How Are You Utilizing Your School's Resources?

By Hilderbrand Pelzer III
Author of Unlocking Potential

Too often we discuss instructional leadership without addressing the more important issue of resourceful leadership. In other words, how are we utilizing resources in schools to achieve quality teaching and learning and academic excellence? What trade-offs and tough decisions about resources are we making to ensure effective teaching and learning?

To some principals and school leaders, resources include time, money, space, people, and curriculum, with people being the most valuable resource and the resource most directly tied to student outcomes. Elizabeth A. City, the author of Resourceful Leadership, states, "What matters most is how resources are used...purposefully to change the teaching and learning happening in classrooms." I couldn't agree more. 

If you are a principal or school leader, are you satisfied with your resources and how your school organization will use them? It is important for principals and school leaders to always analyze their resources and look closely at their effectiveness and impact on student achievement and outcomes. 
 
Please share your thought or comments.

Bio: Hilderbrand Pelzer III leveraged the power of education and leadership to transform a school inside a prison. He has a strong belief that all children deserve a quality education, even those in prison. He has more than twenty years of experience in the field of education, and has served as a teacher, assistant principal, and principal, as well as assistant regional superintendent. He has received numerous awards and accolades for his work in education. Hilderbrand is the author of Unlocking Potential. The book draws on his experience and his nationally acclaimed work inside the Philadelphia Prison System.

Is Your School’s Foundation Failing?

By Hilderbrand Pelzer III
Author of Unlocking Potential

I recently purchased some new home fixtures and fittings, such as lighting, faucets, curtains, carpets, an oven, etc. My intention in doing so was to update and make my home look and feel nice. As I went throughout the house, inside and outside, to see what fixtures and fittings I should get to improve my home’s appearance and comfort, I noticed some signs of foundation problems, such as exterior brick cracks and difficulty closing the front door. As a homeowner, I leaped into inspection mode and sought out other signs of foundation issues. We all know the foundation is the first piece of a home to be constructed, and it creates a base for the rest of a home's components.  

Just having fixtures and fittings did not seem that important once I noticed foundation failures. What good is it having a home that is attractive and comfortable, but is falling down because the foundation is crumbling? As a result, I addressed these foundation issues immediately: repointing brick and other cement work, purchasing a new door and exterior doorframe, to name a few.  

School leaders often want to make their school environments to be inviting in every way– and rightly so. They want their schools to appear supported, appreciated, and valued. School leaders do things like buy nice furniture, purchase computers and technology tools, hang posters, and situate textbooks so that they are visible to students and visitors. They create educational partnerships, take their students on nice field trips, and display student artwork and classroom displays. They even make certain that their school is clean, have positive messages communicated, and they create student community classrooms. These are just some examples of fixtures and fittings. But, is the school's foundation failing? A school's foundation and base for the rest of the school's components is the instructional core – teaching and learning.

I strongly encourage school leaders to inspect their schools' foundations on an ongoing basis. Most educational research supports that schools don't improve through fixtures and fittings; they improve through the complex and demanding work of teaching and learning. Students need learning environments that engage them in rigorous tasks and offer them significant opportunities to develop knowledge –not just surround them with fixtures and fittings. They need schools with a strong instructional foundation.

Needless to say, I addressed both cosmetic and structural issues at home. I had the fixtures and fittings installed and the foundation problems corrected immediately. School leaders should do the same with their schools. But first, leap into inspection mode and identify the signs of instructional foundation failures and correct them.

Please share your thoughts and comments.

Bio: Hilderbrand Pelzer III leveraged the power of education and leadership to transform a school inside a prison. He has a strong belief that all children deserve a quality education, even those in prison. He has more than twenty years of experience in the field of education, and has served as a teacher, assistant principal, and principal, as well as assistant regional superintendent. He has received numerous awards and accolades for his work in education. Hilderbrand is the author of Unlocking Potential. The book draws on his experience and his nationally acclaimed work inside the Philadelphia Prison System.


 

What Skills Can Teachers Learn from Teachers in a Correctional Environment?

By Hilderbrand Pelzer III
Author of Unlocking Potential

BEING A TEACHER is a great responsibility, and being a teacher in a correctional environment is an even greater one. A well-defined personality, confidence in one’s knowledge of what to do, and not having fear of the inmates are essential to working as an educator in a prison system.

Incarcerated people, including young people, come from many backgrounds. Some have not been taught how to speak to others; some will make crude remarks. The teacher must have control of the classroom, and that control comes from engaging lessons and much encouragement. Many incarcerated school-age youths have not had good instruction in the past. When they find a teacher really wants to teach them, their attitudes change and they become serious about learning and look forward to it.

Certain qualities and strengths are necessary to work comfortably in a correctional environment and focus on what a good teacher is expected to do: produce an educated individual. The following list identifies some “must-have” characteristics of an excellent correctional educator. It is not a short list!

• Be self-sufficient.
• Be comfortable with people of all ethnic groups and social backgrounds.
• Build trusting relationships with students.
• Be an advocate for students.
• Be committed to educating all students.
• Trust that the prison staff will do their jobs.
• Articulate classroom expectations.
• Have educational expertise and knowledge of the core content.
• Be flexible and ready to interact with students constantly.
• Communicate with colleagues to solve student classroom problems.
• Realize when a student is anxious, frustrated, or needs to address personal concerns.
• Be respectful at all times, even in the face of difficulty or disorder.
• Insist that students be respectful.
• Treat students as you want them to treat you. When necessary, treat them as you would your own children.
• Be willing to correct inappropriate language or behavior and remind students of expectations.
• Do not be afraid of students.
• Never get in a student’s face to get your point across.
• Place academics above everything else.
• Encourage personal growth of students, even in the most tragic of circumstances.
• Use differentiated instruction to meet the various educational needs of students.
• Be aware of each student’s educational plan and be capable of helping him or her to meet its instructional goals.
• Be willing to seek the advice and assistance of colleagues to help individual students.
• Provide and direct individual projects that reinforce ideas taught in the classroom.
• Recognize that students are at various educational levels and require small-group and individual instruction.
• Understand that events that occur in the housing area may provoke changes in students’ attitudes.
• Recognize that students may feel particularly stressed around the time they are called to go to court.
• Recognize that students are often upset in anticipation of turning 18 and making a move to adult status and being transferred to the adult inmate population.
• Believe in your ability to teach and do so as though your very life depended on it.
• Be open at all times to suggestions from students that could help the classroom run more fluidly.
• Communicate the importance of education and its purpose and benefits in multiple ways.
• Use your knowledge of the world to engage students in the process of learning.
• Be ready, willing, and able to teach,regardless of student attitudes.
• Be patient and compassionate.
• Assert yourself as the teacher and command your classroom.
• When giving instructions, be direct and explicit.
• Remain professional at all times.
• Apologize when you are wrong.

Correctional education requires courage, tolerance, and knowledge of the world. One must know oneself to be comfortable in an environment that may seem repressive and at times dangerous. You are a living example—someone who performs your duty and believes firmly in education in a correctional setting. When inmate learners are shown respect, given ex- plicit directions, encouraged to learn and improve themselves, they come to believe that they can—and they do!

Do you think these skills can apply to your school setting? I want to hear from you.

Get more information by visiting our site: www.hp3-unlockingpotential.com

Are Childhood Disorders Burdening Urban Public Schools?

By Hilderbrand Pelzer III
Author of Unlocking Potential

According to Dr. Marco Ferrucci, founder of The Chiropractic Source, “The problem with kids with ADHD who don’t get help and treatment is that they have behavioral problems, impulse control issues, anger and rage, and start to do things that will get them in trouble with the law.” He also says, “These kids can’t control it; it’s their neurology. They don’t know what they are doing is wrong.”

ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, is one of the most common childhood disorders, and it can continue through adolescence and adulthood. According to research, symptoms include difficulty staying focused and paying attention, difficulty controlling behavior, and hyperactivity. While it may be normal for all children sometimes to be inattentive, hyperactive, or impulsive, in children with ADHD, these behaviors are more severe and occur more often.

As an educator, I hold the belief that all children can learn and every child deserves a quality education. However, as my educational career evolves and my knowledge of ADHD sharpens, I am beginning to see serious problems for schools. In particular, these problems are rife in urban schools that consistently underperform, have high percentages of suspensions and violent incidents, and spend the majority of the school day trying to manage student behaviors rather than managing the elements of teaching and learning. I don’t want to believe students with ADHD cause problems for the schools, but Dr. Ferrucci’s claim really resonates with me.

With respect to ADHD, I see more and more urban schools with a high number of students diagnosed (or undiagnosed) with ADHD and other behavioral health disorders facing some serious challenges:

• Students are easily distracted, miss important details, forget things, and frequently cannot sit through an entire class period or school day
• Students have difficulty focusing their attention on organizing, planning, and completing a task or learning something new; they have trouble seeing a learning project or assignment through completion
• Students are often unprepared to learn or do not see the value in being organized around school tasks; they don’t complete tasks or activities; and rarely do they carry typical school tools, such as pencils or pens, notebooks, or book bags 
• Students do not seem to listen when spoken to; a direct instruction or specific conversation appears to go in one ear and out of the other ear
• Students struggle to follow very basic and simple instructions and must be told the same thing over and over and over again
• Students are very impatient with the teaching and learning process; they have difficulty waiting their turn for the teacher to give them attention and assistance; student-teacher relationships lack trust
• Students shout out curse words and other very inappropriate comments; they show their emotional instability without restraint, and act violently without regard for consequences
• Students need to have a lot of structure and routine, limiting the schools’ ability to design flexible, open, or non-graded academic and educational programs; it is very difficult to assign students with ADHD to work alongside other students who do not have ADHD
• Middle school students and high school students are often dissatisfied with the constant change of teachers and classrooms, as well as the marking periods or semesters required to participate in new courses
• Teacher professional development opportunities are often limited to classroom management and behavior modification strategies
• Students struggle to interact within schools with large student populations; they struggle with large student-to-teacher ratios and class sizes
• Students are supported with remedial-level schoolwork; it is not uncommon to find poorly skilled and underprepared teachers in these schools 
• Students typically have learning disabilities or require prescription medication or therapy sessions regularly and throughout the school day in order to manage their behavioral disorders.

As more and more students with ADHD or other behavioral health disorders enroll in schools, the focus on teaching and learning declines significantly. The students’ behavioral health disorders start taking over, and teaching and learning take a back seat. At a time when all schools need to focus on each student’s academic development, the needs of the students with ADHD displace the academic and educational mission of the schools. This is not to give the impression that students with ADHD cannot achieve academically or excel in school. They can! However, students with ADHD have a definite effect on the type of learning environments schools produce and how teachers and administrators utilize and manage school resources, including time, space, people, curriculum, and budget.

Data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics 2010, show:

• Five million children aged 3-17 years had ADHD (8%); boys (11%) were about twice as likely as girls (6%) to have ADHD
• Hispanic children were less likely to have ADHD (4%) than non-Hispanic white (10%) or non-Hispanic black (11%) children
• Children in single-mother families were about twice as likely to have learning disabilities (12%) or ADHD (13%) as children in two-parent families (6% and 7%, respectively)
• When compared with children with a reported “excellent” or “very good” health status, children with a “fair” or “poor” health status were almost five times as likely to have a learning disability (28% and 6%, respectively) and more than twice as likely to have ADHD (18% and 7%, respectively).

As if this were not bad enough, thousands of students with ADHD are missing opportunities to learn and achieve at high levels. Many of these students drop out of school because they have either easily grown to be disinterested with school, or their schools have become increasingly tired of the burden of servicing them. In these austere economic times, school districts are making critical decisions about what to pay for and how to utilize meager resources. In many instances, students with ADHD and other behavioral health disorders are overtaking the core mission of public schools and draining them of limited resources.

In my work with inmate learners and schools inside of jails, I have found strong evidence of increasing numbers of incarcerated school-age youths with ADHD, learning disabilities, or regular prescription medication required to manage their behavioral disorders. They either did not get the treatment they needed before getting in trouble with the law, or they could not learn to manage their disorders despite the behavioral health services they received.

Perhaps ironically, because of the rising tide of students being diagnosed with ADHD and other behavioral health disorders, behavioral health organizations and agencies that have behavioral health as their core mission will invest in more resources. Public schools in urban areas cannot continue to lead this work or shift their focus on academics and education to the problem that is students with ADHD or behavioral health disorders. As Dr. Ferrucci effectively put it, these students require treatment. Public schools are not treatment facilities. These students have behavioral health problems. They have impulse control issues. They demonstrate anger and rage. They start to do things that will get them in trouble with the law.

What do you think? Do you think students diagnosed with ADHD and other behavioral health disorders burden schools with behavioral problems? Do they play an integral part in the poor performance of many schools in urban areas? Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Dealing with the Chronic Ailments in Urban Public Schools

By Hilderbrand Pelzer III
Author of Unlocking Potential

Recently, I wrote a blog article ("Changing the Perception of Urban Public Schools" - coverage found at www.hp3-unlockingpotential.com/blog.html) depicting the way the media colors people’s negative perceptions of struggling urban public schools by focusing on writing stories about their ills.  The article was well-received by readers all around the world.  The article was intended to turn the conversation away from crime and violence in schools, and instead toward a focus that will generate academic development among struggling schools.

The civil rights data the U.S. Department of Education recently released has freed the elephants from the room, and now allows the media and public to focus on real issues that have been hidden from conversational view for a very long time: Discipline, Curricula, and Teacher Quality.  Deal with discipline, curricula, and teacher quality (and funding formulas and resources management – but I will save these issues for another day!), and you have cured what is really ailing struggling urban public schools.

Among the U.S. Department of Education’s key findings are:

·      Black boys are far more likely to be suspended or expelled from school than their peers.
·      Non-white students are not offered courses such as Calculus, Physics, or Advanced Placement.
·      Teacher quality in schools that enroll mostly black and Hispanic students is characteristically deprived.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the findings are a “wake-up call.”  He added, “The power of data is not only in numbers themselves, but the impact it can have when married with the courage and the will to change . . .”

Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali said, “These new data categories are a powerful tool to aid schools and districts in crafting policy, and can unleash the power of research to advance reform in schools.”

But, wait!  Haven’t past U.S. Secretaries of Education and high-level government officials said something similar before?  Yet, we still tinker around the edges when it comes to addressing education reform in urban areas. 

I am encouraging the media to stop focusing on crime, violence, and other negative realities in urban public schools that keep the status quo churning.   The public is well aware that crime and violence can occur inside of schools, just like they occur at university campuses, airports, U.S. Post Offices, and other public places.  The findings of the U.S. Department of Education provide three alternative universal concentrations for all those concerned with struggling urban public schools that, if tackled, will generate academic growth among struggling urban public schools. The three areas of focus are Discipline, Curricula, and Teacher Quality.

It is common practice for many urban school districts across the nation to set up disciplinary schools in order to have an “educational setting” where they can dump their student code of conduct violators.  Once dumped, the students linger without any real educational experience in schools that do not offer academic learning, a scholarly learning environment, or any academic functions or instructional coherence.  The concept of “discipline” is all wrong in many urban school districts.  The terms discipline, discipline schools, disciplinary process, or disciplinary students are buzzwords for “the end of the road is near.”  Even more compelling is the fact that “discipline” is handed out mostly to black and Latino boys and girls, of all ages.

Curriculum and instruction is the heart of a school.  If you cut out the school’s heart, then the school will die!  The promise of public schools was to foster students’ development and ensure their academic development.  Today, this promise is nearly obsolete in so many urban public schools, based on the large numbers of high school dropouts and undereducated youth facing doubtful futures.  Many students reach high school, and even the twelfth grade, without competency in the basic subject areas: reading, writing, and math.  As a result, struggling urban public schools focus their curriculum and instruction plan and meager resources on remediation programs, credit recovery for over-aged/under-credited students, and summer school for large groups of students who have failed courses during the ten-month school year.  These practices make it a herculean task for students to ever complete Physics, Calculus, Advanced Placement, and other college preparation courses.

Low teacher quality plays a major role in creating educational gaps between student groups.  Teachers’ low expectations often undermine the educational and academic progress of the very students they are responsible for educating.  Components of teacher quality include planning meaningful lessons, delivering instruction, working to encourage improvements in individual student performance, and monitoring academic progress.  Teacher commitment—the will to educate all students, regardless of ethnicity, social status, parental support, and poverty—must emanate from within each individual teacher.  The key is the desire to deliver instruction to other people’s children with the same veracity, intensity, and desire for success that one would offer one’s own children.

So, stop digging dumping grounds in which to bury disciplinary problems.  Instead, focus on resuscitating curriculum and instruction in schools.   Recruit and retain high quality teachers and educational leaders.  Sensational headlines color people’s perception of urban public schools and damage their confidence in the schools’ capacities and capabilities to perform for students.  Urban public schools can perform!

What do you think?  I am sure there are other opinions out there.  Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Changing the Perception of Urban Schools

By Hilderbrand Pelzer III
Author of Unlocking Potential

You have surely seen news stories that color the public’s perceptions of urban public schools: Students cannot read, write, or perform math at grade level.  High schools struggle to graduate students.  Teachers are ineffective. Failing schools lead to the school-to-prison pipeline. Don’t forget the one that is all the rage, and the one on which I focus this article: violence and crime are rampant in schools. 

It is time to stop acting like this emphasis on negative perceptions will generate academic growth among struggling urban public schools.  The question is, how do we get the national storyline changed from a focus on the ills of public schools and onto the quality teaching and learning found in public schools?

While we constantly read national news stories and listen to the analysts on major media outlets, I have concluded the public is fascinated with and attracted to the ills of public schools, especially with the colorful perception that urban public schools are violent places.  Selected news stories about a fight between two students, a second-grader with crack, a third-grader carrying a gun in his book bag, or a parent smacking a teacher because she reprimanded her daughter for running in the hallway color the public’s perception that schools are in crisis.   

Let’s step back a bit.  In 2011, five Philadelphia Inquirer reporters wrote an exhaustive and extraordinary seven-part investigative series, “Assault on Learning.”  The five reporters devoted a year to examining violence in Philadelphia’s public schools and conducted more than 300 interviews with teachers, administrators, students and their families, district officials, school police officers, court officials, and school violence experts.  In addition, the reporters created a database to analyze more than 30,000 serious incidents - from assaults to robberies to rapes - that occurred during a five-year period.  That information was supplemented by other data sources on suspensions, intervention, and 9-1-1 calls.  According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the reporters also examined police reports, court records, transcripts, contracts, and school security videos.  Even more, the Inquirer enlisted Temple University to conduct an independent survey of the district's 13,000 teachers and aides.  More than 750 teachers and aides responded to questions about violence and its impact on students' education.  Furthermore, the newspaper obtained internal district documents detailing violent incidents during the period in question.

If I did not know any better, I would think that the public schools in Philadelphia were not making any significant progress in the classroom.  Just consider the words used to describe the schools: climate of violence, young and violent, attacks, assaults, 9-1-1 calls, and so on.  I cannot ever recall seeing such an extraordinary and exhaustive series on teaching and learning.  Philadelphia’s schools, like so many other schools in urban areas over the years, have shown growth in academic performance.  The results, obviously, are due to effective teaching and learning and the efforts of students, teachers, principals, parents, and community partners.  It would have been really nice if the Inquirer had chosen to share the stories of schools’ academic progress and student achievement gains just as exhaustively and extraordinarily as they did stories about violence.  

Now, I will be the first to say that there are more than a few challenges facing urban public schools.  I know firsthand how poor student behavior can impact the quality of teaching and learning efforts, but I also know firsthand that students all across the nation are striving for excellence.  They excel in core academic subjects.  They get accepted to and attend colleges and universities.  They are productive citizens. They go from schools to careers. They are making it in this world.  They know that their success was supported by their school's confidence in them and the school’s efforts to make certain that they were prepared to be the best that they could be.  I know these students, and so do you!  Great students can be found in urban public schools all across the nation.

Surely, I am no fool! I clearly understand why the topic of violence and crime in schools is important.  Our children deserve a safe learning environment.  Over the years, I have committed serious time and effort to helping shape and lead sectors of the school violence and crime prevention movement.  However, the best of us are insightful enough to know the answer to reducing violence and crime in schools lies in having strong academic infrastructures and a non-forgiving focus on teaching and learning. 

Schools must go from managing their social climates to creating an academic learning environment.  As I wrote in my book, politicians, business professionals, private individuals, and organizations frequently place burdens on urban public schools by pressuring them to execute convoluted, competing, and redundant initiatives, including demands to eradicate violence and crime.  One could make a compelling case that these external partners thrive on the violence and crime in schools.  Many scholarly articles have been written about school violence.  Local and national organizations have been created to research school violence.  Government funds have been set aside to create safe schools.  Curricula are written for schools to implement violence prevention classes.  Principals and other school administrators are required, in many instances, to have in place school violence prevention teams.  School boards have approved “zero tolerance” policies all across the nation.  Safety training is mandated, leading to the contracting of safety and security consultants.  Private education management organizations are contracted to warehouse “bad” students.  Schools purchase and install millions of dollars worth of video surveillance cameras.  In fact, schools are required to write and submit school safety plans, oftentimes before they are required to write and submit their school action plans.  There is even national talk about placing armed police officers inside many urban public schools.  I could go on and on, citing examples of the many responses to school violence and crimes in schools. 

These initiatives have educational value.  However, we must ask ourselves if they should displace the academic mission of our schools at a time when educators need to focus on students’ academic development?  I think not.  Excessive violence and crime prevention programs and services cannot continue to be the center of attention for urban public schools.

I was first intrigued by school violence and the factors associated with it in 1991.  At that time, the breaking news from the educational front was about violent eruptions at South Philadelphia High School.  I wrote an editorial for my local newspaper, just to express my point of view on the incident.  Soon thereafter, I was catapulted into instant fame (for five minutes!).  I was sought out by local talk radio stations to share my opinion with callers and invited to serve on the City of Philadelphia’s Health Department Committee on Violence.  The committee, formed to tackle violence, aimed to bring community groups together to create a vision, mission, and strategy, and launched an initiative known as Operation Peace in Philadelphia (OPP).  The tag “OPP” was a play on the now-classic 1991 rap song of the same name by the group Naughty By Nature.  We achieved very good results.  However, violence continued in the city; it continues to remain a thorn in the side of the city today.  South Philadelphia High School returned to the national news in 2009 when violence, once again, erupted between students.

So, what is the answer to violence and crime in schools?  I don’t know.  Violence and crime in schools continues to grip the headlines.  As a result, it holds hostage the genuine efforts of urban public schools to showcase student achievement.  Are we placing too much attention on this issue and the other ills of public schools?  Are we not giving equal or greater attention to the extraordinary accomplishments of students, teachers, and principals as they focus on overcoming the imposing array of issues facing urban public schools in pursuit of academic excellence?

What do you think?  I am sure there are other opinions out there.  Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Book Excerpt from Chapter 4 of Unlocking Potential: Organizing a School Inside a Prison. This excerpt offers readers a glimpse at the importance of “reaching, teaching, and engaging” students at all times. In this excerpt I attempt to help Jerline talk through and gain insight into his circumstances and come to some understanding of living and growing up in prison.

By Hilderbrand Pelzer III Author of Unlocking Potential

Despite facing murder charges, 17-year-old Jerline proved, in prison, to be an outstanding, conscientious student. He was the living representation of Winston Churchill’s famous statement, “I am always willing to learn, however I do not always like to be taught.” During his trial, Jerline began to pull away from the relationship he had developed with the school and his teachers. All the adults and students around him noticed changes in his attitude, behavior, and school performance; but, no one attempted any direct intervention. His favorite teacher came to me with the information that Jerline was acting in unusual ways, misbehaving, disrupting classes, and refusing to do his school assignments. When I asked the teacher if he or anyone else had spoken with Jerline to ascertain the cause of his difficulties, he replied that no one had.

I sat down with Jerline to learn what was troubling him. What was causing him to pull away from the success he had been achieving in school? Jerline said abruptly, “I don’t care anymore.” I asked him what it was he didn’t care about. He turned to me and shouted, “I don’t care about school; it can’t help me anymore.”

Unbeknown to me, Jerline had recently been informed by his lawyer that he was facing twenty to forty-years in prison for his crime. I listened to Jerline speak, erratically, about the impact that twenty to forty years behind bars would have on his life, I realized that his irrational behavior was coming from his struggle to make sense of his destiny. Jerline was, for perhaps the first time in his life, finding that he cared deeply about all the things that would have been part of his life if it were not for his poor decision to commit a violent crime. He talked about family, fatherhood, marriage, working for a living, homeownership, and growing old. For Jerline, at that moment, his entire future was out of reach and unattainable.

Our conversation continued over the next several days. It was very important, to me, that Jerline have the opportunity to talk through and gain insight into his circumstances and come to some understanding of living and growing up in prison. In instances like this, many juvenile inmates attempt to jump mentally to the end of the prison sentence, as if it were just around the corner. In actuality, their path to the end of a prison sentence is usually a decades-long journey.

Jerline used these conversations to face up to the errors he had made and to try to grasp the fact that he would serve up to forty years of his life in prison. He knew he could not escape the punishment waiting for him. I tried my best to encourage him to continue his education as he grew to adulthood in prison. He embraced my message to continue his schooling, learn to be resourceful, and try to avoid the many pitfalls of prison life. Eventually, Jerline received a sentence of seventeen to thirty-four years. His final words to me, before being transferred from the Philadelphia Prison System to a state correctional institution, were, “Thank you, I will be fine.”

The School-to-Prison Pipeline Tunnels Through Alternative Education

By Hilderbrand Pelzer III
Author of Unlocking Potential

Bryant was charged with murder for strangling and killing his roommate at a Philadelphia psychiatric facility, where he was a resident receiving treatment for his serious mental and behavioral health disorders.  Who would have thought that Bryant was capable of such a vicious crime?  Who would have thought he posed a significant danger to himself and others around him?

Prior to Bryant’s fatal act of aggression toward his roommate and his eventual trip to prison for committing a murder, he was a public education student who was “sent” to an alternative school because he violated the student code of conduct.  Before sending Bryant to an alternative school, there was no real regard for his mental state.  Nor was there any regard for whether the alternative school that he was sent to was conducive to the type of teaching and learning support he so desperately needed.  Oh well, it doesn’t matter!  The zero-tolerance policy prevails.  Bryant was out of his regular school setting and sent to an alternative school to never be heard from again.  Now, he is in prison! 

How many other students, like Bryant, find themselves in an alternative school for a student code of conduct infraction instead of in a school that can provide them with deliberate teaching and learning and care for their mental and behavioral health disorders? 

It is a common practice of many school districts across the nation to set up alternative schools just to have an “educational setting” to dump their student code of conduct violators, despite the fact that their actions may be caused by a mental and behavioral health disorder. 

In 2012, school districts should be more knowledgeable about the value of alternative education.  It adds to the public educational experience by advancing a number of exciting school models and approaches to teaching and learning.  With the growing public dissatisfaction with traditional public schools, parents and students are looking for a different educational experience.  They want an experience that offers a highly charged academic learning environment, small student-to-teacher ratios and class sizes, close relationships between students and teachers, and a stronger sense of school community.  Instead, the design and function of alternative education is all wrong in many school districts.  It is the lockup for students that other schools don’t want.

Too often alternative education practices perpetuate criminalization; hence, the school-to-prison pipeline.  It is overpopulated with black and Latino boys.  The terms behavior, discipline and alternative education are linked in holy matrimony.  Students formerly adjudicated delinquents or currently involved in the juvenile justice system or assigned probation officers make up the typical student population.  In fact, in many instance, judges and probation officers hold the most influence over students in alternative schools and, as a result, they typically attend school solely to appease the orders of judges and not the orders of their parents, teachers or principals.  When the order is lifted, you usually see the school attendance for these students declining.   

With the assembly line nature of sending students to an alternative education setting, the enrollment process in alternative schools is more chaotic and constantly compromises academic functions and instructional coherence.  With an already growing enrollment of students who have violated the student code of conduct or who have been suspended for long-terms or who find themselves years behind academically, it is easy for alternative schools to get overpopulated and lose academic focus.  The students’ mental and behavioral health disorders start taking over and teaching and learning takes a back seat.

Alternative education for the purpose of warehousing students is a major contributor to the widening achievement gap and educational disparities.  It displaces the academic mission of schools at a time when all schools need to focus on each student’s academic development.  It propels low performance through remedial and low-level teaching and learning experiences.  It is not uncommon to find poorly skilled and underprepared teachers in alternative school classrooms.  At every opportunity to fix alternative education, decision-makers have chosen not to change.  They use the alternative education setting as the tunnel that hides students as they travel from the school to prison. 

For the sake of public education, alternative education cannot continue to be the asylum where students with mental and behavioral health disorders are warehoused.  While I will be the first to admit that schools must not tolerate poor behaviors or crimes inside schools, alternative education should not be tagged as the “educational setting” to accommodate students with mental and behavioral health disorders.  Alternative education should be tagged as the “educational setting” that motivates, educates and inspires students to excel and achieve in school.    

What do you think?  I am sure there are other opinions out there.  Please leave a comment and let me know what you think is a major contributor to the schools-to-prison pipeline.