In the United States, school districts and juvenile courts operate in a collaborative paradigm, a collaboration that was never expected. Nonetheless, the partnership has thrived over the last few years, courtesy of a punitive and harmful framework, which is often referred to as the school-to-prison pipeline (Mallett, 2015). The pipeline is facilitated by a set of policies that ease the students' likelihood to face criminal charges than attain qualified education. Additionally, nonpublic schools are predominantly white populated, which increases the population of minorities in public schools. The academic performance gap between whites and minorities tends to be greater in districts where more students enroll in the nonpublic school system. Academic underachievement in public schools, therefore, contributes to the school to prison pipeline (Fernandez, 2015). The contribution occurs in two ways, the first being that underachievement increases the chances of incarceration. Secondly, poor performance leads to misbehavior and defiance, especially if punishments accompany the poor results. Consequently, poor results are punished through frequent expulsion, suspension, or referral to a law enforcement agency. The misbehavior continues throughout the students' future life leading to incarceration. In addition to shifting from urban to suburban schools, white students also move to private schools, thus fleeing public institutions. School districts suffer from the loss of white students, but as (Bankston III & Caldas,2000) puts it, such institutions are prejudicial and racist at best. Such an increase is problematic as it causes the problems of white flight, leading to segregation. This is because educational success is not only influenced by the campus but also the students' background (Bankston III & Caldas,2000). Racial segregation is worsened by President Trump's regime, which has continuously demeaned many historically marginalized groups. The results of that are more bullying and harassment of the historically marginalized groups reported by teachers (Todres, 2018).
The Proposal Audience
The sole purpose of the proposal is to inform all stakeholders, including administrators, department Deans, school academic advisors, teachers, career counselors, Chairs, Student Services team members, and Vice Presidents on the need to evaluate nonpublic schools' role in promoting the school to prison pipeline. The proposal will consider other factors such as Trump's effect on students as well as school districts and juvenile courts' collaboration and how they affect students' academic life. Lastly, the proposal will suggest amicable solutions for the problems.
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The Proposed Solutions to the Problem
The school-to-prison pipeline has its complexities, and hence there is no easy solution to the problem. However, some solutions can eradicate the problem, which can be implemented from the institutional level. The solutions should focus on amicable ways to improve the academic life of students by making sure that they remain in school, graduate, and become respectable members of society. Moreover, the solutions should gear towards minimizing and, if possible, eradicating suspensions, expulsion, and using law enforcement agencies to punish students. The solutions can go beyond the school parameters into federal governments and the president. Currently, federal laws do not allow governments to provide enough resources, especially to public schools (Mawdsley & Cumming, 2012). Subsequently, such laws should be reviewed and amended to provide much-needed resources. The federal and local governments can collaborate in providing resources for counselors, mental health services, mentoring programs, and after school services. A deficiency of the resources causes disparities, which is why changing the laws and providing resources could reduce the gap. President Donald Trump should also be held accountable for his sentiments. The president's divisive tactics refuel the hate that minorities were experiencing. For this reason, an oversight committee should be created to combat the effects of his racist regime. Additionally, he should apologies for the names that he associated minority groups with.
School officials and lawmakers must propose, implement, and support measures to scale back and possibly eliminate harsh disciplinary measures. Some of the harsh measures, which include using school resource officers and zero-tolerance policies, interfere with school learning, and contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline. The harsh policies can be replaced with evidence-based policies. For instance, schools can improve classroom instruction and teacher management skills. There is a link between students' bad behavior and the teacher's management skills, and therefore, improving the skills will equate to change in the behavior. In the same way, learning institutions can provide training for school officials. Training improves their understanding of the student behaviors and will know how to handle them instead of proposing harsh punishments for some harmless crimes that are solvable within the classroom. Finally, the stakeholders can join forces and improve the school climate. One of the factors contributing to misbehavior is an inhabitable learning environment. Therefore, educators should improve their school's climate. For example, educators can implement restorative justice, prioritizes the relationship of school community members at the center of the students' educational life. In doing so, the focus will shift the harms and misbehavior towards engaging victims, repairing harms, and fulfilling the needs of students.
Advantages of the Solution
The proposed solution focuses on the students. Instead of emphasizing on the policies and measures, the solution puts the students at the center. In doing so, the solution focuses on ways to reduce and eradicate misdemeanors and harsh punishments by providing simpler workable incentives. What is more, the solution aims at bridging the gap between nonpublic schools and public schools by increasing resources to public schools. The solutions are simple, which means that apart from changing laws, they are doable from the school's perspective. This is because most of them focus on eradicating the root cause of the school-to-prison pipeline by streamlining behavior right in school.
Disadvantages of the Solution
Some of the proposals, for instance, changing laws for the governments to provide more resources for public schools, may take a while. This is because lawmakers have to sit and debate. Even if they are reviewed, the change may not be felt as quickly as hoped. Similarly, holding President Trump accountable for his sentiments over minority populations is a wild goose chase. Considering his prowess in giving excuses and shifting blames, the apology that could hopefully build bridges and reduce the spread of hate towards minorities may never be given. Furthermore, the oversight committee can be bullied by the president, as he is accustomed to bullying his way out of uncomfortable situations that he created.
Why the Advantages Outweigh the Disadvantages
While policy and law-based solutions may take a while to be implemented, school-based solutions can be implemented immediately. As noted above, school-based solutions focus on improving student behavior by rectifying systems and procedures that were unfavorable before. In comparison, eradicating harsh punishment and no tolerance policies sounds more realistic than waiting for an apology and change of heart from President Trump.
Conclusion
In retrospect, nonpublic schools are often advantaged and filled with white students. The minority groups flock public schools whose environments are not conducive to learning. The environments breed misbehavior and defiance, which is often met with harsh punishments, no tolerance policies, and law enforcement increasing the school-to-prison pipeline. President Trump worsened the situation by using racially offensive descriptions on minority groups, and that led to bullying directed to such minority student groups. The proposals made to rectify the situation include changing laws to provide resources for schools, improving classroom instruction and teacher management skills, and improve their school's climate. Doing so will reduce disparities between public and private schools and also reduce the school-to-prison pipeline.
References
Bankston III, C. L., & Caldas, S. J. (2000). White enrolment in non-public schools, public school racial composition, and student performance. Sociological Quarterly , 41 (4), 539-550.
Fernandez, A. (2015). Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Whether Senate Bill 100 Will Address Problems Specific to Students with Learning Disabilities. Pub. Int. L. Rep. , 21 , 147.
Mallett, C. A. (2015). The school-to-prison pipeline: A comprehensive assessment . Springer Publishing Company.
Mawdsley, R., & Cumming, J. (2012). Government regulation of non-public schools in the United States (US). International Journal of Law & Education , 17 (1), 39.
Todres, J. (2018). The Trump effect, children, and the value of human rights education. . Family Court Review , 56 (2), 331-343.
