How Education Policies Funnel Poor Minority Students into Prisons

A Literature Review by:

Lucille Lu
July 2014






Introduction
In a time where Americans create and reform educational policies in attempt to better
educate our youth with the constraints of limited funding, I cant help but notice where the
money is going: jails and prisons. Since the 1980s, as a result of the War on Drugs and a push
towards being tough on crime, there has been a dramatic increase in the U.S. prison population.
With over 2.4 million in state and federal prisons, our country now has the highest incarceration
rate in the world. Instead of tackling crime though, profit-making businesses took the
opportunity to build an empire. Best known as the prison industrial complex, this rapid
expansion of prisons has much to do with the political influence of private prison businesses and
companies and a source of profit and cheap labor, and less to do with stopping crime (Heitzeg,
2009). Of course, in order for the business of mass incarceration to continue operating
successfully, it calls for a continuous flow of prisoners which wind up being people of color or
low-income socioeconomic classes more often than not. The racial disparities that exist in
prisons are extraordinary despite no statistical difference in crime rates (Heitzeg, 2009). Despite
any real differences in crime rates, African Americans account for nearly 50% of the
incarcerated population and 45% of all juvenile arrests while they only make up 17% of the
youth overall population (Advancement Project, 2010). Black men are also eight times more
likely to be incarcerated than whites (Western & Wildeman, 2009). Data shows that only 1/10
low-income kindergartners graduate college and yet a greater number ends up in prison (Darling-
Hammond, 2010). Why is this the case?
Another overarching theme about the incarcerated population is their low level of
education on average. Approximately 70 percent of state prisoners and 52% of all state and
federal prisoners have no high school diploma and the average prisoner education is at an
11th grade level, whereas only 15% of adults for the overall population do not have a high school
diploma (Western & Pettit, 2010; Meiner & Reyes, 2008). Serving prison time has almost
become a norm for black males who have dropped out of high school. Through the rise of mass
incarceration and the prison boom, this has become increasingly the case. While only 10 percent
of young black male dropouts were in prison or jail in 1980, this rate climbed to 37 percent by
2008 (Western & Pettit, 2010). These striking facts portray the link between low levels of
education, especially in racial minority groups and low socioeconomic classes, and incarceration
rates.
Given the statistics, we see the huge connections between education, particularly urban
schools, and prisons (Hirschfield, 2008; Houchins & Shippen, 2012; Meiners & Reyes, 2008).
These connections between educational inequalities and the prison industrial complex can only
exist through the support of existing systems and institutions outside of the criminal justice
system itself. Darling-Hammond expresses that inequality is an active policy (Darling-
Hammond, 2010). This paper examines those inequalities as they pertain to our schools and how
educational inequality plays a role in incarceration. More specifically, how do education policies
funnel poor minority students into prisons?

The Children Left Behind
When Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2002, school reform
began to focus on improving test scores (Thompson & Allen, 2012). While it may have had good
intentions, this only resulted in narrowing the curriculum, especially in low achieving schools,
and widening the opportunity gap (Darling-Hammond, 2010). Instead of ensuring all students a
high quality education, high-stakes testing and accountability-based reform made it extremely
difficult for teachers to engage students in the classroom. School administrators and teachers
from financially strapped schools had to meet demands to boost standardized test scores and
push out low test scores. This contributed to student apathy, especially in low achieving schools,
where the classroom became purely about producing high test scores. The quality of education
has only become worse as a result of NCLB, especially for African American students. It has
been accentuated that curriculum should be made culturally relevant and interesting, yet the
overemphasis of testing and elimination of art, music, or recess was what came out of these
reforms (Advancement Project, 2010; Thompson & Allen, 2012).
In a questionnaire given to students, 75% of African Americans said they had not learned
what they wanted about their culture, whereas only 36% of white students felt this way. More
African American and Latino students also felt that they were not being prepared to survive in
their communities, and that classes were boring (Thompson & Allen, 2012). The
disproportionate effect high stakes testing has on minorities and low-income students is partially
due to where they live, being more likely to have less resourced schools, less qualified teachers,
and narrowed educations due to underperforming on tests. "This reinforces underlying resource
inequities, causing these students to receive a double dose of punishment for policymakers'
failure to address educational inequities" (Advancement Project, 2010, p.27). When teachers are
reportedly spending a quarter of their time or more focused on standardized tests, alienating and
labeling students as failures, how can we claim to be providing quality education to all?

Teaching Becomes Discriminatory Disciplining
As a result of unsuccessful legislative attempts to improve education such as NCLB,
students became subjected to over-disciplining in schools, attend segregated schools systems,
and must deal with the over policing of schools (Geronimo, 2011, p. 284). In addition to the
testing and accountability based reforms, the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994 caused schools to
mimic policies. Very soon, school punishment became increasingly based on uniform procedural
and disciplinary guidelines as Zero Tolerance policies emerged. Beginning in the 1980s,
coinciding with the up rise of mass incarceration and the prison boom in the U.S., schools began
adopting these punitive policies such as Zero Tolerance. Students were being severely punished
for misconduct in the classroom and suspensions and expulsions grew rapidly (Geronimo, 2011).
Zero Tolerance spread rapidly in the early 1990s as the criminalization of minor infractions for
students continued (Hirschfield, 2008). Schools implemented policies that imposed harsh
penalties for first offenses of harmless behaviors. One of the major effects of this practice is that
it caused schools to closely resemble the culture of prisons (Giroux, 2009). "What were once
called disciplinary issues for school administrators are now called crimes" (Heitzeg, 2009, p. 2).
This preoccupation of discipline and order soon took priority over academic rigor, teaching and
learning (Noguera, 2003). However, this practice which continues in our school systems today
although there is no evidence that zero tolerance policies actually improve safety and security or
quality of learning (Advancement Project, 2010; Heitzeg, 2009).
In addition, this type of disciplining, with more of a focus on discipline and order rather
than teaching and learning, happens most frequently in the underachieving urban schools
(Noguera, 2003; Advancement Project, 2010; Heitzeg, 2009; Hirschfield, 2008). The same
children who received the most negative impacts from high stakes testing and curriculum
narrowing had to now deal with a focus in the classroom on pure disciplining. Zero Tolerance
policies disproportionately affects the poor, students with disabilities, and racial minorities,
especially African Americans (Noguera, 2003; Heitzeg, 2009). Rather than helping students who
may be struggling in school, instead we punish the ones who face the biggest academic and
personal challenges. This closely resembles our criminal justice system, duplicating the
punishment model rather than a rehabilitative approach to help individuals. In addition to
approaches in punishment, school systems also reflect patterns in the criminal justice system
through the disproportionate racial minority groups being punished (Hirschfield, 2008).
Minorities and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds are punished more severely than
Whites for the same behaviors (Advancement Project, 2010; Thompson & Allen, 2012;
Hirschfield, 2008). This additional inequality is said to be at least partially caused by racist
stereotypes. Poor black and Latino male youth are particularly at risk in this mix of demonic
representation and punitive modes of control, as they are the primary object of not only racist
stereotypes but also a range of disciplinary policies that criminalize their behavior (Giroux,
2009, p. 5). Punished, criminalized, suspended and expelled. With all of the disadvantages and
inequities that exist in the schooling system, where are the students left to go?

Labeled, Marginalized, & Funneled
Schools, supposedly a safe place for students to learn and grow and be treated equally,
has increasingly become just another institution that labels and marginalizes poor and minority
youth. Teachers and school administrators, striving to maintain order and improve test scores,
will punish and push out students that face challenges and difficulties. Given fewer educational
opportunities and harsher school punishments, the marginalization of poor and minorities in
schools ends up increasing the likelihood for prison (Geronimo, 2011; Simmons, 2009). In
society, instead of addressing the needs of individuals who misbehave, incarceration serves as a
quick fix. Similarly, marginalizing students can be attractive because schools will no longer have
the task of educating low achieving students and it artificially boosts accountability test scores by
pushing them out (Geronimo, 2011). By labeling students to be in need of discipline, control or
exclusion and thereby future prisoners, schools increase the risks of incarceration for them as
they face frequent suspensions. It can be a self-fulfilling prophecy; similar to tracking in schools,
some students are 'fast tracked' to jail (Hirschfield, 2008; Noguera, 2003).
What is now commonly known as the school-to-prison pipeline is a pathway, implicating
the educational system in the structuring of the incarceration path, which appears to actively
collect school-aged youth and funnel them toward a future in prison (Simmons, 2009). Labeling,
alienating, and dehumanizing students only push them out of the schools and into prisons
(Advancement Project, 2010). Streaming from certain educational policies and reforms,
schooling and education becomes an integral component of the prison industrial complex. The
systems of discipline and control that now exist in schools feed students into prisons and are
designed to insure an endless stream of bodies into the PIC (Meiners & Reyes, 2008; Heitzeg,
2009). Is this intentional or accidental, and what can we do stop this?

Implications & Recommendations
Educational inequality in policy and reforms such as zero tolerance and high stakes
testing result in pushing minority, low-income, and students with disabilities out of schools and
into the pathway for incarceration. Recognizing that the school-to-prison pipeline exists, the
problem becomes identifying potential ways to minimize and ultimately eliminate this
phenomenon. The first step is to stop focusing on tests and what other countries are doing, and
start considering what is good for the U.S., especially students from underrepresented
backgrounds. The needs of poor and minority students have never been a priority for most
reformers, and we must make the needs of students a priority. In addition, in order to provide
educational equity, all students must be viewed as being capable of academic excellence
(Thompson & Allen, 2012). Low scoring tests do not translate to being without potential, and
teachers, school administrators, and policymakers across the country must start realizing this. In
addition to the testing and accountability-based reforms, we must eliminate zero tolerance
discipline policies and give all students an equal opportunity for a high quality education
(Advancement Project, 2010). Zero tolerance and other harsh disciplinary policies, which truly
reflect the criminal justice system, have never been proven to be successful and only cause more
harm than good. Both school and criminal justice systems should return to a less punitive and
more reparative approach, addressing the needs of struggling individuals (Heitzeg, 2009).
Although ridding zero tolerance policies and high stakes testing is a step, meaningful
education reform needs more than just that. In addition to education policies, the larger
framework of the criminal justice system, residential segregation and unequal housing, as well as
perceptions of poor and minority students that encourage marginalization, all needs to be
changed (Geronimo, 2011). The impact of the framework entirely affects our school system
today and inequalities will continue to persist if this isnt addressed. We must focus on social
justice instead of criminal justice, including policies that improve opportunity, employment, and
a legitimate economy for poor inner-city neighborhoods (Simmons, 2009; Western & Pettit,
2010; Western & Wildeman, 2009). How much longer can we allow poor minority youth to be
funneled into prisons? As we continue to ignore problems and inequalities that exist, how can we
truly say that we live in a democracy? Our youth deserves more (Giroux, 2009). They deserve
education policies that treat individuals equally, and that offer hope and the opportunity for a
quality education that others receive. Instead of going to a good school, poor and minority
students are being given a sentence behind bars. America, the land of the free.



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