School-to-prison pipeline: Preliminary Report

Exert of Preface:

In 2014, the American Bar Association (ABA) Coalition on Racial and Ethnic Justice
(COREJ) turned its attention to the continuing failures in the education system where
certain groups of students—for example, students of color, with disabilities, or
LGBTQ—are disproportionately over- or incorrectly categorized in special education,
are disciplined more harshly, including referral to law enforcement for minimal
misbehavior, achieve at lower levels, and eventually drop or are pushed out of school,
often into juvenile justice facilities and prisons—a pattern now commonly referred to as
the School-to-Prison Pipeline (StPP). While this problem certainly is not new, it
presented a convergence of several laws, policies, and practices where the legal
community’s intervention is critical.
Joined by the ABA Pipeline Council and Criminal Justice Section, and supported by its
sister ABA entities, COREJ sponsored a series of eight Town Halls across the country to
investigate the issues surrounding this pipeline. The focus of these Town Halls was to 1)
explore the issues as they presented themselves for various groups and various locales;
2) gather testimony on solutions that showed success, with particular focus on
interventions where the legal community could be most effective in interrupting and
reversing the StPP; and 3) draw attention to the role implicit bias plays in creating and
maintaining this pipeline. This report is a result of those convenings. Also a result was
the formation of a Joint Task Force among the three convening entities to provide an
organizational structure to address Reversing the School-to-Prison Pipeline (RStPP)
To analyze the complexities surrounding the school-to-prison pipeline and identify
potential solutions to reverse these negative trends, the Joint RStPP Task Force:
1. Organized and conducted eight Town Hall meetings in various parts of the
United States during which several area experts and community members
voiced concerns, discussed the problems, and proposed solutions.
2. Analyzed and cumulated national data from the U.S. Department of
Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection and other available local data to
gauge the magnitude and scope of the problems.
3. Served as a clearinghouse for information and reports relevant to the RStPP
effort and disseminated that information.
4. Examined national and state laws and local school district’s policies and
practices that have combined to push an increasing number of students out of
school and into the justice system.
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5. Analyzed laws that several states have enacted to reverse the school-to-prison
pipeline.
6. Evaluated evidence-based policies and practices that various schools have
implemented to reverse the school-to-prison pipeline.
7. Organized and conducted a roundtable discussion to focus exclusively on
mapping out solutions to reverse these negative trends by identifying model
programs and successful strate