[RSCT] Cradle-to-prison, not cradle-to-college

[Monty Neill]

I think the points in the immediate piece and the links from it are powerful and important. Sec. Duncan says the nation needs to turn around 1000 high schools a year for next 5 years. How will any proposals they develop address the issues raised here (which also are relevant to elementary and middle schools)? By holding 25% of the world's imprisoned people (with only 5% of the world's population), the US has created a multi-generational disaster, with wide effects on schools as well as communities. As for testing, the dangerous illusion that tests and sanctions will solve these problems must be laid to rest and NCLB's role in that swept away (and with it turning schools into test prep program completely unable to address the needs of most children) before the country can grapple with real issues of educating all children well. Monty 


from PEN Newsblast:
Cradle-to-prison, not cradle-to-college
In The San Francisco Examiner, columnist Caroline Grannon asks: Why are so many black boys disrupting class? She reproduces a post on the blog Perimeter Primate, which deems these kids part of "the incarcerated class" -- those who are pre-, currently, or post-incarcerated, and their offspring. This echoes a recent essay by Marion Wright Edelman on a cradle-to-prison cycle that entraps many of the urban poor. To the blogger's mind, "The extreme numerical escalation of this group is what feeds the interest in charter schools. The non-I.C. parents who live in areas where members of this class are numerous are desperate to separate their kids from the offspring of the incarcerated class." I.C. kids are an expanding population in public schools, yet educators are failing to meet the specific challenges these students bring. "Legal arguments and important civil rights concerns have all restrained public schools from developing the strategies that would be necessary for dealing with large numbers of kids from the subgroup of children experiencing risk factors that increase the likelihood that they will end up in prison." In her opinion, their behaviors are a social disability, and treatment should be funded accordingly. "Bad school climates are what drive parents away. Public schools will need a great deal of help to manage their increasing numbers of this most-difficult-to-educate population."
Read more: http://www.examiner.com/x-356-SF-Education-Examiner~y2009m4d7-The-heart-of-the-education-crisis-the-incarcerated-class
Read the blog post: http://perimeterprimate.blogspot.com/2009/04/where-sociology-criminology-and-charter.html
See Wright Edelman's essay: http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/marian-wright-edelman-child-watch-column/Cradle-to-prison-pipeline-americas-new-apartheid.html

Note: the second link is a longer version (but not too long) of the first one, it appears - and is the one most worth reading. 

Monty Neill, Ed.D.
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