentions, this only resulted in narrowing the curriculum, especially in low achieving schools,

and widening the opportunity gap (Darling-Hammond, 2010). Instead of ensuring all students a

high quality education, high-stakes testing and accountability-based reform made it extremely


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difficult for teachers to engage students in the classroom. School administrators and teachers

from financially strapped schools had to meet demands to boost standardized test scores and

push out low test scores. This contributed to student apathy, especially in low achieving schools,

where the classroom became purely about producing high test scores. The quality of education

has only become worse as a result of NCLB, especially for African American students. It has

been accentuated that curriculum should be made culturally relevant and interesting, yet the

overemphasis of testing and elimination of art, music, or recess was what came out of these

reforms (Advancement Project, 2010; Thompson & Allen, 2012).

In a questionnaire given to students, 75% of African Americans said they had not learned

what they wanted about their culture, whereas only 36% of white students felt this way. More

African American and Latino students also felt that they were not being prepared to survive in

their communities, and that classes were boring (Thompson & Allen, 2012). The

disproportionate effect high stakes testing has on minorities and low-income students is partially

due to where they live, being more likely to have less resourced schools, less qualified teachers,

and narrowed educations due to underperforming on tests. "This reinforces underlying resource

inequities, causing these students to receive a double dose of punishment for policymakers'

failure to address educational inequities" (Advancement Project, 2010, p.27). When teachers are

reportedly spending a quarter of their time or more focused on standardized tests, alienating and

labeling students as failures, how can we claim to be providing quality education to all?

Teaching Becomes Discriminatory Disciplining

As a result of unsuccessful legislative attempts to improve education such as NCLB,

students became subjected to over-disciplining in schools, attend segregated schools systems,


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and must deal with the over policing of schools (Geronimo, 2011, p. 284). In addition to the

testing and accountability based reforms, the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994 caused schools to

mimic policies. Very soon, school punishment became increasingly based on uniform procedural

and disciplinary guidelines as Zero Tolerance policies emerged. Beginning in the 1980s,

coinciding with the up rise of mass incarceration and the prison boom in the U.S., schools began

adopting these punitive policies such as Zero Tolerance. Students were being severely punished

for misconduct in the classroom and suspensions and expulsions grew rapidly (Geronimo, 2011).

Zero Tolerance spread rapidly in the early 1990s as the criminalization of minor infractions for

students continued (Hirschfield, 2008). Schools implemented policies that imposed harsh

penalties for first offenses of harmless behaviors. One of the major effects of this practice is that

it caused schools to closely resemble the culture of prisons (Giroux, 2009). "What were once

called disciplinary issues for school administrators are now called crimes" (Heitzeg, 2009, p. 2).

This preoccupation of discipline and order soon took priority over academic rigor, teaching and

learning (Noguera, 2003). However, this practice which continues in our school systems today

although there is no evidence that zero tolerance policies actually improve safety and security or

quality of learning (Advancement Project, 2010; Heitzeg, 2009).

In addition, this type of disciplining, with more of a focus on discipline and order rather

than teaching and learning, happens most frequently in the underachieving urban schools

(Noguera, 2003; Advancement Project, 2010; Heitzeg, 2009; Hirschfield, 2008). The same

children who received the most negative impacts from high stakes testing and curriculum

narrowing had to now deal with a focus in the classroom on pure disciplining. Zero Tolerance

policies disproportionately affects the poor, students with disabilities, and racial minorities,

especially African Americans (Noguera, 2003; Heitzeg, 2009). Rather than helping students who


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may be struggling in school, instead we punish the ones who face the biggest academic and

personal challenges. This closely resembles our criminal justice system, duplicating the

punishment model rather than a rehabilitative approach to help individuals. In addition to

approaches in punishment, school systems also reflect patterns in the criminal justice system

through the disproportionate racial minority groups being punished (Hirschfield, 2008).

Minorities and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds are punished more severely than

Whites for the same behaviors (Advancement Project, 2010; Thompson & Allen, 2012;

Hirschfield, 2008). This additional inequality is said to be at least partially caused by racist

stereotypes. Poor black and Latino male youth are particularly at risk in this mix of demonic

representation and punitive modes of control, as they are the primary object of not only racist

stereotypes but also a range of disciplinary policies that criminalize their behavior (Giroux,

2009, p. 5). Punished, criminalized, suspended and expelled. With all of the disadvantages and

inequities that exist in the schooling system, where are the students left to go?

Labeled, Marginalized, & Funneled

Schools, supposedly a safe place for students to learn and grow and be treated equally,

has increasingly become just another institution that labels and marginalizes poor and minority

youth. Teachers and school administrators, striving to maintain order and improve test scores,

will punish and push out students that face challenges and difficulties. Given fewer educational

opportunities and harsher school punishments, the marginalization of poor and minorities in

schools ends up increasing the likelihood for prison (Geronimo, 2011; Simmons, 2009). In

society, instead of addressing the needs of individuals who misbehave, incarceration serves as a

quick fix. Similarly, marginalizing students can be attractive because schools will no longer have


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the task of educating low achieving students and it artificially boosts accountability test scores by

pushing them out (Geronimo, 2011). By labeling students to be in need of discipline, control or

exclusion and thereby future prisoners, schools increase the risks of incarceration for them as

they face frequent suspensions. It can be a self-fulfilling prophecy; similar to tracking in schools,

some students are 'fast tracked' to jail (Hirschfield, 2008; Noguera, 2003).

What is now commonly known as the school-to-prison pipeline is a pathway, implicating

the educational system in the structuring of the incarceration path, which appears to actively

collect school-aged youth and funnel them toward a future in prison (Simmons, 2009). Labeling,

alienating, and dehumanizing students only push them out of the schools and into prisons

(Advancement Project, 2010). Streaming from certain educational policies and reforms,

schooling and education becomes an integral component of the prison industrial complex. The

systems of discipline and control that now exist in schools feed students into prisons and are

designed to insure an endless stream of bodies into the PIC (Meiners & Reyes, 2008; Heitzeg,

2009). Is this intentional or accidental, and what can we do stop this?

Implications & Recommendations

Educational inequality in policy and reforms such as zero tolerance and high stakes

testing result in pushing minority, low-income, and students with disabilities out of schools and

into the pathway for incarceration. Recognizing that the school-to-prison pipeline exists, the

problem becomes identifying potential ways to minimize and ultimately eliminate this

phenomenon. The first step is to stop focusing on tests and what other countries are doing, and

start considering what is good for the U.S., especially students from underrepresented

backgrounds. The needs of poor and minority students have never been a priority for most


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reformers, and we must make the needs of students a priority. In addition, in order to provide

educational equity, all students must be viewed as being capable of academic excellence

(Thompson & Allen, 2012). Low scoring tests do not translate to being without potential, and

teachers, school administrators, and policymakers across the country must start realizing this. In

addition to the testing and accountability-based reforms, we must eliminate zero tolerance

discipline policies and give all students an equal opportunity for a high quality education

(Advancement Project, 2010). Zero tolerance and other harsh disciplinary policies, which truly

reflect the criminal justice system, have never been proven to be successful and only cause more

harm than good. Both school and criminal justice systems should return to a less punitive and

more reparative approach, addressing the needs of struggling individuals (Heitzeg, 2009).

Although ridding zero tolerance policies and high stakes testing is a step, meaningful

education reform needs more than just that. In addition to education policies, the larger

framework of the criminal justice system, residential segregation and unequal housing, as well as

perceptions of poor and minority students that encourage marginalization, all needs to be

changed (Geronimo, 2011). The impact of the framework entirely affects our school system

today and inequalities will continue to persist if this isnt addressed. We must focus on social

justice instead of criminal justice, including policies that improve opportunity, employment, and

a legitimate economy for poor inner-city neighborhoods (Simmons, 2009; Western & Pettit,

2010; Western & Wildeman, 2009). How much longer can we allow poor minority youth to be

funneled into prisons? As we continue to ignore problems and inequalities that exist, how can we

truly say that we live in a democracy? Our youth deserves more (Giroux, 2009). They deserve

education policies that treat individuals equally, and that offer hope and the opportunity for a


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quality education that others receive. Instead of going to a good school, poor and minority

students are being given a sentence behind bars. America, the land of the free.

References

Advancement Project. (2010). Test, punish, and push out: How zero tolerance and high-stakes

testing funnel youth into the school-to-prison pipeline. Washington, DC: Advancement

Project.

Darling-Hammond, L. (2010). The Flat World and Education: How Americas Commitment to

Equity Will Determine Our Future.New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Geronimo, I. (2011). Systemic Failure: The School-To-Prison Pipeline and Discrimination

Against Poor Minority Students. The Journal of Law in Society, 13(1), 281-299.

Giroux, H. (2009). Schools and the Pedagogy of Punishment. Truthout.

Heitzeg, N. (2009). Education Or Incarceration: Zero Tolerance Policies And The School To

Prison Pipeline.Forum on Public Policy.

Hirschfield, P. (2008). Preparing for prison?: The criminalization of school discipline in the

USA. Theoretical Criminology, 12(1), 79-99.

Houchins, D. & Shippen, M. (2012). Welcome to a Special Issue About the School-to-Prison

Pipeline: The Pathway To Modern Institutionalization. Teacher Education and Special

Education, 35(4), 265-270.

Meiners, E. & Reyes, K. (2008). Re-making the incarceration-nation: Naming the participation

of schools in our prison industrial complex.Perspectives on Urban Education, 5(2), 1-13.


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Noguera, P. (2003). Schools, Prisons, and Social Implications of Punishment: Rethinking

Disciplinary Practices. Theory Into Practice, 42(4), 341-350.

Simmons, L. (2009). End of the Line: Tracing Racial Inequality from School to Prison.

Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts, 2(2), 215-241.

Thompson, G. & Allen, T. (2012). Four Effects of the High-Stakes Testing Movement on

African American K-12 Students. The Journal of Negro Education, 81(3), 218-227.

Western, B. & Pettit, B. (2010). Incarceration & Social Inequality.Daedalus, Summer.

Western, B. & Wildeman, C. (2009). Punishment, Inequality, and the Future of Mass

Incarceration. Western Final, 57(1), 851-877.

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Prison is the New School