From School Yard to Prison Yard

In a number of America's upper-income communities, parents like generations of family members before them preregister their children at birth for blue-chip nursery schools in hopes of placing them on the path to Ivy League and other top-tier universities. By contrast, millions of Black and Latino children from poor families with no or few stimulating prekindergarten opportunities never make it onto the college track. With multiple strikes against them -- low birthweight, poor single parents, absent fathers, perhaps substance abuse -- many begin life already on the prison track.

A good education in America is a major determinant of what kind of life a child will have when s/he grows up. A bad education is often a sentence to social and economic death. Education determines future income and social status as well as a child's range of future options and quality of life. Sadly, too many children in economically depressed minority communities are stuck in failing schools, greatly increasing their chances of ending up in a prison cell.

A child's experiences in the dawn of life establish the foundation that will prepare him or her to learn at school. Children in America's poorest communities who lack stable parenting, quality child care and who receive little stimulation in their early years will be behind when they start kindergarten. When they enter first grade, it's likely to be at a poorly funded, overcrowded, understaffed and low-achieving school. Inner-city schools have the highest numbers of teachers who are inexperienced or don't have degrees in the subjects they teach. The number of African American and Latino teachers in public schools has dropped dramatically over the past three decades. In my home state of South Carolina, there are less than 200 Black male elementary teachers. Consequently, too many schools are likely to be staffed by teachers and administrators who have low expectations for children from marginalized families whom they may label as "dumb" or "bad."

Currently, 88 percent of Black children and 85 percent of Latino children in fourth grade can't read at grade level. This is when minority children with poor preschool preparation begin to be sorted out.

The lack of health and mental health care among low-income children is also an important factor in a child's educational development. A child's misbehavior may be a reflection of an unaddressed learning disability or mental or emotional disorder. Regrettably, too few schools have the staff capable of recognizing the behavior of a disturbed or disabled child for what it is, and if they do, are unable to provide treatment. More often, these children are seen as "disruptive," and instead of offering them counseling or psychological therapy, too many educators dispense "zero tolerance" discipline -- usually in the form of suspensions or expulsions. These approaches have serious negative consequences. Numerous studies have demonstrated that students who are suspended or expelled are more likely than their peers eventually to drop out of school altogether.

Once children drop out, or are pushed out of school, the prison pipeline is only one wrong move away. With most churches and mosques closed during the week and too many community centers boarded up, children with few positive alternatives to the streets often head for the "corner," a different type of educational institution that teaches antisocial values like violence and criminal behavior, also glamorized on many of the TV programs they watch.

High school dropouts are almost three times as likely to be incarcerated as youths who have graduated from high school. But dropouts are not the only ones who encounter entryways into the prison pipeline. Many middle and high schools have full-time police officers who can independently arrest children on school grounds for any number of infractions like disorderly conduct, malicious mischief and fighting that just a few years ago would have been handled by families, the schools or community institutions. And now, children as young as five and six are being hauled down to police stations in handcuffs. I think we adults have lost our common sense and sense of plain decency.

There are things we can do. Congress and states must fully fund quality Head Start, Early Head Start, child care and preschool programs that target the neediest children between the ages of three and five to provide comprehensive education, health, nutrition and social services. Schools can adopt Yale University Professor James Comer's School Development Program designed to help children learn by first meeting their individual developmental needs. Communities can sponsor a CDF Freedom Schools® site, a quality summer and after-school empowerment program that instills the love of learning in children and exposes them to caring college-age mentor-teachers. And we can all encourage the children in our lives and celebrate their academic achievements. Finally, educators who do not love and respect the children they are entrusted with preparing for the future should go do something else.

Learn more about the Cradle to Prison Pipeline Initiative at www.childrensdefense.org/cradletoprison.

Follow Marian Wright Edelman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ChildDefender

Comments

[Kansas Evans]

To all: I wanted to respond to a couple of comments, but don't feel like juggling several responses. I hope you don't mind multiple responses.

newunderground-Some of the problem is that black children are taught about themselves: that African Americans contributed little to the country; slavery wasn't that bad; Black English is lazy English; etc and so on. You practically have to buy into the inferiority of yourself and your family and friends to really excel unless someone tells you not to believe the hype. Most high performing students, like myself, are aware that part of socializing students into good Americans is highlighting American good and downplaying American crimes against humanity. Hense, not much is taught about slave resistance; Lincoln freed the slaves. And personally, I enjoyed being the smartest child in the class. Part of black students' lower performance is simply resistance.

LoRise-It's true that poor whites face poor schools as well. But, after years of slavery and employment inequality and sharecropping and weighted cotten gin scales, blacks are disporportionately poor. Also, even though all students act out equally, black students are disportionately suspended. When it comes to crime, a black person are more likely to be jailed for committing the same crime as a white person.

So, what you say is true. So true, in fact, that it boggles my mind that many Southern white Republicans knowingly vote against their own economic interests as voting Democrat not only helps blacks but poor whites as well. But you have to keep in mind that blacks are disproportionately effected by poor schools; and, whites are seen as individuals whereas blacks are seen as a singular group. What effects poor blacks will eventually effect all blacks.

uheardme-studies show it's not a familiar, cultural problem. For example, black children of single-parent homes are as affected academically as white children from single-parent homes. (take note gladiator)

[Mormondude]

You say that kids are stuck in failing schools, and then you say we must put them into the failing school EARLIER?

How does that make any sense at all?

Head Start and Pre-Head Start in a failing school aren't going to help the kids.

A friend was offered free pre-k at the local school, and immediately signed up. After researching the school and finding out it was one of the worst in the whole city, I asked her if she felt comfortable with sending him there. She said yes, but she obviously hadn't researched it herself, and I think she felt dumb about it at the time.

Over the course of the next year, she slowly began telling me different issues she was experiencing. Of the 35 kids signed up, only 7 spoke English. They divided the kids up so that he was in a class with 6 others, and the rest were in their own ESL group. I asked her what was going to happen once they started Kindergarten, and she said they would all be thrown into classes together at that point.

Later on she admitted that she had been asked to be the President of the PTO for the whole elementary school! A woman with ONE child in pre-K, who had never visited the school before in her life! There were so few parents involved that she was a prime candidate!

They ended up moving before the year was up, and her child finished the year in a much better school. Afterwards she admitted that the first school was horrible, and if she had known anything about it she never would have sent her child there.

It sounds outrageous, but these school actually exist. 90% at-risk kids. 90% on food assistance. 70%+ ESL. How can any child succeed in a school like that? And how can anyone argue that a 3 year old should be stuck there in a pre-Head Start program?

The goal should be to get kids OUT of schools like that, NOT to get them in there earlier.

[guajiro]

Just to be clear, we're talking about the lower class of people in this country, right? Well, if so, we need to tailor our schools for these people. 99% of them will not go to earn a bachelors degree, so why are we teaching them biology, Literature, economics,etc.? We ought to start teaching them construction, Instrumentation, farming practices, machine design and building using software, etc., at the fifth grade level. I remember my cousins and all their friends were fantastic musicians, starting their own bands, writing their own music, while still in junior high. By high school, many were making serious money. The reason? They used to allow music enrollment for kids starting in the fifth grade. You know, change the curriculum. Just as we have home provider care for the elderly, we ought to have child education providers for grades kinder through 4th grade. A program wherein visiting educators go to homes where kids, identified as needing help by their teachers, are tutored. A great many single mothers come home in no shape to teach their kids since they themselves are semi-illiterate and dog-tired from work.

[OhgReaTone]

A proper eduction is the inoculation against poverty, crime, and general ignorance. The paradigm of the past, pulling oneself up by one's own bootstraps, is no longer plausible in a complex interdependent culture.
Ohg.
http://thefiresidepost.com/2007/10/21/the-criminal-paradigm-fiddling-around-on-the-roof/

[sculptor]

I totally agree with you. However, this issue is only the mere tip of the iceberg. Increasing inequality between the rich and the poor and what causes it (the destruction of the middle class) will be what destroys this nation. You can put every child on the high road but if all roads lead to hell then it makes no difference in the end.

[BUSHsurvivor]

I agree and funding for education is only part of the problem. The republicans and their corporate-geared policies have created less and less for even the middle class. Family life, neighboorhood surroundings, etc. also play a huge part in whether a child can overcome what are obstacles they are born into.

It is time that the republican party realizes that when everyone benefits, America benefits too. If they help make the middle class and the poor even poorer, that does nothing for our nation as a whole.

[pigsatthetrough]

America and Racism. America and the industrialists and war mongering munitions supporting GOP. Could it be possible that all African Americans decide they have had enough. Twoshort sounds like a national figure of America from a few years back named ALI. Perhaps Obama does not have all the answers, but perhaps there is a chance he would be the needed beginning of real change. Speak up African Americans, this may be your chance. Latinos need to ask Obama questions and heed the answers. Decide if this too may be their chance. Another period similar to the Bush regimes, under Hillary is not going to change things. America is the one truly in need of regime change!

[LoRiseAntlers]

You do realize that there are millions and millions of white kids who don't go to college and who never have corporate careers,don't you?The canard that minorities aren't afforded the same opportunities as rich white people belies the fact that there are many more poor and working class whites than there are rich privileged whites.

This has become more about wealth than it has race.I'm not trying to deny that racial inequality exists here in the United States,but commentators refuse to face the fact that the vast disparity in wealth and opportunity in this nation effect the vast majority of all races.

It is my profound belief that racial tensions in this country are perpetuated by the elites who use them as a tool to keep the poor distracted from the fact they are essentially a slave class,serving to enrich a relative few.

I acknowledge the points you are making as more than valid,Ms.E­delman,but I would implore you and all commentators to try and look beyond race and see the state of affairs as it truly is, a class struggle that the poor and working class,regardless of the color of their skin,are losing.

[klmebane]

wow... i've been saying this for a long time. so many people like to say that if the kids just work hard enough they can overcome their circumstances. the only problem with that idea is they don't have anyone to teach them that they don't have to be stuck in that life.

[newunderground]

When they enter first grade, it's likely to be at a poorly funded, overcrowded, understaffed and low-achieving school.

I agree with most of what you say, but let's quit pretending this is a funding issue. Washington, DC (Baltimore too) spends more per pupil than most jurisdictions. Utah is among the lowest. Sadly, it's mostly a family and cultural issue. Even in upscale communities, Black children do far worse than their peers, even when correcting for income. Why?

[TWOSHORT]

Sometime White washing something can't fide the fact that thing's are happening to Black Folk In White America!Keeping your head in the sand we only work for a while!

[TWOSHORT]

Waking up this morning and watching CNN story on Black Gang's in the south and how the DEA and sheriff in that community created sting's to catch young Black Men selling gun's!Know where in this story was there a solution for those young Black folk living the gang life!Ads by the U.S military needing troop's!!Black Faces of young american's who aren't sharing in the weatlh of this nation are showing up in these ads!Is it really fair to ask those at the bottom to give up there lives for the like of a Paris Hilton?George Bush? DON IMUS?RUSH LIMBURGH?Asking those young Black Men and Women like those in Jena LA to fight for what?Noose story are starting to show up on the nigthly news show's!12-20 MILLION INVITED TO DISPLACE THE BLACK MALE!Come on!Come on!Where are the storys of up lifting the Black Male in America?O there are none i forgot!Why should we go any where and fight people who have done nothing to the American black Man?

[jenevieve]

I would add one suggestion to the list of things we can do: get rid of No Child Left Behind. This program was not designed by persons who know how children learn. With its focus on reading, writing and math and its use of standardized lessons, and frequent testing, NCLB leaves out of the learning process the the very features that make kids want to learn. Children will want to read when they want to know what the words say. Science, geography, history, music and the arts, vocational skills, foreign languages, sociology, psychology, anthropology, etc., open up a child's mind and make him or her a better learner. Creative, interactive, stimulating lessons engage the child in the learning process. NCLB creates fear and anxiety for teachers and students alike - which actually discourage learning. Dump NCLB and let teachers get back to teaching.