{"id":7,"date":"2017-04-13T10:16:01","date_gmt":"2017-04-13T14:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-fall-2014\/?page_id=7"},"modified":"2017-05-15T12:52:38","modified_gmt":"2017-05-15T16:52:38","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2017-lblack\/","title":{"rendered":"The Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Robert was an 11-year-old in 5th grade who, in his rush to get to school on time, put on a dirty pair of pants from the laundry basket. He did not notice that his Boy Scout pocketknife was in one of the pockets until he got to school. He also did not notice that it fell out when he was running in gym class. When the teacher found it and asked whom it belonged to, Robert volunteered that it was his, only to find himself in police custody minutes later. He was arrested, suspended, and transferred to a disciplinary school.”\u00a0<\/i>1<\/sup><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Stories like Robert’s are becoming commonplace. Kids\u00a0are labeled as “criminals” or “problematic” before they are even teenagers. Zero tolerance policies are responsible for this\u00a0criminalization of youth. These\u00a0policies, initially created to combat drugs in the 1980s,2<\/sup><\/a><\/strong>\u00a0were first implemented\u00a0into schools in order to\u00a0combat bullying.3<\/sup><\/a><\/strong>\u00a0Now, these policies\u00a0are used to punish a wide range of offenses in schools, some as juvenile as burping. Many scholars note that “Incidents once handled by a trip to the principal’s office are [now] dealt with by police and the justice system, contributing to the climate of suspension and exclusion.” 4<\/sup><\/a><\/strong>. As such, increased use of zero-tolerance policies has led to an expansion\u00a0of the school to prison pipeline.5<\/sup><\/a><\/strong>\u00a0 The term “school to prison pipeline” refers to the fact that\u00a0a disproportionate number of low income and minority students are pushed out of school and into prison. As such, zero-tolerance policies have become tools that perpetuate\u00a0institutional racism. They must be eliminated.<\/p>\n

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SEPARATE AND UNEQUAL: SCHOOL FUNDING IN \u2018POST-RACIAL\u2019 AMERICA. (n.d.). Retrieved May 10, 2017, from http:\/\/www.topmastersineducation.com\/school-funding-post-racial-us\/<\/p><\/div>\n

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