rethinking schools - articles of interest

8/2/2019 Rethinking Schools - Articles of Interest

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I T I


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ReTHINKIN


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11E D ITO R I A L by the editors of R eth in kin g S ch oo ls

Stop the School-to-Prison Pipeline"Every man in my family has beenlocked up. Most days I feel like itdoesn't matter what I do, how hardI try-that's my fate, too."

- tttb-grade African American student,Berkeky, Calif

This young man isn't being cynical ormelodramatic; he's articulating a terri-fying reality for many of the childrenand youth sitting in our classrooms-areality that is often invisible or misun-derstood. Some have seen the growingnumbers of security guards and po-lice in our schools as unfortunate butnecessary responses to the behaviorof children from poor, crime-riddenneighborhoods. But what if somethingmore ominous is happening? What ifmany of our students-particularlyour African American, Larina/o, Na-tive American, and Southeast Asianchildren-arb being channeled towardprison and a lifetime of second-classstatus?We believe that this is the case, and

there is ample evidence to support thatclaim. What has come to be called the"school-to-prison pipeline" is turningtoo many schools into pathways to in-carceration rather than opportunity.This trend has extraordinary implica-tions for teachers and education activ-ists. It affects everything from whatwe teach to how we build communin-in our classroo~h

__ ,__ ' __u ,~_ __ , __ "~~~r- _- " ...__ = - - - -conflicts with and among oUFSfUdents,-how we build coalitions, and what" de-- . . . _ _ _ _ - -mands we see as central to the fight forsocial justiceallcariorl:-------

- . . . . . . .... _ - - , -,--~.____.-~--_ _What Is the School-to-PrlsonPipellnerThe school-to-prison pipeline beginsin deep social and economic inequali-ties, and has taken root in the historicshortcomings of schooling in thiscountry. The civil and human rightsmovements of the 19605 and '70Sspurred an effort to "rethink schools"to make them responsive to the needs4- WINTER 2011-2012

. . . . . . -

of all students, their families, and com-munities. This rethinking includedcollaborative learning environments,multiculturaI-"cuinculum, stuaent-centered; experient-nttpediigogy=i':ewere aiming fof--eollcation as lib-eration. The back-to-basics backlashagainst that struggle has been morerigid enforcement of ever more alien-- - -ting curriculum,The{ "zero toleran " policies thattoday a.te--'thc:o~reme orm ofthis punishment paradigm were origi-nally written for the war on drugs inthe early 1980s, and later applied toschools. As Annette Fuentes explains(p. 18), the resulting extraordinaryrates of suspension and expulsion arelinked nationally to increasing policepresence, checkpoints. and surveil-lance inside schools.As police have set up shop in schools

acros~ t . ~untry, the. de~. .oo.tfwhat IS cnm_(;jlS.op-pose.d_t9~~h


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'lJ E D ITO R I A L by the editors of Re th in ki ng S cbool sWecannot build safe, creatjye, nurturing schoolsand criminalize our children at the same time.

lif., prison activist and youth organizer,described his .first experience with p0-lice at his school: "I was ILThere was afight and Iot called to the office. Thecop punched me in the face. Iooked atmy principal and he was just standingthere, not saying anything. That to-tally broke my trust in school as a placethat was safe for me."Galvis added: "The more police

there are in the school, walking thehalls and looking at surveillance tapes,the more what constitutes. a crime es-calates. And what is seen as 'how kidsact' vs. criminal behavior ha s ~oWith race. r always think abOut the H St-fights that break out between fraterni-ties at the Cal campus, and how thosefights are seen as opposed to what thepolice see as gang-related fights, evenif the behavior is the same."Mass Incarceration:A Civil Rights CrisisThe growth of the school-to-prisonpipeline is part of a larger crisis. Since1970, the U.S. prison population hasexploded from about 325,000 people tomore than 2 million today. Accordingto Michelle Alexander, author of The

New Jim C row : M a ss I nc ar ce ra tio n inth e A ge o f C olo r B lin dn es s, this is a phe-nomenon that cannot be explained bycrime rates or drug use. According toHuman Rights Watch ( pu n is hm en t a n dPre jud ice : Rac ial Dispari t ies in the W ar onDrugr, 2000) although whites are morelikely to violate drug laws than peopleof color, in some states black men havebeen admitted to prison on drug charg-es at rates 20 to 50 times greater thanthose of white men. Latina/os, NativeAmericans, and other people of colorare also imprisoned at rates far higherthan their representation in the popu-lation. Once released, former prisonersare caught in a web of laws and regu-lations that make it difficult or impos-sible to secure jobs, education, housing,and public ~ d often tovote or se e on juries. AI er callsthis per eqz secon ... izen-ship a new seg'glltion.The impact of mass incarceration

is devastating for children and youth.More than 7 million children have afamily member incarcerated, on pro-bation, or on parole. Many of thesechildren live with enormous stress,emotional pain, and uncertamty. Luis-

Esparza describes the impact on hislife in Project WHAT!'s Resource Guidefo r T een swith a Pa re nt inPr is on o r Ja il :After [my dad) went to jail I kept tomyself a lot- became the quiet kid thatno one noticed and no one really caredabout. At one point I didn't even haveany friends. No one talked to me, so Ididn't have to say anything about mylife .... I nside I feel sad and angry. Inthis world, no one wants to see that, soI keep it all to myself (See Haniyah, p.28, and Sokolower, p. 29.)

Revising the CurriculumAs we at Rethinking Schools began tostudy and discuss these issues, we re-alized the huge implications for cur-riculum. Many of us, as social justiceeducators, have developed strong classactivities teaching the Civil RightsMovement. B ut few of us teach regu-larly about the racial realities of thecurrent criminal justice system. Text-books mostly ignore the subject. Forexample, Pearson Prentice Hall's Unit -ed S ta te s History is a hefty 1,264 pageslong, but says nothing about the star-tling growth in the prison population

RETHINKING SCHOOLS. 5


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E qu ity C on tinu um : A ction fo r C ritic a lT ra ns fo rm a tio n in S ch oo ls an d C lassro om s"The EqUity Continuum developed by the Centrefor Urban Schooling at OISE provides schools andeducators with a smart and effective means toevaluate the work of schools and Insure that allstudents, regardless of their backgrounds. arewell served. I encourage all educators to embracethis cont inuum and put it to good use in pursuit ofequity and excellence for all children. "P ed ro A . N og ue ra , P h.D ., E xe cu tiv e D ire cto r,Metropo li tan Cen te r f()( U rb an E du ca tio n, N YU

Th e took i s putJ jishe:: l by A D if fe re nt P ub li sh er. F or m ore in fo rm a tio n!UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO on the book or to discuss a w ork sh orw ain in g for optimum use,OISE IONTARIO INSTITUTE please go tOhttp :/ /cU5.o lse.u toronto.caorcontactus by e ma il atFOR STUDIES IN EDUCATION cus lnqu lr lesOutoronto.ca o r cal l 4 16- 97 8 -014 6 ,

in the past 40 years.Mass incarceration and the school-

to-prison pipeline are among the pri-mary forms that racial oppression cur-rently takes in the United States. Assuch, they deserve a central place inthe curriculum. We need to bring thisall-tao-common experience out of theshadows and make it as visible in thecurriculum as it is in so many students'lives. As Alexander begins to explorein our interview (p. 13), it is a challengeto engage students in these issues inways that build critical thinking anddetermination rather than cynicismor despair, but a challenge we urgentlyneed to take on. Aparna Lakshmi, aBoston high school teacher, offers anexample (p. 38).'Accountability'and CrjmjnaltzattonThe school-to-prison pipeline is reallya classroom-to-prison pipeline. A stu-dent's trajectory to a criminalized lifeoften begins with a curriculum thatdisrespects children's lives and thatdoes not center on things that matter.Last spring Federal Policy, ESEA Re-

authorization, and the School-to-PrisonPipeline, a collaborative study by re-search, education, civil rights, and ju-venile justice organizations, linked the6. WINTER 2011-2012

policies of No Child Left Behind andthe "accountability" movement to thepipeline. According to George Wood,executive director of the Forum forEducation and Democracy:

B y focusing accountability almostexclusively on test scores and attachinghigh stakes to them, NCLB has givenschools a perverse incentive toallow oreven encourage students toleave.A FairTest factsheet cites findingsthat schools in Florida gave low-scor-ing students longer suspensions thanhigh-scoring students for similar in-fractions, while in Ohio students withdisabilities were twice as likely to besuspended out of school than theirpeers. A recent report from the Ad-vancement Project noted that, sincethe passage of NCLB in 2002, 73 ofthe largest 100 districts in the UnitedStates "have seen their graduationrates decline-often precipitously. Ofthose IOO districts, which serve 40percent of all students of color in theUnited States, 67 districts failed tograduate two-thirds of their students."The more that schools-and now

individual teachers-are assessed, re-warded, and fired on the basis of stu-dent test scores, the more incentivethere is topush out students who bring

down those scores. And the mschools become test-prep academieopposed to communities commito everyone's success, the moretile and regimented the atmosphbecomes-the more like prison. (school-as-prison culture is consiably more common in schools plated by children of color incommunities as opposed to majowhite, middle-class schools, creawhat Jonathan Kozol calls "educatal apartheid.") The rigid focus onp~Ild scripteacurri


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Weneed onemovement-for socialjustice education-

that encompassesboth an end to

the school-to-prisonpipeline and the fightto save and transform

public education.ers, and the powerful role of student-centered curriculum as resistance.Education Activistsand the PipelineAs teachers and education activists,many ofus are active in the fight to saveand transform public schools-build-ing campaigns to end standardizedtesting, to protect our union rights, toprevent the privatization of the publicschool system. At education conferenc-es, there are often well-attended work-shops on the criminalizarion of youthor related topics.But the movement to end the

school-to-prison pipeline and themovement to defend and transformpublic education are too often sepa-rate. This must be one movement-forsocial justice education-that encom-passes both an end to the school-to-prison pipeline and the fight to saveand transform public education. Wecannot build safe, creative, nurturingschools and crirninalize our childrenat the same time.Teachers, students, parents, and ad-

ministrators have begun to fight backagainst zero-eelerance policies-push-ing to(ge{ ri~ ~g __toleraE.Ct; laws,and creating alternative-approachesto .safe school communities. that .relyon restorative justi~~.Q~ CO!!!Ifl.1}.I}jtyoiiitdirig instead "oLgim,!na1ization.(Se~Raga, p. 33.) A critical'pTec'e ofthat struggle is defying the regimen ofscripted curriculum and standardizedtests, and building in its place creative,empowering school cultures centeredon the lives and needs of our studentsand their families.

n d

An agenda forSOCIALCHANGE

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Some of the most exciting work cal connections to our own work willwith youth is being built around cam- enable us to build a viable, principledpaigns to stop police harassment in m~~~nt.fQF ..uE.licedm:;ation.-~schools and on the streets, stop gang----:-'-" Our resistance grows from class-tinjunction legislation that criminalizes i rooms that are grounded in our stu-"young people on the basis of what they! dents' lives-academically rigorous andwear or where they live, and increase \ also participatory, critical, culturallybudgetsfor- ~,~Cfa.t~t \~


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Los Angeles is not the only plawhere heavy-handed policing has bcome a problem that advocates sputs students at risk of dropping ouFrom New York to Florida to Texathe combination of zero tolerance poicies and the increased role of police-in schools and on the streets-has lto an alarming number of suspensionexpulsions, and contact of ever-youner children with the criminal justicsystem.How did we get to this point?

Zero to leran ceand the criminalizat ion of ch ildren BY ANNETTE FUENTE S

Aweek before classes ended last spring, rj-year-old Diana Navawas waiting with her mother, Modesto, for the Los Angeles city busthat goes near her school. Even though her mother had awakenedDiana early, she was behind schedule. An LA police officer patrol-ling for truants spotted them at the bus stop and gave Diana a ticketfor violating the city's daytime curfew. "My mother said, 'She's onher way to school' but the officer said it didn't matter." For being late,Nava and her mother would have to go to court and face a $250 fine,a loss in time and money they could illafford.Nava was one of a dozen LA stu-

dents who testified in August 2011about their experiences with the tru-ancy sweeps by LAPD officers andLA school police that have resulted innearly 50,000 tickets since 2004. Thehearing was called by Judge MichaelNash, head of LAs juvenile court sys-tem, in response to five years of orga-nizing by parents, students, and youthadvocates against what they see as un-fair and ineffective policies. Supposed-ly designed to improve student atten-dance, this aggressive truancy policinghas discouraged students from goingto class and often pushes them to dropout and into harm's way. "TruancyAnn et te F u e nt es ( a ju e nt eJ I2 3@gma i i. com ) ist h e a u th o r ofLockdown High: When theSchoolhouse Becomes aJailhouse (VtrrObooks .comlbooks ISSSlockdown-high) .

r8.WfNTER 2011-2012

tickets playa role in the school-to-prison pipeline," said student CinthiaGonzalez at the hearing. "Students arebeing brought up in an environmentthat is a pre-prisoning ofyouth."Jose Gallego's story is a case in

point. The zj-year-old explained: "I'ma high school dropout. I was supposedto graduate in 2008, but I missed afew days of school because my parentswere going through a hard time. Theykicked me out of school. So, then Istarted selling CDs downtown. I wasarrested for selling CDs, I was lockedup, and I got out with a whole differ-ent perspective. I never had been injuvenile detention. I didn't know whatto do. I started selling drugs. Now I'mlost. I've got a little brother and a littlesister, they don't look up to me any-more. I'm a two-time convicted felon.It's hard for me to get ajob."

Zero To'erance-The War on DrugsBecomes a War on YouthThe term "zero tolerance" was fircoined during the Reagan presidencand the war on drugs in the 1980Congress enacted the Drug-FreSchools and Communities Act in 198bringing the war on drugs to schowith rules that mandated zero toleance for any drugs or alcohol on publschool grounds. During the Clintoadministration, Congress took zetolerance steps further, passing th1994 Safe and Gun-Free Schools Acwhich mandated a one-year expulsiofor students who brought a firearmto school and pumped federal deparments of Education and Justice funding into antiviolence programs. Youtespecially African American and Ltino males, were considered by crirn


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ALEC ICKY CUNN

The presence: of police Inside public schools has led to rising ratesof arrests of students for minor violations of disciplinary codesor simple youthful hijinks that In another era would have landed

a student in the principal's office.RETHINKING SCHOOLS. 19


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The NYPD'sschool safety division has more than officers,making it the fifth largest police force Inthe country.

in thethe 1999

cemented theidea that young and theschools inhabited were UdH14'CH~U"

indeed,Fear of school violence grew and

has the dear down-ward trend in documented incidentsof violent crime in schools, Since 1993,accordmz to reports issuedthe National Center for Educa-

tion incidents of violence inschool have been Itis a downward trend that echoes thesame crime drop in the nation as awhole. But fear of crime in schools has

and common sense in"L"a~nu.o; HVH-',,-" at the state and localonce focused on drugs, alcohol, andguns, now targets an ever-expandingrange of behaviors.In districts across the

the presence of insideschools has led to

III

abound of even young childrenfor A

Yale Child foundstudents were

C""IJCI1CU from school at a ratethree times that of K-I2 students. Inthe a col-lective fear of terrorists has also col-ored as schooldistricts around the haveadded to codes of conduct rules

"terroristic threats,The most immediate and visible

numbersstate school

agencies over the last decade. Califor-schoolsuspen-

sions of students the 2009-IOacademic year. It was second only to

where 1.6 million JU"I-''-U.HW,,were ordered that sameLone Star's school oonulationjust 4.7 million.

54percent of students in the state wereonce be-

back 25 years. Skiand other researchers suthat: when teachers are

rienced or come from racial and clavery different from t

"cultural discotinuities" can create adversarialnarnics in the classroom.

H.,a",,,, poor classroom managand stereotypecan lead to authorita

U"\.iIJHUC> and overrelianceDrastic cutbacks in counselo

and other support exacebate the to an

of overreaction in a SFrancisco school,until executive directorColeman Advocates for Children aYouth, noted: "Our concern (is}thelocation of resources to policing athe increased to push d

issues into the hands of tA dean w

it:"In the last 20 years, a

Police in the Schools


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matched by a police presence inschools that would have been unimag-inable a generation ago., For example,in Texas, Augustin:a R ey es, a professorof education itt the UniversityofHous;'ton, began researching suspensions inpublic schools in 1998. Reunt1y, shesaid; "zero'. tolerance hu escalatedto a new level," as police. issue ticketsfor minor student, code:i violations.Disrupting class, using profanity, act-ing up on a school buSt truancy, andfighting in a school hallway can leadto a class Cmisdemeanor ticket and acourt appearance for the.: student andher/his parent; plus: cours.costs.of upto $;oo~In the ao01;"OS:schoolyear;an estimatedzej.ooo nol1-traffieclassC tickets were issued to, juven i les inTexas, she reports,"My students did court'. visitations

in the spring and they foUndJustkeofthe Peace Courtswith~many"lIs 200students' orr t h e 1( 0 a.rn, coUIt"dcick-et- lIS from highschool;8Q fton:t mid-dle school, and'ro from~.etementaryschool," she said ina p n o n . interview:Of those cases, 85 percencof ticketedstudents were minoritii$oreconomi.:.cally disadvantaged, Reyes.: said;. andthe financial burden-orrparenrs wassignificant, Although; the.' judge typi-cally defers senrencesvand. requiresperfect attendance for. t W O : to threemonths, Reyes noted that the, courtaction creates a criminal. record forstudents as young as 6 years okL"Thecases we heard clearly need [instead}school interventions:' that: requireteachers and, administrators to comeup with focused family interVentions."Although policing in: schools isn't

new- Flint. Mich.., had. the ' first dtypolice officer assigned to, a publicschool back in1953-itWaSn'tuittil the1990S that police officers becamewide-ly deployed on school campusa Afterthe 1999, Columbine shootings. theU.S. Department ofJustite started theCOPS in Schools program, expandingan earlier school policing initiative;which makes grants to school districts

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to hire school resource officers (SROs).U rider President. George . W. Bush , theCOPS program doubled in scope, andhas given dose to $1billion-to 3,000school districts nationwide to hire6';00 SROs. A smaller-initiative by thedepartments of Education and HealthandHuman Services has spent another$10 million to fund SROs. Althoughthere are no centrally tabulated sta-tistics on the total number of policeofficers or SROs operating in publicschools, data collected by the National

Center. for Education give some idea,In a 1999 NCES survey, 54 percent ofstudents said their schools had eitherpolice or security guards; in 2007 (themost recent year for which data areavailable), 69 percent didPolicing. in some school districts

is done b y the ctyor town's own p0-lice or sherifpif departmenes.. In NewYork City, school safety w as put underthe control of the New York PoliceDepartment when Rudolph Giulianiwas mayor in the 19905. The NYPD'g



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Bulldlnl fortres Schoolscurity and surveillance technology are also an important pan: of the

uro toleranc.e mode l of school safety an d discipline. For th e nearly $20b illio n U .S . security industry, schools represent a fertile market, accordingto the Security Industry Association, a trade organization. etal deteCtors,surveilbnce cameras, and cuttins-edge technologies-indudiJ18 biometricsystemS that use individual identifiers such as fi.ngc-rprints an d are commonin prisons-an: promoted for use in schools.Eleven pereeae of all students attend schools that use metal detecton;S8 percent of srudents attend school under the watchful ey e of surveillancecameras. With a total pub lic school popu lation of some 26 million. simplemath says tbar fo r millions of chiJdrm. being scanned and monitotedhubecome as much a pan of their dal ly education as learning to read andwrite.In on e indiCatOl' of how important security technology hu become: in

schools, when tM trade rnapzine StaIrity publ ished the -Security 500:its6nt r a a . k i D a of the "bigat and the best security programs in theUnited States, pub li c. schoo ls rated a prominent place. The list includes 14public: school distric.ts-m of them in Florida. Ranked 291, the HoustonIodependent Schoo l DUtrict wu rated highest a m o n s schools-and onestep aboe semiconductor giant Intel,Houston', place among security he2V)"hitters w as well deserved. TheH ISO budpted SI8.9millioo for "security and monitorinK' for tbe 2007-08 school year; three years and a recession later, despite drastic cuts infund.in& they budgeted $10.S million for the tOlO-U school year.

school safety dMsiop.has more than5,000 officers, ~ng it the fifth.largest police force of any kind inthe country-larger than the policeforces of Boston, Detroit, Las Vegas,or Washington, DC, according to areport from the New York Civil Lib-erties Union. The report, using 2.009data, notes that the city's budget fo ..policing and securitj' equipment in theschools increased 65 percent, toppingS2.21 million.The Advancement Project inves-

tigated policing in several school dis-tricts where arrest rates had soared.In 200} they published Derailed! TheScboo/hotm to]ttiIIJotm Track. Browne-Dianis; whet authored the report, said:"I got into this because I was work-ing with a Mississippi district wherethe school policy was that any studentinvolved ina fight-even kids in argu-mears=had.ro be sent to youth court.where they could get tined S I5 to $500or probation of six months to a year. Inever suspected when I {started look-ing} at this data that we would be find-ing children arrested for disorderly

conduct or hattery on ~ school boardemployee." , .. ... ' .Policing and punjtive disciplinary

approaches to chool saftty' conrrib-ute to a chool climate' t h a t is actuallymore dang roUs, not safer. Educationprofessors Matthew M~, and, pe;.:.ter Leone studied school Yiol~q:: andstrategies for, ~~ating .safer Schoolsback in 1999 sid found thatschOouwith more curitymeasUres-ind~ing metal detectonf}Ock~ doors, andsecurity guan: l ~para~oxJcal lyhad a"higher level ofdisordCL"They calledit a "cycle of disorder" in which suchrestrictions: and controls actually ere-ated a "reciprocal, destructive rela-tionship" with students. ... who live ina "heightened state of fear.".That cycle of disorder is com-pounded in the pressure-cooker con-ditions that. too many public schoolsexperience, under' the accountabilitymovement of the last decade. Mayerand Leone revisited school safety i s - -sues in a 2004 article that examinedthe "fit" between a school's agenda andthe needs of students and their fami-

lies. A big disconnect between the twocan result in problem behaviors, theyargue, and the mandates of No ChildLeft Behind and the high-stakes test-ing movement it feeds can create a badfit, leading to suspension and academicfailure. "Students who are margin-ally successful in school may be at in-creased risk for exclusion and may bedisciplined for negative behaviors dis-proportionately." they wrote. "Schoolsdesperately seeking to improve theirtest results may embark on an unwrit-ten campaign to drive academicallyand behaviorally at-risk students outof the school, This could set the stagefor increased acts of aggression and vi-olence around school as these studentsare marginalized academically and so-.allv,"C1.u..lEnding,%ero Tolerance-Communities Figirt BackThe high costs: to students; teachers,and public education of zero tolerancediscipline and policing in schools iscausing a backlash in some districtswhere community organizing is target . .ing practices like LA's truancy sweeps,After years of protests, the city's Boardof Education adopted a policy to im-plement districtwide a program calledPosit ive Behavioral Interventions andSupports (PHIS), a skills-building,nonpunitive strategy, as the officialdisciplinary policy, erasing zero toler-ance from the books. Although it hasbeen implemented only slowly and un-evenly in the public schools, activistsare hopeful that it can spark a culturechange that will encourage students tostay inschooL On policing. LA advo-cates have scored some success, too.Both the LAPD and the LA school po-lice have announced that they will nolonger conduct truancy sweeps duringthe first hour of the school day in orderto avoid ticketing students who wouldbe late for school, not truant. In Chi-cago, restorative justice is part of a re-vised student code of conduct. Denver


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The high costs to students, teachers,and public education of zero tolerance disciplineand policing In schools Is causing a backlash.

also revised their student disciplinarypolicies under pr~nn: fr m parent,student, a nd l eg al o rg a ni ze rs .P al m Be ac h, Fla..,\ one of the dis- .triers featured in thetrailtdl stUdy.The district's police d p. remenr w asarresting students attronomicalrates. The county's legal ervices ad-vocates were grappling with in ceasedcaseloads as students overloaded the.juvenile justice courts; BarbaraBriggs,director of the Educational j\dvocacy'Project for the Legal Aid Society ofPalm Beach County, saw .pelicing>spike.sharply after the: -Columbineincidenti/'Thac 'tarted the zero tol-erance language~Andfrom :uro tol~erance for, students vith weap n "itreallj morphedto zero tolerance forbehavior typical of adolescents.After years spent: defending .sru-

dents who'd been pushed out of dis-trict schools fur minor misbehaviors.Briggsi along with- tl;l~Legal' AidSociety" of Palm Beacb-~Co~nty, theSouthern Poverty Law E:entel',andSouthern. Legal Counsd;~harged thedistrict with violating a state educa-tion law that protects ia l educa-tion students, who were:dispropor"-tionately hit with P osioR Briggssaid the strategy of going,to the stateinstead of to the courts m:one rea-son fur the relatively quick action onthe complaint. The s o u t f i e m PovertyLaw Center had seen. suclr a strategyused successfully by theSduthemDu..ability Law Center and wanteti~to tryit in Florida. "When you 0 tocourt,you never get to t h e meriU,*:' he said."This is w hy we l i tc.e>thestate com-plaint venue. It's avenue that gets youstraight to the issues"The serrlement is "everything we

wanted," Briggs said. It requires thedistrict to contract with a consultantwith "school-based experience and na-tionally recognized expertise in PBIS.All schools in the district are includedand all school staff=from b us driv-ers to principals-will be trained in

PBIS and a new code of conduct willbe crafted that changes the paradigmfrom punishment and suspensions tobehavioral corrections and' individn-,ally designed plans: fur students with ..persistent problems:"The analOgy that the consultanttalked about stuck with me: If a stu-.dent makes a math error, you, don't '.send them home. Yon keep teaching. and; you never stop reaching math.And. the' same is true for social' skillsand behavior errors. You reward themfur dOing it rightt Briggs sakL "An


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push-out zones.~ , ~, - i ,Irstarted harmlessly enough. This

September I returned as a volunteetto the s c h o o l where I taught fo r morethan .two decades' to co-teach juniorEnglish With a fabulous teacher; Di-anne Leahy. Forty studentsarestuffedinto our classroom. The school dis-trict instituted another new schedule

'.'

Erika. Daily it rook.so long. to settlethe students downthar: Dianne andI. were. exasperated by : how little realwork students completed, We battledcompetition with c U phone and sidetalking, as wel l as frequent- interrup-tions due to students strolfins intoand ou t of the classrOOm o : r pluggingin their cell phones or Wads whilewe attempted to demonstrate a writ-ing strategy. In addirion; to the lackof forward movement on reading andwriting during the dayj students didnot complete their homework. Em-barrassed by their behavior and theirskimpy work, Ihoped that no onewould walk inand see us totally at themercy of these 16 - and 11-year-olds.We tried to build relationships.

Dianne found out what sports .kidsplayed, who danced, who was a cheer-leader. who loved skateboarding. 1watched her kneel in front of kids asshe passed out. folders with a word ofpraise or a question that demonstratedshe c ar ed - a b ou e them as individuals,Because 1 was out of the class durinthe opening. days of. the year. Ifol-lowed her lead, attempting.to connectnames to faces and faces to aspirations.While out on a hike after a parricu-tarly frustrating day, I remembered aformer student, Sekou, who returnedfrom Morehouse College with a st


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Tlfeschoola.to-prlson pipellnebeglnswhen.w. fail to;creataa curriculumand a pedaIOd.t.,a~COnnect$ with students~ that takes them seriously

, ' " ~as Intellectu~. tha* lets students know we care about. them. that gives"them the chance to' channel their pain and defiance Inproductive ways.



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Classrooms that opt out of the school-to-prlson pipelinewill look and feel different, but each one will share certain

features: It will take the time to build relationships,and It will say, 'You matter. Your culture matters.

You belong here.'it sounds like what school isabout. Myhuge mistake was asking them to signthe paper-and to participate in a ritu-alwhere wewalked back into the class-room saying, "I am a scholar." Who didIhink Iwas-Michelle Pfeiffer fromDange rou s Minds?I brought the document to classand distributed it to students. They ac-cepted the first bullet-do your work-but when we got to cell phones, Sierrasaid, "I'm not signing. Itext duringclass, and it doesn't interfere with mywor~Her voice brought a flood of oth-ers; Me1arue said, "I'm not signing, Ialready-do my~work,~Ursula second-ed that. Vince agreed. Then Jasminesaid, "1 only pledge with God," Kevingave her a high five, and several oth- .ers laughed and wadded up the paper.I'm not sure if it was Jason or Victorwho said, "Let's all not sign. What canthey do? They can't kick all of us out ofclass," .Ihad a moment of pure panic. Ten.minutes into a 90-mmute period, andI had a revolt on my hands. Part of mewas horrified asIwatched the class co-alesce into one angry swarm, and partof me thought. "Hot damn. We have aclass of activists." This is the point atwhich my jo-plus years in the class-room and my memory of other hardyears helped me weather the momentIcould have sent Victor, Sierra, andothers to the dean's office with refer-rals for insubordination, beginning anout-of-control relationship that wouldteeter between their defiance and mydesire to control the classroom. Whenthe class chaos tips a teacher to insti-tute measures that tighten the reins b ymoving defiant students out of classand sending them to the disciplinarian(which moves them one step closer tothe streets), she's lost the class.As classroom teachers we wield an

enormous amount of power to conerolstudents' destiny. Dianne and I are de-termined to keep all of these studentsin junior English. but it is conceivablethat a teacher with 40 students mightwant to cut a. few, especially thosewho resist. Because we have taught:for many years, we know that we will'win most students over, but this ex-perience made me wonder about thenew teacher down the hall who doesn'thave that history of a beautiful Juneclassroom community to recall,The tide' rumed when one of thefootball players said, "I want to. playGrant on Friday tlight, so I'm si~iog" A number of other students fol-"lowed' suit. Theyeven\V3lked out ofthe-classroom and returned saying. "Iama scholar."'They didn't go throughthe arch of hands I had in envisioned,nor did they say'it like they believed i t , .. but we.did make it through the class,although students looked at me like Iwas a rattlesnake for the rest ofthe day.

This incredibly misguided move onmy part reminded m e thae studentsneed to be engaged inmeaningful cur-riculum and to develop relationshipswith their teachers and each other.There is no short cut to making thathappen. Although Imight believe thatthey are brilliant, in that moment Iwas a white woman in a community ofcolor taking away students' perceivedrights and treating them disrespect-fully. And although both Dianne andIreturned to this school because welove the kids it houses, the studentsdidn't know us, and didn't have anyhistory with us that would ease theslide into the new year.The night of my fiasco I lookedback over the students' records. Twoof the 40 had passed the state read-ing and writing test given the previousyear-tests they now need to graduate.Only 15of the 40 are on schedule to

get their diploma on time; the otherhave failed two or more classes. Thesestudents were primed to revolt. Theycarry failure like a dirty rag behindthem, and our opening acts had beenall about rigor and improving theirskills, not about developing a relation-ship that valued them and made themfeel competent.In these days of record unemploy-ment, when. parents are losing jobs aswell as homes, and few have resourcesfor college, we need to create a cur-riculum that demonstrates an inter-est and understanding of our students'heritage by stUdying their history orliterature or language or statistics thattouch onthefr lives. The curriculumneeds to acknowledge that their livesare imporrane.' and worth studying.The' fact that they come to schoolwhen they've experienced so muchfailure andwhen the future seems sobleak isin itself a heroic act.While we weren't studying Haw-thorne or Emerson, we hadn't createda curriculum that made them feel sue-cessful, significant, or curious. And acurriculum must do that, especially ittmarginalized communities where stu..dents experience the oppressive condi-tions obeing over-policed. Classworkneeds to be about big, important ideasand connected to their lives.Curriculumand the PipelinePartially, fear of students failing topass the tests fueled our opening days.We created an alternative readingwork sample out of Sherman Alexie'sexceUent essay, "Why the Best KidsBooks Are Written in Blood" (Fall20ll R eth in kin g S ch oo ls ), so we couldascertain students' reading ability. Butstudents didn't engage, and because wewanted a dean read of their abilities,we hadn't primed the pump enough to


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