The Advancement Project has created a website focused on stopping the schoolhouse to the jailhouse track – www.stopschoolstojails.org
Burns Institute — http://www.burnsinstitute.org/
Children’s Defense Fund – Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign http://www.childrensdefense.org/helping-americas-children/cradle-to-prison-pipeline-campaign/
Community Justice for Youth Institute – www.cjyi.org
Community Organizing for Family Issues – www.cofinonline.org
In 2003, a group of parent leaders began discussing the exorbitant numbers of suspensions their children/grandchildren were accruing in school, and their feeling that this was tied to the sad reality that too many young people were ending up in the justice system and in prison. They founded a citywide leadership group called Parents Organized to Win, Educate, Renew – Policy Action Council (POWER-PAC) and, with guidance by COFI staff and a sociologist-organizer consultant, gathered research on “zero tolerance” school discipline policies and what we know now as the “school-to-prison pipeline”. They learned that zero tolerance was applied liberally in low-income schools of children of color, while schools in more privileged communities were much less inclined to focus on kicking students out of the classroom. They also traveled to other cities around the country where they learned of alternative school discipline policies that effectively reduced disruptive behavior while encouraging learning and positive social-emotional development, visiting schools that demonstrated such practices.
From their research, they developed a new vision for school discipline in Chicago built on positive child development and “restorative justice”, and they took their concerns and ideas to the late President of the Board of Education, Michael Scott, and CPS CEO (now U.S. Education Secretary) Arne Duncan. POWER-PAC members used media pressure on Chicago Public Schools, conducted Town Hall meetings across the city with parents to get evermore parents involved in demanding school discipline reform, and worked with CPS officials and juvenile justice advocates to successfully translate their ideas into implementable policy. The discipline code was re-written and renamed in 2007.
The battle for discipline code reform is not won, though, for, on the ground, old ways are hard to break. POWER-PAC continues to educate parents to get involved in monitoring school discipline code reforms in their children’s schools, and the group has also successfully advocated for $300,000 in restorative justice pilot funding in the city.
In 2010, COFI and POWER-PAC, with funding from the Steans Family Foundation, developed a publication called “Parent-to-Parent Guide – Restorative Justice in Chicago Public Schools: Stopping the School-to-Prison Pipeline.” This can be found in the restorative practices section.
Dignity in Schools — The Dignity in Schools Campaign (DSC) challenges the systemic problem of pushout in our nation’s schools and advocates for the human right of every child to a quality education and to be treated with dignity. The DSC unites policy advocates, parent and student organizers, educators and lawyers in a campaign to promote local and national alternatives to a culture of zero-tolerance, punishment and removal. http://www.dignityinschools.org/
Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children – www.fflic.org
New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) – School to Prison Pipeline Initiative http://www.nyclu.org/issues/youth-and-student-rights/school-prison-pipeline
