Middle School Syllabus

The school-to-prison pipeline in the United States is a figure of speech used to describe the increasing patterns of interaction students have with the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems as a consequence of procedures used by many school systems. A specific procedure would be the zero tolerance policies and the use of officers in schools. Currently in today’s American schools many children of color are being unfairly judged and treated by the public school systems zero tolerance policies. Zero tolerance policies have been implemented in schools in the last 20 years that include inserting school resource officers in schools and cracking down on all behavior that any authority figure may deem as a form of bad behavior. The policy is based upon deterring future misbehavior and is central to the philosophy of zero tolerance, and the effect of any punishment on future behavior is what defines effective punishment (Skinner, 1953). Zero tolerance policies causes the school environment to feel more like a prison and ultimately leads to black and Latinos being judged and guided to the prison system. A zero-tolerance policy orders predetermined penalties or punishments for specific wrongdoings.

Over the past decade disciplinary issues in the schools have increased. Children are no longer showing respect to those in authority. This problem has caused students to not only decrease in their academic achievement but also decrease in their real world social development. African Americans are amongst one ethnicity group to experience bias. In the context of school discipline, race and gender stereotypes particularly function to criminalize African American youth and to reinforce cultural beliefs about perceived inherent behavioral deficiencies and African American cultural norms in need of “social correction” (George, 2014). African Americans are placed in the stereotypical norm of having discipline problems in the schools. Especially African American girls. In a 2014 national data report, African American girls accounted for 12% of all suspensions (George, 2014). With that being said, African American girls are suspended at least “six times the rate of white girls and more than any other group of girls and several groups of boys.” (George, 2014) This is a huge problem in our schools that needs to be addressed.

Zero tolerance policies are the catalyst for the School-to-Prison pipeline. The problem with zero tolerance policies rely on several different factors. Even though, the vision for zero tolerance policies is clear in the sense that safety is a main priority, A ten year study of zero tolerance policies conducted by the American Psychological Association concluded that the use of these overly harsh policies "did not improve school safety." Since these policies are not increasing school safety it is a clear indicator that change in disciplinary methods is necessary. Additionally, these overly harsh policies create racial disparities mainly focused on minorities. The reason for these racial disparities particularly arise from implicit bias. Unfortunately, student of color and minorities are disportionately represented in suspensions, expulsions, and arrests. Exclusionary discipline principles disproportionately lead the youth, particularly minorities, from classrooms to court and prisons. Racial disparities within school’s disciplinary actions is clear when looking at discipline rates. The Civil Rights Data Collection, gathered by the US Department of Education, graphed suspension rates and disparities in a national test sample during 2012. Figure 1 portrays the ratio of white students that constitute for a little more than half of students enrolled in school while black and hispanic students constitute for less than

Racial disparities in school discipline have garnered recent attention in national reports issued by the U.S. Department of Education and Justice (U.S. Department of Education, 2014; Gregory, Hafen, Ruzek, Mikami, Allen, & Pianta, 2016). Suspension rates Black students are two to three times higher than those from other racial and ethnic groups. Various research has documented that Black students remain overrepresented in school discipline sanctions after accounting for their achievement, socioeconomic status, and teacher- and self-reported behavior (Gregory et al, 2016). There is a difference as to the reasons why White students are sent to the office versus Black students. Black students are sent to the office for subjective reasons such as “disrespect” and “perceived threat”, while White students are more than likely to be referred for more objective reasons including, smoking, vandalism, and leaving school without permission. (Gregory, et al, 2016). African Americans and especially African American boys, are more likely to be disciplined and often receive more out-of-school suspensions and expulsions than white students (Todd Rudd, 2014). Suspending students is taking away time from them being in the classroom. Students who receive suspensions, lose instructional time, fall behind on course work, become discouraged, and ultimately drop out…recent research has shown each suspension a student receives can decrease their odds for high graduation by any

School data suggests that the decision to suspend or excel a student depends on several factors including prior history of the student, particulars of the situation, and the teacher’s ability to manager classroom behavior (Skiba, 2003). However observations of classroom behavior show that the majority of students removed from urban classrooms were not primarily due to dangerous or major infractions of disciplinary policies and usually they weren’t even the worst offenders.

Schools that are low performing have the highest rates of suspension and expulsion and the lowest graduation rates. According to Mississippi Today, “the dropout rate for students fell slightly to 11.8 percent in 2016, the lowest in five years.” If I were to eliminate funding as a barrier, zero tolerance policies would still exist- especially in public school systems in the South, amidst people of color. Zero tolerance policies are obstacles put in place for small infractions performed by students, which can lead to disciplinary actions such as: corporal punishment, detention, and suspension. These small infractions may be in the form of getting up without permission, excessive talking, etc. Schools should offer more alternative measures, which counsel students on their misbehavior and give the student an opportunity to amend his or her actions. These methods fall under a restorative justice model. Community organizations, like Nollie Jenkins Family Center, have proposed alternatives such as peer mediation and conflict resolution to help keep youth in a learning environment, off the streets, and away from a life of crime. A case study performed by Philadelphia Police School Diversion Program, discovered that after counseling students for infraction their number of juvenile arrests and suspension “dropped by 54%.” This could potentially be a catalyst in bending the moral arc in the direction of justice,

Schools are institutions where acquisition of knowledge is fostered in a nurturing milieu. In 1994, when Congress passed “The Gun-Free Schools Act”, also known as the “Zero Tolerance Policy” by many, it was intended to provide students and educators with a safe environment conducive to learning. Nonetheless, “the real result of these policies is not safer schools, but significant adverse effects, such as severe disruption of students’ academic progress in ways that have lasting negative consequences” (Juvenile Law Center, 2014). However, over the past 25 years, opponents of the Zero Tolerance policy has decried it as a “school-to-prison pipeline believing that it does more harm than good.

Out of school suspensions (OSS) are often enforced with the assumption that students receiving the suspension are less likely to repeat the problem behavior in the future. However, this has been proven to be false. Suspending a student for engaging in a certain behavior does not in fact serve as a deterrent from the behavior but as a deterrent from attending school instead. In actuality, receiving just a single suspension can increase the probability of a student experiencing academic failure, school dropout, and involvement in the juvenile justice system. Knowing this, some educators still believe that for many students, suspension can serve as an effective lesson. One of the greatest concerns that educators and administrators face is the matter of classroom management. It is part of their job to ensure a safe, productive and supportive classroom allowing students to learn and grow to their greatest potential. Though there are several strategies gauged towards managing a classroom, the most severe offences often lead to either in or out of school suspension. Some of the largest concerns faced with out of school suspensions is that they are often ineptly applied, used unfairly against students of color and seemingly ineffective at producing better behavior. Also known as exclusionary discipline, the majority of offenses that led to OSS have not been centered around violence but instead emphasised issues of classroom insubordination and defiance. In some rather extreme cases

In the 1980s, there was a policy shift toward laws that were tougher on crime. The public perceived that violent and serious juvenile crime was rising and that the system in place was not effective. Mostly, this was due to a misunderstanding regarding the increase of juvenile crime. Regardless of that, many states passed laws that mandated tougher punishments.4 This shift in public and political perception created a phenomenon that has continued to develop since the early nineties– zero-tolerance policies. The adoption of these policies in school discipline practices has considerably increased the number of children and adolescents suspended, expelled, and arrested for minor offenses in school.5 In recent years, we have seen public schools

Schools where the population of students is predominately African American and/or Latino, educators and administrators perceive a “racial threat,” which has been shown to affect their reactions to problematic student behaviors. The more a school has more of a population of students of color, the higher the likelihood that punitive exclusionary discipline will be used in response to disruptive and problematic student behaviors (Morris, 2012).

The zero tolerance policy has become a national controversy in regards to the solid proven facts that it criminalizes children and seems to catch kids who have no intention of doing harm. Although, there has been substantial evidence to prove that the policies enforced in many schools have gone far beyond the extreme to convict children of their wrongdoing. The punishments for the act of misconduct have reached a devastating high, and have pointed students in the wrong direction. Despite the opinions of administrators and parents, as well as evidence that zero tolerance policies have deterred violence in many public and private schools, the rules of conviction and punishment are unreasonable and should be modified.

Schools districts have had to really balance the interest of the whole school, the student body, teachers and faculty . . . as well as the rights of individual bad actors. The ability to strike that balance, and to do it fairly, more than likely influences the effectiveness of the zero-tolerance policies. Whether or not zero tolerance is effective brings about more argumentative material. Statistical data reports a significant drop in school homicides following the 1999 school shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton,

In my personal experience, I have discovered that the Zero Tolerance policy exhibits discrimination. According to Curran (2016), the zero policy is an approach that comes in the about in obligatory removal of any students who aims one or more indicates offenses. The plan addresses a substantial systemic issue and the actuality that schools abandon the obligation to teach the most stimulating understudies. One of the essential reactions of zero tolerance is that such arrangements do not generate impartial results for all learners and the late research has displayed significant gaps in disciplinary rates by race (Curran, 2016). There is an advancing quantity of youth denied instructive, opportunity within this policy. As stated by Curran (2016),

I learned so much from working on this project. To begin, I learned the history behind why zero tolerance school policies exist. These strict policies were created in response to the Columbine shooting. Essentially, they remove situational discretion from school officials and institute mandated minimum penalties that often include police involvement for drug, weapon, and violence offenses on school grounds. I now have a better understanding about how these policies work well for students who are not at all inclined to be a threat, but have little influence over students who want to bring great harm to others. I also learned in what ways zero tolerance policies effect students lives. These policies lead to increased rates of school dropout, discriminatory application of school discipline practices, and fuel the school-to-prison-pipeline. In addition, they reinforce students’ identities as “problem students” and limits student opportunity to learn. The factors that promote this are suspension, expulsion, citations, and arrests used to handle

School violence has become of the most pressing educational problems in the United States. Gang violence and high profile shootings across the nation cause concern within schools. Communities struggle to understand why these events take place and how they can be prevented. The overwhelming response to solve the issue of violence in schools is the increasing societal pressure to execute zero tolerance. Zero tolerance is driven by the educational philosophy, policies, and practices of school communities. Stakeholders expect schools to be a safe place for staff and for students. Stakeholders assume that a positive classroom environment, safe students, and school enjoyment are conditions necessary to create a positive climate where learning takes place. This assumption can be backed with research. A calm classroom environment, teachers’ management of disruptive behavior, and students’ view of school safety are factors that have been found to directly correlate with student achievement in the classroom (Ma & Willms, 2004). Safety and a feeling of not being threatened during school hours have been found to be important to students’ achievement. Failure to remove a disruptive or an unruly student from school has been found to have a negative impact on achievement and creates a great risk to school staff and students (Garbarino et al., 1992). Teachers cannot teach and students cannot learn in an