October 8. 2014
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Page 9
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Purpose is to Educate Not Exclude Children
Decriminalizing
school discipline
by
M arian W right E delman
I believe the purpose of public
schools is to educate not exclude
children and to help identify and meet
child needs, not make children serve adult
convenience, self interest, and systems.
So huge reforms are required in school
discipline policies and practices across
our nation as school pushout has wors
ened in past decades w ith the
criminalization of children at younger and
younger ages aided and abetted by school
expulsion and suspension policies which
funnel children into the prison pipeline
often crippling them for life.
Nationally, the number of secondary
school students suspended or expelled
during a school year increased about 40
percent from 1 in 13 in 1972-73 to 1 in 9
in 2009-10 although we know suspen
sions are more harmful than helpful to
children.
Schools with higher suspension and
expulsion rates have worse school cli
mates, lower student academic achieve
ment, and are often less safe. Racially
discriminatory school discipline policies
contribute to the cradle to prison pipeline
crisis with a black boy bom in 2001
having a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison
in his lifetime and a Latino boy
a 1 in 6 chance of the same fate.
The March 2014 report from
the U.S. Department of Educa
tion Office for Civil Rights in
cluded troubling findings on how
unfair and excessive school dis
cipline policies can be beginning as early
as preschool. But there is some encourag
ing news. Some school districts are sig
nificantly reforming their discipline poli
cies and, more fundamentally, how they
view and treat children by moving away
from harsh and exclusionary policies to
ward more positive and restorative ap
proaches that improve discipline outcomes
and keep children in school.
The Children’s Defense Fund applauds
such school district actions and hopes
that districts across the country will fol
low.
The Los Angeles Unified School Dis
trict, the second largest in the country,
has the largest school police force in the
nation closely followed by New York. Of
approximately 9,000 arrests and tickets
issued to Los Angeles children in the
2011-12 school year, 93 percent involved
black and Latino students.
In May 2013, after years of struggle,
community organizing, and advocacy by
many organizations — the school board
adopted sweeping policy reforms. It elimi
nated suspensions for the subjective catch
all category known as “willful defiance”
and directed all district schools to imple
ment PBIS (Positive Behavior Interven
tions and Supports) and restorative justice
programs to ensure students access to
schools that reflect caring, inclusive, safe,
and healthy learning environments.
The district will stop issuing citations
for most campus fights and many other
minor infractions. School police will fol
low a step-by-step formula that should
result in students being referred to off-site
counseling, mental health services, or other
school- and community-based solutions
for offenses that until now sent them to
court or probation.
Juvenile Court Judge Donna Groman
said about the new protocol: “Juvenile
court should be the last resort for youths
who commit minor school-based offenses.
The education system is better equipped
to address behaviors displayed at the school
level through restorative justice and other
alternative means.”
I agree with Judge Groman and applaud
the Los Angeles district and hope we can
promote their new policy both nationally
and statewide as a model response. Youths
with serious attendance problems are be
ing sent to counselors instead of court
rooms in a return to common sense. I
have never understood why we exclude
children from school for not coming to
school rather than finding out why they
Improve
We’re all in this
together
by
T iffany W illiams
Lolita Lledo spends
all day talking on her cell
phone, texting, and
checking her Facebook page,
though not for the reasons you
might think.
As the associate director of the
Pilipino Workers Center in Los
Angeles, she relies on social net
working to keep in touch with
home care workers.
These caregivers help seniors
and people with disabilities to
bathe, dress, and prepare food,
allowing them to thrive in their
own communities rather than go
to nursing homes.
Many of the people Lledo works
with were nurses, teachers, and
engineers in their home coun
tries. Now they’re working long
hours in isolation and typically
earn only about $21,000 a year.
Lledo’s group provides logisti
cal and emotional support. It’s
also organizing caregivers to im
prove labor conditions in one of
the nation’s most precari
ous lines of work. The Fair
Labor Standards Act ex
empts their industry from
minimum wage and over
time protections.
The “companionship exemp
tion” dates back to 1974, a time
when the kind of care workers do
in homes nowadays was done in
institutions. Last year the Depart
ment of Labor finally issued new
regulations — but delayed imple
mentation until January 2015.
Private home care agencies and
other industry groups are lobby
ing for an even longer delay and
E d it o r :
Wage Workers
have sued the Department of La
bor to permanently block the pro
tections altogether.
The International Franchise As
sociation, which represents ev
erything from 7-11 to KFC, is
leading the charge. Why? Because
home care happens to be one of
the most profitable lines of work
for franchises.
Realizing how much they have
in common, low-wage workers
from a variety of industries are
joining together to demand a liv
ing wage, bringing many con
sumers along with them.
Organizers like Lledo have re
alized that pitting workers against
M ich a el L eighton
E xecutive D irector :
C reative D irector :
Rakeem Washington
P aul N e u feld t
O ffice M anagf . r / C eassifieds :
A dvertising M anager :
crisis.” That’s because both sides
of the working relationship are in
trouble. Home care workers can’t
afford to put food on the table,
and seniors are already struggling
to get Medicaid to cover all the
hours of home care they need.
Lledo and I work together
through Caring Across Genera
tions — a national effort to align
worker rights, disability rights,
and senior rights organizations
into a unified campaign. We be
lieve that most families would pay
more if they could afford it.
Consumer advocates say bet
ter pay and working conditions in
the industry would translate into
less turnover and higher quality
care.
In the retail industry, big box
stores pay so little that many
workers stocking their shelves
rely on public assistance pro
grams like food stamps to cover
their basic needs. That means
taxpayers are actually subsidiz
ing low wages for those work
ers. The same is true for nearly
half of all U.S. home care work
ers.
From coast to coast, low-wage
workers are sparking change by
getting consumers to join their
efforts.
Tiffany Williams works fo r the
Global Economy Project at the
Institute fo r Policy Studies.
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are not coming to school.
We know what works and what doesn’t
work for children and need to place the
highest priority on keeping students in
school, safe, and learning. Engaged stu
dents and communities working with com
mitted educators are showing that change
is more than necessary — it’s possible. It
is critically important that public schools
entrusted with educating and preparing
children for college, work and life stop
feeding them into the juvenile and criminal
justice systems with zero tolerance poli
cies especially for nonviolent offenses like
tardiness and truancy or catchall subjec
tive offenses like disruption or disrespect.
Denying a child an education is hardly in
the child or society’s best interest.
As our nation’s children become ma
jority non-white in 2019, greater sensitiv
ity and awareness of the children being
taught is essential and precautions must
be taken so that “differentness” of race,
gender, culture, and special needs or gifts
are better understood and respected.
No child is expendable and every child
deserves a right to learn and grow up to be
the best they can be. We must increase the
positive momentum that is building so
once again schools educate children, help
meet their individual needs and prepare
them for the future.
Marian Wright Edelman is President o f
the Children's Defense Fund.
Olivia Olivia
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