Prison + Education

Preschool to Prison: How do Pressure and Punishment Feed the Pipeline?
June 28th, 2016

"The school-to-prison pipeline starts (or is best avoided) in the classroom." Marilyn Elias

As an educator, the concept of a pipeline, or pathway that students may take, or rather be forced down, from the classroom straight into the prison system is disturbing. Emotions I feel around the issue include disbelief, frustration, and even helplessness. After all, what can I do to curb this crisis? According to Marilyn Elias, the crisis needs to be dealt with within the four walls of my classroom and all other classrooms around the nation.

For five and a half years I taught at a public middle school, transitioning recently to a public charter school. In terms of discipline, the differences are extreme. The traditional public middle school operates under the PBIS system, which stands for Positive Behavior Interventions and Support, a system which responds to positive and negative behavior with rewards and consequences.

The basis for the program is that students generally respond to different tiers or levels of positive and negative reinforcement. The graphic below establishes that an estimated 80 - 90% of students need only the basic interventions, 5 - 10% will need “targeted intervention” while a very few, 1-8% will need intensive interventions, which may include IEP behavior goals or behavior plans.

The system was and I assume continues to be implemented by the school through the form of a tracking system. Students are given what is called an “infraction log” and a “stamp page,” both of which are stapled within an agenda that they can use to copy down assignments and keep track of due dates. On the stamp page, students receive stamps when they behave positively. The infraction log is labeled with the date, and on one side is a coded list of infractions, or misbehaviors, that a teacher can track by recording the infraction code, their signature, and the date.

These infractions range from gum chewing and talking at inappropriate times to profanity and bullying. Major misbehaviors such as fighting, drug use, or bringing weapons to school would result in an immediate referral. For the smaller behaviors, however, the build-up is cumulative: the more signatures you get in an area, the more likely you are to receive in-school suspension, which takes you out of the classroom.

What does PBIS have to do with the preschool to prison pipeline? The NEA reports that PBIS "complements restorative practices," however, it could indicate that there is no bandage or easy fix to implicit bias and racism. Although the system has the promise of increasing the equity of the discipline within schools, Teaching Tolerance notes that while expulsions have overall decreased for the student body as a whole, there is still a disproportionate number of students of color receiving “harsher punishments” (Teaching Tolerance.) While the system offers an easier way to document behaviors, there is still no way to ensure that the individuals doing the documenting sees the misdeeds of certain students while ignoring the behaviors of others. From my experience, even under the PBIS system, students of color are still facing higher rates of punishment.

The PBIS system is used nationwide in conjunction with suspensions and, increasingly, violations doled out by school resource officers, sometimes resulting in minors being charged with misdemeanors. Increasingly, behaviors that were once handled in the schools are being criminalized. Marilyn Elias, in an article for Teaching Tolerance, notes that zero-tolerance policies have resulted in “children far more likely to be arrested at school than they were a generation ago,” mostly for “nonviolent crimes” (Elias, 40). Zero-tolerance policies create immediate consequences for actions without considering the whole child, a policy with which the NEA disagrees.

The disturbing reality indicated by statistics is that certain groups within the school system are experiencing a higher rate of punishment and generally harsher punishments through these systems, processes, and programs. In an article written for The Nation, Steven Hsieh highlights racial disparities in the school system citing disheartening facts:

• Black students were expelled at three times the rate of white students (Hsieh).
• Black girls were suspended at higher rates than all other girls and most boys (Hsieh).
• Black students as young as four years old are already facing unequal treatment from school administrators.

In synthesizing all of this information, evidence shows that the zero-tolerance policies in addition to rigid discipline systems and the presence of school resource officers has created a snowball effect in which infraction builds up on infraction and misbehavior builds upon misbehavior. Things that are minor infractions, such as perceived disrespect, talking at inappropriate times or behaving loudly, are criminalized and could add up exponentially into an expulsion or criminal charge.

When this process and pattern begins in school, there is a likelihood of the pattern pressing the individual experiencing it into prison. After expulsion without educational support or services, many students do not graduate or receive a GED. According to Carla Amurao, 68% of all males within the state and federal prison system do not have a high school diploma.

Clearly, the process of punishment within the education system builds and impacts the students as they transition into adulthood. And, this impact is weighted heavily on the communities of color, as indicated by the 1 million African American individuals imprisoned today, as cited by the NAACP. This is nearly half of the total number of Americans currently incarcerated.

While systems such as PBIS offer a chance at more equitable distribution of punishments, in my opinion, this is not enough. Educators on every level, from bus drivers all the way up to superintendents and even further to representatives of statewide departments of education should experience diversity training. There are many programs that offer strategies to assist educators in understanding the individual differences between students and determining which tools will best assist them in the class.