Collateral Damage: Educational Equity and Dropout Prevention - The school-to-prison pipeline is one of our nation’s most formidable challenges. It refers to the trend of directly referring students to law enforcement for committing certain offenses at school or creating conditions under which students are more likely to become involved in the criminal justice system, such as excluding them from school. It is imperative that educators (1) educate themselves about the “school discipline gap.” (2) Help students and colleagues unlearn misperceptions about students from poverty. (3) Continue reaching out to low-income families even when they appear unresponsive (and without assuming, if they are unresponsive, that we know why). (4) Respond when colleagues stereotype poor students and/or parents. (5) Fight to keep low-income students from being assigned unjustly to special education or low academic tracks. (6) Make curriculum relevant to poor students, drawing on and validating their experiences and intelligences. Most important, we must consider how our own class biases affect our interactions with and expectations of our students. Craig’s trademark slogan, GED to PHD is a concrete paradigm that educators should never give up on any student.
