The major problem affecting schools nationwide: The School to Prison Pipeline. Too many times, students are suspended or expelled and in most instances arrested for minor offenses. Statistics proves that African and Latino students are targeted at a higher rate than white students.
Schools mirror society and in our society there is a war on the poor. Students who are suspended, expelled or arrested at school for disruptive behavior most likely have a parent who is in jail, prison or lives in poverty and this is where they are sent: back home in their impoverished environment. They then become angry and confused. Once they are stigmatized from being suspended, expelled or arrested many decide to drop out of school all together. This is the same thing that people in their community go through. Schools mimic prisons on so many levels. So why are people going to do about this human injustice?
There’s no direct answer for school-to-prison pipeline. School systems need to take a second look at their zero tolerance policies and the power that School Resource Officers (SRO) have as it relates to the arrest of a student. School systems cannot let the people that arrest and jail the parents, to be able to arrest and jail their kids too!
We can talk about the reasons this is happening but we need solutions to putting it to an end.
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This image below is from SuspensionStories.com:
