Fair and Just School Climate

In a recent op-ed, Kavitha Mediratta, lauds the progress made by New York City schools in challenging the school the prison pipeline through their efforts in school discipline reform. Although much, of course, remains to be done, she argues that recent moves by NYC Mayer, Bill de Blasio, herald a step in the right direction. 

Grassroots organizers in New York City have been fighting for school discipline reform for years, and their hard work paid off this week when the City Council passed next year's budget with $2.4 million in funding for restorative justice programs.

The New York City Council is considering a bill that would use public school funding to provide NY Police Department safety agents to private schools. In response, Kesi Foster, Coordinator for the Urban Youth Collaborative, wrote an op-ed arguing this bill not only hurts public schools financially, but also directly contributes to the school-to-prison pipeline.

Youth organizer Jaritza Geigel gave a powerful speech in New York last week about her own personal experiences with harsh school discipline, its devastating and disproportionate impact on students of color, and the work done thus far to combat it.

Several years after the grassroots organization Padres y Jóvenes Unidos won district-wide school discipline reform in Denver, they've released their 4th annual "Denver Community Accountability Report Card," tracking schools' progress in implementing those hard-won reforms.

The African American Policy Forum, Advancement Project, Dream Defenders, and others released a new video that powerfully reaffirms the multitude of reasons why #BlackGirlsMatter. In the wake of high-profile police violence against black men and boys, and thanks to initiatives like President Obama's My Brother's Keeper initiative, national attention has begun to focus on the myriad problems black boys face. However, these efforts often ignore black girls, who face not only the same systemic racism, but also sexism.

Thena Robinson-Mock, project director for the Advancement Project, provides an important update to the school discipline crisis in Mississippi in her recent op-ed for The Clarion-Ledger. Two years ago the Advancement Project, the ACLU, and the Mississippi NAACP jointly released a report exposing the state's extreme school-to-prison pipeline, and the discriminatory impact it had in particular on students of color. Unfortunately, Robinson-Mock writes that although some progress has been made, much still needs to be done to solve this problem.

Voice of Youth in Chicago Education deserves tremendous praise for their latest victory—passing a groundbreaking school discipline reform bill through the Illinois Legislature. By ending the use of "zero tolerance" policies and restricting administrators' use of suspensions and expulsions, VOYCE's bill will help make Illinois schools more welcoming environments for students.

A recent editorial in the New York Times highlights the long-term consequences of "zero-tolerance" school discipline and how they can extend beyond the K-12 system and hurt students' chances of being accepted into college.