School to Prison Pipeline

Nathern S. Okilwa is an Assistant Professor of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Texas San Antonio. His life experiences and long career as an educator in a variety of K-12 contexts rural/urban, general/special education, alternative schooling, and international informs his research agenda. His research interests include educational and life outcomes of disadvantaged or underserved or marginalized students (e.g., low SES, culturally and linguistically diverse, racial/ethnic minorities, and special education); school leadership in diverse school contexts; and educational policy. Muhammad Khalifa is an Associate Professor in educational leadership at the University of Minnesota. His research examines how urban school leaders enact culturally responsive leadership practices. He has published in top education journals, such as Review of Educational Research, Teachers College Record, and Educational Administration Quarterly. Felecia M. Briscoe earned her doctorate in the foundations of education from the University of Cincinnati and has spent over 20 years studying the way power works in and through schools. She has published two books, Becoming Critical: The Emergence of Social Justice Scholars and The Power of Talk: How Words Change Our Lives. She has also published numerous articles.

Okilwa, Khalifa, and Briscoe present readers with a collection of academic essays and scholarly articles focused on the discipline disparity evident in schools across the United States and its relation to the school-to-prison pipeline phenomena at work in many of this country’s urban school districts. The nine selections that make up the main body of the text are devoted to the indignities on which the school-to-prison pipeline is built, resisting the school-to-prison pipeline, discipline and punishment in the American school system, and a wide variety of other related subjects. Nathern Okilwa and Felecia Briscoe are faculty member of the University of Texas at San Antonio. Muhammad Khalifa is a faculty member of Michigan State University.

• 1. Introduction and Overview - Nathern S. Okilwa, Muhammad Khalifa, and Felecia M. Briscoe2. The Indignities on Which the School-to-Prison Pipeline is Built: Life Stories of Two Formerly Incarcerated Black Male School-Leavers - Decoteau J. Irby3. Resisting the School-to-Prison Pipeline Utilizing Guidance from the Frontlines: Chicano Student Experiences as a Source of Knowledge & Strength - Brenda G. Valles4. Discipline and Punishment: How Schools are Building the School-to-Prison Pipeline - Hugh Potter, Brian Boggs, and Christopher Dunbar5. Pathologizing the White ‘Unteachable’: South London’s Working-class Boys’ Experiences with Schooling and Discipline - Garth Stahl6. ‘What Are We Restoring?’ Black Teachers on Restorative Discipline - Hilary Lustick7. Can PBIS Build Justice Rather than Merely Restore Order? - Joshua Bornstein8. A Systems Theory Analysis for Ending the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Using Disability Rights Laws to Keep Children in Schools and Out of Courts, Jails, and Prisons - Andrea Kalvesmaki and Joseph Tulman9. What We Can Do Right Now: What Needs Further Research? - Felecia M. Briscoe, Nathern S. Okilwa, and Muhammad Khalifa