The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CNCF) in conjunction with the Annie E. Casey Foundation held a forum: “Reversing the School-to-Prison Pipeline for African Americans and Minorities: Comprehensive Programs, Practices and Policy Solutions.” The event took place March 18 on Capitol Hill.
U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), Congressional Black Caucus chairman, spoke passionately about the need for lawmakers, policymakers, and the public to understand the school-to-prison pipeline and how it negatively impacts people of color. “The reform of the criminal justice system is the centerpiece of our agenda,” Butterfield said. “The criminal justice system is broken and is in need of reform and repair. The way things are going, we are creating a generation of unemployable men and women for a lifetime.”
The U.S. Department of Education reports that African-American and Latino students are significantly more likely than their classmates to be suspended or expelled, 3.5 times and 1.5 times respectively. The department’s statistics reveal that although Black students represent 16 percent of student enrollment in the country, they represent 27 percent of students referred to law enforcement and 31 percent of students subjected to a school-related arrest.
In addition, various studies have found that low-income students are consistently over-represented in the use of out-of-school suspension and even middle and upper income Blacks students are more likely to be suspended than their peers at the same demographic level. Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.), considered the expert in Congress on issues relating to Black males and incarceration, said the school-to-prison pipeline is indicative of larger problems in the country.
“Our country is the most incarcerated nation on Earth,” Davis said. “Black boys drop out by the third grade and they have never had an African-American teacher or seen an African-American male reading a book. To many Black boys, education is seen as a girl kind of thing and Blacks students are subject to horrific approaches to discipline.”
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), leading the CBCF’s effort to address poverty, said the House Democratic leadership is committed to ending the school-to-prison pipeline and noted that income inequality among the races must be recognized as a symptom. “Black students suffer from the highest poverty rates of anyone and they are three times as likely to be poor than Whites,” Lee said.
House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) agrees with Lee in a wider context. “The middle class is either shrinking or standing still,” Hoyer said. “People must have the means to become middle class.”
While Debra Rowe, executive director of Returning Citizens United, didn’t attend the forum she is familiar with the problem. “I know about the school-to-prison pipeline but D.C. needs to acknowledge it,” Rowe said. “Many teachers in the schools discipline children without understanding that the reason the child may be acting up is because of a medical disorder.”
D.C. Council member David Grosso (I-At Large) has sponsored hearings and events that talk about the school-to-prison pipeline. In response to unreasonable school suspensions, he is the chief sponsor of the “Pre-K Student Discipline Amendment Act of 2014” that would prohibit suspension or expulsion of a student in pre-kindergarten age from any city-funded educational program. Grosso’s bill has the support of all council members.
Rowe endorses D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s proposal for an all-boys school to help stem the pipeline. She also said that there is a widespread misconception about young people in the District’s school system. “Kids are automatically looked at as bad if they come from a bad neighborhood or go to a bad school and that is not the case,” she said. “Plus, kids are expelled from school as young as 13 and 14-years-old when they act up but there is no follow-up by the school system as to why the child is misbehaving.”
