System Failure: Policy and Practice in the School-to-Prison Pipeline

Patricia Burch is Professor of Education at Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California.

SYSTEM FAILURE provides a go-to resource for those who seek to understand the problem of the school to prison pipeline, as well as for those of us who suffered, first-hand, the policies and everyday practices that maintain carceral conditions in our nation’s educational settings. Stefano Bloch, University of Arizona. Chapters in this timely and powerful collection deepen our understanding of how schooling processes continue to criminalize and render disposable already marginalized young people. Reminding us that good intentions are often deadly, authors explore the harmful consequences of reformist policies that purport to protect, but instead dismally fail youth, communities, and the radical potentialities of public education. A critical tool for educators and policymakers, SYSTEM FAILURE sparks necessary interventions. Erica R Meiners, Author of For the Children: Protecting Innocence in a Carceral State Burch and colleagues’ critical analysis of the School to Prison Pipeline transcends traditional understanding of the roots of the problem in racialized school discipline policies. While previous scholarship has largely documented the extent of the problem, it has failed to examine policies that make legitimate ‘deficit thinking’ (e.g., youths need fixing) and the hidden curriculum (the tyranny of low expectations). SYSTEM FAILURE…. Is a much-needed examination of the broad nexus between implicit societal policies that disproportionately impact children of color and children with disabilities in schools and juvenile prisons. For those interested in challenging current practice and their destructive effects on children, families, and communities, SYSTEM FAILURE is required reading. Peter Leone, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, College of Education, University of Maryland, College Park

• 1. System Failure: Policy in the School-to-Prison Pipeline; 2 'Softening' School Resource Officers: The extension of police presence in schools in an era of Black Lives Matter, school shootings, and rising inequality; 3. The Culture of Power Online: Cultural Responsiveness and Relevance in Vendor-Developed Online Courses; 4. Redirecting the teacher's gaze: Teacher education, youth surveillance, and the school-to-prison pipeline; 5. Understanding the School-to-Prison Pipeline for Black Probation Youth; 6. Exploring the Relevance and use of Funds of Gang Knowledge Among System-Impacted Latino Boys and Young Men: The Case of an Urban Continuation School; 7 Rising Up and Breaking Down: Youth Resilience and Institutional Failures in the School-to-Prison Pipeline