Reversing the School-to-Prison Pipeline

Originally posted at www.21stcenturyscholar.org

The realities and perils of the school-to-prison pipeline have been well documented. Scholars like Michelle Alexander and Victor Rios have illustrated the ways in which discriminatory practices and policies criminalize young men of color. And yet, despite all of the data that demonstrate the need to improve public policies and available opportunities, little changes.

Last week, Harvard’s debate team lost to a group of prison inmates. The results spotlighted the positive outcomes of Bard College’s prison initiative, a college program to provide liberal arts education to inmates. In comparison to statewide recidivism rates of around 40%, less than 2% of participants in the Bard initiative have returned to prison.

The news supports recent research that highlights the benefits of education for prison inmates. RAND, for instance, conducted a meta-analysis of studies. The researchers concluded that prisoners who participate in prison education are 43% less likely to return to prison after release and are 13% more likely to be employed. They also note, “The direct costs of providing education are estimated to be from $1,400 to $1,744 per inmate, with re-incarceration costs being $8,700 to $9,700 less for each inmate who received correctional education as compared to those who did not.” From an economic perspective, what more do policymakers need to know?

Education reforms have to address the school-to-prison pipeline. Too many young men grow up in neighborhoods where they are punished for their race and class. Consider a few facts: As of 2010, black men were six times as likely to be imprisoned as white men. The Center for American Progress found that, while people of color constitute 30% of the population, they make up 60% of imprisoned individuals. Considering disciplinary measures in education, including suspensions and expulsions, scholars have widely documented the disparities between white students and black and Latino students.

Too many young men have already been punished. More than one out of three prisoners have less than a high school education. They encounter the compounding problem of not having the skills to enter the workplace and having sanctioned stigmas as criminal offenders—for right or wrong. It is our job to answer a critical question: Do we want to use the prison system to further alienate young men of color—tacitly agreeing with current bad practices and policies—or do we want to help them become better individuals and productive members of society?

The answer seems straightforward.

Tumult at the top

I taught in a district that was a punching bag for critics of underperforming schools. Scandals appeared in local newspapers and on nightly news reports. In my school, teachers then debated the issues, including cheating, sexual assaults, theft, embezzlement, bribery, racism, dropout factories, fired or defecting leaders, and on and on and on. 

At a certain point, dysfunction and scandal became integral parts of our school culture. The best teachers and students were not defined by the merit of their work; they were praised for their ability to excel in such bleak conditions. The most effective administrators were not identified for their ability as change agents; they were recognized for their skills at navigating flawed and corrupt bureaucratic systems. Worst of all, many students stopped believing in education as the great equalizer and started opting out.

Postsecondary education had largely eluded the degree of scrutiny and criticism allotted to secondary education. While politicians targeted high schools for placing the nation at risk, universities continued to be the international standard for academic rigor. As Bill pointed out in a previous blog, scrutiny—and all of the bombastic language and poorly chosen metaphors that come with it—has found higher education.

With student debt at nearly $1 trillion, college is no longer a sure bet. Scandals are only heightening the sense that something is awry. Imagine you are a student who is incurring over $100,000 in debt at USC and you regularly get racially profiled. Even more, imagine you came from a school like the one in which I taught. How would you feel?

St. John’s University, where I am employed, has endured a leadership scandal this year. I asked a few undergrads—both first-generation students from low-income households— about the president’s recent retirement. One student replied, “They talk about all these [Catholic] ideals, then a guy’s gonna take a Rolex.” His friend laughed: “I’d just be happy if my professor answered an email.”

From community outreach to applied scholarship, universities are involved in substantial and beneficial endeavors. For the most part, higher education still represents hope and opportunity. However, one injustice often overshadows one thousand good deeds.

I don’t know what higher education will like in five, ten, or fifty years. The sky isn’t falling (which may be just as worrisome as if it were). Large universities motor on and tuitions and student debts continue to increase. I do know that it’s time to reconnect with core values such as truth and justice and refocus on essential tasks like teaching, learning, and service.

You can put a price on education

I.

I come from a working class family. I am the only one to enroll in a four-year university. To save money, my father asked me to attend community college first. I did. After two years, I transferred to the University of Maryland. A week before classes began, my family’s economic standing changed drastically. I accepted the fact that I could no longer afford college. A few days later, my mother and I sat in the financial aid office at College Park. The officer did not provide good news. As I sat with my head down, my mom leaned over and, with superhero-type strength, said, “I don’t care what we have to do. Come hell or high water, we’ll find a way.” That belief carried me through my B.A., M.S., and Ph.D. To pay tuition, my mom worked extra hours, and I commuted to school, worked a job, and received need- and merit-based aid. 

I have experienced the same sort of unyielding resolve in many of the parents of the first-generation immigrants with whom I have worked. Last year, I sat with Jose and his father in their living room, which also doubled as a bedroom. Jose’s father, who suffered from AIDS, was struggling to find a free health clinic for his toothache. Through sickness, he worked 12 hours a day for six days a week in order to earn less than minimum wage. I asked why he sacrificed so much. He pointed to Jose. “For him,” he responded, “He’s going to college. He will be successful.” This year, Jose is a freshman at UC Irvine.

Higher education provides pathways to opportunity. That is a core value of our country. It is the belief that has guided my mother and me and Jose and his father. But, higher education is becoming increasingly expensive. 

A new report states that one in five households in the United States—compared with one in ten nearly two decades ago—owe student loan debt. In households such as mine, where the heads of household are under 35 years old, the number rises to 40%, over twice the amount (17%) in 1989. Another report indicates that a staggering two-thirds (66%) of four-year college graduates in 2011 had student loan debt, averaging $26,600.

II.

After ten years of higher education and a six-month grace period, the government now wants its money back. I will spend the next ten years paying for my education. On good days, I pretend I am paying for an imaginary Land Rover. On bad days, when I think about owning a house or having a baby, I consider my student loans—along with my wife’s law school debt—and wonder what we could have done differently. The answer is “not much.” We believed in the promise of higher education, and we borrowed what we needed, not what we wanted. 

My wife and I are now members of a growing cohort of individuals with unwieldy student loan debt. That cohort ranges from those who earned graduate degrees and are now underemployed and struggle to repay their loans to others who dropped out after two semesters of undergrad because they could not afford to pay for remedial classes and are now unemployed and in debt. 

How much should students mortgage today for the potential of tomorrow? We can no longer assume the promise outweighs the cost. 

The upcoming presidential election will determine a lot about the future of higher education and our country. For a summary of the differences between the candidates, see an article published during Education Nation. In short, President Obama wants to increase regulation. Governor Romney wants to provide choice. During the first debate, Romney declared, “The private market and individual responsibility always work best.”

To maintain the integrity of hope in higher education and stay another financial crisis in our country, I ask both candidates what they plan to do to create new pathways to college and away from debt.

Providing opportunities to learn

Annette Lareau, in her classic book Unequal Childhoods, develops the concept of concerted cultivation, the targeted development and socialization of children through experiences and activities. She argues that concerted cultivation—as opposed to natural growth—is a key parenting strategy. It is a concept that is so popular, in part, because it makes sense. For my dissertation, I build on Lareau’s work to discuss concerted cultivation across the neighborhood.

A key difference between high and low achievers is what they do during the first three hours after school. For the highest achievers, this time is spent participating in activities that are consistent with concerted cultivation. For the lowest achievers, this time is often spent hanging around with friends, working at a low-skill job, babysitting siblings, or watching television. Each of these activities does little to improve college access.

What can we do to improve college access?

The answer, I believe, is to create extended learning opportunities (ELOs). The National Education Association defines ELOs as “a broad range of programs that provide children with academic enrichment and/or supervised activities beyond the tradition school day and, in some cases, beyond the traditional school year” (p. 1). Although ELOs may include traditional after-school programs, they consist of a much larger and more flexible variety of options such as before- and after-school tutoring, internships, and summer enrichment programs. ELOs ought to appeal to district administrators, in part, because of the flexibility of delivery options. Districts or private partners such as non-profit organizations or universities may provide them. 

The findings from my dissertation highlight the value of engaging teenagers immediately before and after school. ELOs provide structured supervision where adults act as mentors and resource brokers. High school is a time when teenagers have more independence, more choices, and are more apt to explore their environment. By enrolling their children in out-of-class activities, parents structure and control their teenager’s behavior and activity. After-school activities not only protect teenagers from getting into trouble but also improve student grades, participation, and self-confidence.

While comprehensive reforms such as the Harlem Children’s Zone are necessary and important, they are also expensive and unlikely during the current recession. ELOs present a practical option to provide access to social and cultural capital and engender college access.

Blocked access and leveled aspirations

Last week, I recounted the amazing story of Diane, an undocumented first-generation college-goer. If Diane’s story illustrates the promise of higher education, my discussion today highlights the peril of blocked access and leveled aspirations.

I have been privileged to chronicle a critical moment in the lives of teenagers: the senior year in high school. The year is a celebration of endings and beginnings. It marks the end of their high school careers and, to some extent, their childhoods. Each activity, from the first day of school to the last, is imbued with a sense of finality as the end marks the beginning of college and a promising career. 

This year, I interviewed sixty male teenagers at three high schools in a low-income neighborhood. The participants divided into three categories: High-, middle-, and low-achievers. At each level, I asked about college and career aspirations. Admission standards for the students’ target schools rarely matched their grade point averages and standardized test scores. For instance, a teenager listed NYU when his scores indicated that he was more likely to attend UC Santa Cruz. Or, a student listed a Cal State when he was more likely to attend community college. The most solemn appraisals often came from low-achievers, who said something like, “I just want to get to a college.” Unfortunately, they did not know the required steps to get there.

That was fall. Now, it’s spring. For many students, letters of rejection have mounted. They know they will not be attending their dream schools. Some have changed their plans. Rather than attending NYU, they plan to go to St. John’s and then transfer to Columbia or NYU. Others are going to UC Santa Cruz. The third and largest group is still undecided. Their vague plans include going to community college and then transferring. 

Overall, for the high-achievers, the application process has been humbling. They realize that they are not as competitive as previously thought. However, they gained admittance to a decent college and from now until college graduation they have time to make up the difference. For the middle- to low-achievers, the process has been deflating. Today, they enter a critical time in their quest for higher education and social mobility. They will either do what it takes to go to college and their life will be markedly different, or they will not.

What is my point? Secondary and postsecondary education institutions have failed these young men. There is no reason such a high stakes process should be so unsystematic or damaging. 

I have identified two improvements; I invite you to think of more. First, schools at every level need to do a better job of building the infrastructure to get teenagers from high school to college. It is no longer enough to talk about creating a college-going culture. The supports need to be there in order to promote college readiness. Offering college level courses that lack rigor or extracurricular activities where the students meet infrequently and little is accomplished do not equal college access or success. Those classes and activities pad resumes, but do little to get teenagers to college.

Second, the process to get to college should be transparent. At every step of the way, students should know where they stand in relation to college matriculation. Relatedly, data sets are robust enough to provide benchmarks for students. Districts use a range of elementary school data, including students’ attendance and grade point averages, to predict which students are at-risk of dropping out of school. We ought to use the same predictive modeling for college-going. From the data, schools could offer intervention programs for students who are not on pathways to success. That means providing classes before and after school as well as enrichment opportunities throughout the year. We have to capture students’ interest and create conditions for learning, not store promising, capable young men in the corners of classrooms.

We are increasing injustice by waiting until students are eighteen years old to tell them that they do not have the competencies to matriculate to college. And worse, we are allowing strangers to tell them via rejection letters.

The first three hours after school

After the last school bell rings, teenagers have a variety of options to occupy their time. The number of options multiplies due to several factors. First, older age correlates to increased freedom. In addition, parents or guardians are likely to work after school lets out. Second, in urban neighborhoods, teenagers have access to a variety of locations. Friends’ houses, parks, fast food restaurants, and public transit are all within walking distance. Teens are not dependent on rides from parents or older siblings.

From participating in after-school activities to hanging out with friends, what teens do and the people with whom they interact either reinforce or detract from college access. Meaningful after-school activities provide extended learning opportunities and engender college-going behaviors. That knowledge and those behaviors even extend to informal activities such as playing basketball or eating at a fast food restaurant with friends. During those times, teens discuss a range of issues including choosing and paying for college. In contrast, informal activities such as gangbanging or doing drugs have the ability to derail college access. Poor choices out of school lead to poor grades in school. Not only are the teens participating in illicit activities, the conversations differ starkly from those of their more academically engaged teens. 

President Obama is sounding the alarm for increased postsecondary opportunities. At the same time, district administrators are making tough choices. Those choices include which programs to fund and which positions to staff. Unfortunately, after-school activities are often the first to go. The reasoning goes something like, “We have to focus on the core, not the periphery. An after-school college prep program is nice, but it won’t improve test scores.” That reasoning ignores the value of after-school programs, which provide supervision, mentorship, and extended learning opportunities.

If we want to improve college access, it’s time to focus on the first three hours after school.