Author: Visceral Dev Admin

The advancement of school discipline reform has been a bright spot among what often feels like a sea of bad news in education. Coalitions like the Dignity in Schools Campaign and national groups like the Advancement Project and NAACP have long highlighted the unjust, inequitable and ineffective school discipline policies that far too many children attend school under. Studies consistently show the school-to-prison pipeline is built on a bedrock of white supremacist, patriarchal, heteronormative and ableist biases. Fortunately, innovative cross-sector organizing uniting young people, parents and educators have been able to push positive reform policies in states and districts across the country — first by curbing harmful punishments like suspensions and expulsions, and then by introducing positive policies to replace them, like restorative practices and accountability processes that center healing instead of punishment.

However, a new report shows just how uneven these reforms have been implemented, and how desperately far many states and districts need to go.

It’s been sixty-five years since the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision signalled the beginning of a profound shift in public education across the country. The U.S. Supreme Court in refuting the doctrine of “separate but equal” was not acting alone, but was reflecting a long-held understanding held by Black communities throughout the segregated South — communities organizing and mobilizing together, shaking the chains of Jim Crow and the firmament of white supremacy that held them in place.

A new report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities finds that teacher strikes work and have led to substantial increases in K-12 school funding in states where strikes occurred “Despite last year’s improvements, however, formula funding remains well below 2008 levels” in Arizona, North Carolina, Oklahoma and West Virginia, states that made the deepest cuts over the last decade. Progress is still short of what’s needed and funding mechanisms may be unsustainable.