Page 104 - Impact: Collected Essays on the Threat of Economic Inequality

102
few community-based resources where students and parents can turn for assistance .19 Many of these students live in poverty . It is estimated that 31 percent of children in New York City live in poverty; it is 45 percent in the Bronx and 35 percent in Brooklyn .20
As schools and their students struggle with these inequities, trauma-informed care has emerged as a partial measure to address economic inequality . While trauma is prevalent everywhere, there is a higher exposure to trauma in low-income communities that can have devastating effects in its community . Trauma-informed care presents an opportunity to address the combination of the factors of poverty, lack of assistance, and deteriorating urban education institutes . When children are exposed to better ways of learning through investments in early education, there are long- term and short-term intellectual and academic gains for the youth’s well-being and benefits to the community as a whole .21
ZeroTolerance Policies and Juvenile Justice
Zero tolerance policies in schools are a major factor contributing to the cycle of ineffective schooling and students’ interaction with the criminal justice system . Zero tolerance includes punitive disciplinary codes, security measures in schools including policing and metal detectors, and suspensions and arrests . It has been termed the “criminalization of school discipline” because our society treats student misbehavior as we treat adult criminal conduct .22 On average, more than 3 million children are suspended from school yearly nationwide .23 Of these suspensions, students of color are disproportionately represented .24 Because of zero tolerance policies, “disruptive behavior” and “other” violations are the basis for suspensions . These violations include significant numbers of students charged with being defiant and being disruptive .25 Many of the violations involve subjective or discretionary judgments by teachers or school administrators; Black students are disproportionately suspended for these behaviors .26
19 Donna Lieberman, New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director, The Impact of School Suspensions, and a Demand for Passage of the Student Safety Act, NYCLU (Jan. 23, 2008), http://www.nyclu.org/content/impact- of-school-suspensions-and-demand-passage-of-student-safety-act (testimony before the New York City Council Committees on Education and Civil Rights; discussing the over reliance on suspensions and poor quality of Alternative Learning Centers with reports of “inappropriate or non-existent learning materials, overcrowding, and lack of supervision”). See michael holzman, The schoTT foundaTion for puBlic educaTion a roTTing apple: educaTion redlining in new york ciTy 15 (Apr. 17, 2012), available at http://www.schottfoundation.org/docs/redlining-full-report.pdf.
20 The insTiTuTe for children, poverTy & homelessness, on The map: The aTlas of homelessness in new york ciTy 13 (Oct. 2014) [hereinafter on The map], available at http://www.icphusa.org/PDF/reports/OnTheMap_ TheAtlasofFamilyHomelessnessinNewYorkCity.pdf. This report analyzes a combination of the 2012 United States Census Data and data from the New York City Department of City Planning.
21 Cynthia Hudley, Education and Urban Schools, The ses indicaTor (May 2013), http://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/ indicator/2013/05/urban-schools.aspx.
22 Kerrin C. Wolf, Booking Students: An Analysis of School Arrests and Court Outcomes, 9 norThwesTern J. l, & soc. pol’y 58, 60 (2013).
23 new york civil liBerTies union, a, B, c, d, sTpp: how school discipline feeds The school-To-prison pipeline 8 (Oct. 2013) [hereinafter a, B, c, d, sTpp], available at http://www.nyclu.org/files/publications/nyclu_STPP_1021_FINAL.pdf.
24 Carla Amurao, Fact Sheet: How Bad Is the School-to-Prison Pipeline?, Tavis smiley reporTs, (Mar. 28, 2013), http:// www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/tsr/education-under-arrest/school-to-prison-pipeline-fact-sheet/.
25 Jane Ellen Stevens, Trauma-Sensitive Schools Are Better Schools, Part 2, The huffingTon posT, June 27, 2012, http:// www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-ellen-stevens/trauma-sensitive-schools_b_1625924.html; Jane Ellen Stevens, Massachusetts, Washington State Lead U.S. Trauma-Sensitive School Movement, aces Too high news, May 31, 2012, http://acestoohigh.com/2012/05/31/massachusetts-washington-state-lead-u-s-trauma-sensitive-school-movement/.
26 a, B, c, d, sTpp, supra note 23, at 8-9.
Impact: Collected Essays on the Threat of Economic Inequality