Social Engineering: The School-to-Prison Pipeline
The School-to-Prison Pipeline
The term School-to-Prison Pipeline refers to the policies and practices of the public school system that systematically pushes a specific group of the student population out of the classroom and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems, reflecting a reality in which there is constant line of black youth leading from the back door of schools to the front door of prisons. In essence, the school-to-prison pipeline is representative of the prioritization of incarceration over education. For the individual who does not understand the dynamic at play, much of what is taking place in the inner city will seem arbitrary and unrelated; however, for someone who understands the complex mechanisms at play that formulates a system that targets, exploits and oppresses a specific group of people, are aware of the pernicious assault against students of color.
Failing Schools
This article does not allow for a comprehensive explanation of the structure of the school-to-prison pipeline, but I will endeavor to provide enough information here to allow the readers to connect the dots, especially those who wish to conduct their own research. First of all, to understand the foundation of the principle concept surrounding the school-to-prison pipeline, the first thing that must be understood is that the failure of the public school system to educate black youth is not the result of coincidental misappropriation and maladjustment. Black students are being purposely targeted by the public school system, especially black male students.
In general, public schools in poor inner city communities are inadequately resourced and equipped, which is a result of an errant funding infrastructure and blueprint. Because most schools are heavily funded by property taxes, schools in wealthy areas are more adequately funded than those schools located inside of poor areas. For the most part, people understand this, but what the vast majority of people fail to understand is the fact that the poverty in black neighborhoods is socially engineered through a number of different mechanisms.
Another problem with the public school system is the manner in which teachers are placed based on seniority. Basically, as teachers gain seniority, they are able to choose what schools they want to teach at, which means the best teachers, with the most experience, will likely choose the highest paying jobs in the more affluent areas. The postulation that inner city children are more difficult to work with also contributes to the decision to abandon these children for what is considered to be greener pastures. The idea that equal opportunity for education exists is absolutely preposterous.
Because schools in poor areas have inexperienced teachers and inadequate resources, they tend to produce lower test scores, which ultimately result in schools being closed down. Additionally, the low test scores are not only due to inexperienced teachers, it is also a reflection of the fact that the educational curriculum is the product of a standardized Eurocentric educational program that is culturally biased. The system does not take into consideration unique cultural paradigms and learning styles. The use of these culturally biased programs is a social construct that is authorized and carried out under the umbrella of the public education system as a part of the academic engineering agenda.
Let’s be clear about this. The public education system was not designed to educate, elevate and empower black children to compete in a world that is innately hostile toward them. It is a system that targets our young males for alienation through the use of special education labels, such as mild mental retardation, learning disabled, ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder and more. In many instances, black male youth are being prescribed psychotropic drugs like Ritalin, Vyvanse, Concerta and others. These drugs are Schedule II drugs, meaning that the medical uses for them are limited and they are highly addictive. Ritalin, the most commonly used drug for ADHD, is actually one molecule from being synthetic cocaine.
In addition to the negative labels that are disproportionately assigned to our young boys, they are also being taught primarily by white, middle-aged females — meaning they are being taught by people who cannot understand or relate to them culturally or sexually.
Because a significant number of infractions against school policy have been criminalized, it has resulted in young black males being exposed to the juvenile and criminal justice systems at an extremely early age. Once these students are exposed to the criminal systems, sometimes for infractions as minor as dress code violations, the negative stigma is nearly impossible for them to shake. The truth is that they are being primed for the Private Prison Industrial Complex — the populating of private prisons via the school-to-prison pipeline for the purpose of profit.
The Machination of Academic Engineering
A substantial amount of effort has been put into the fabrication of racial difference by way of white superiority as it pertains to innate intellect. Over the last 70 years, there has been a consistent and persistent narrative that expresses that the white student consistently tests about 15 points higher on IQ tests than does the black student.
“The decline of American intelligence will be more rapid than the decline of the intelligence of European national groups owing to the presence of the Negro. These are the plain ugly facts that our study shows.” ~ Carl Brigham, Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) Inventor
When statements like this one are made, what is always omitted from the narrative is the fact that standardized tests like the SAT and most IQ tests used by schools to test intellect, are culturally biased. They fail to mention that one of the four major elements of the standard IQ test is “verbal comprehension,” which is a capacity that is developed as a learned proficiency, which means that it tests knowledge and not intellectual capacity. The other three elements, working memory, perceptional reasoning and processing speed, are all innate capacities that are present early in life without preparation or teaching. Vocabulary is a learned and developed capacity, so students who are naturally exposed to the vernacular being presented during the test, will obviously do better on the test than those who are not.
What these educational “experts” fail to reveal is that blacks test at the same level or higher in the other three elemental categories of the IQ test, meaning that the 15 points in which they trail white students all comes from the culturally biased element of the test. Yet, this narrative has been perpetually used to present the illusion that white students are inherently more intelligent than black students. It is imperative to have a substantial perspicacity of how this narrative impacts the psyche of black youth. It feeds an inferiority complex that has been fostered for centuries.
Social Engineering: The School-to-Prison Pipeline
In a short digression, it is imperative for the readers here not to consider my treatise to be implicit of 100 percent white supremacy culpability, Actually, a substantial portion of the current state of the educational inadequacy surrounding the black community falls on the shoulders of the black community, especially black parents. Unfortunately, far too many black parents have become too comfortable with trusting the public school system to holistically educate their children. We must understand that education is far more than the attainment of academic skills. Education is a holistic experience that involves every encounter that serves to develop the mind of a person in a manner that effectively prepares them to engage the challenges of life as an adult — including effectively competing in the business world, and being economically empowered.
The holistic educational process begins at the moment of self-awareness and the first priority is to ensure and enforce the development of a positive self-image. The manner in which a child views themselves is paramount to their overall success. We have failed miserably in this area, rendering our youth vulnerable to the suggestion of their inferiority. It is this inferiority complex that has been preyed upon by the power structure, as it seeks to send our young males into the prison system and our young girls into a life of poverty.
Policing School Hallways
One of the ways that many inner city schools have become gateways for the school-to-prison pipeline is through an ever increasing dependence on police officers, over teachers and administrators to maintain discipline in the school. First of all, police officers are not trained to deal with disciplining minors. Police officers are conditioned to arrest people who ignore their commands, which is not the proper approach to dealing with youth. Far too many black youths are being arrested for offenses that would have gotten us detention, at worst, 25 to 30 years ago. Children are not allowed to be children.
Once a student has been arrested, the mark on their record follows them, increasing the chance of additional encounters with the criminal justice system, as the teachers and administrators will have a natural proclivity to judge them more harshly.
The truth is that this educational process is not designed to benefit our youth, but to control them and condition them.
Actually, it is fairly simple. When the system is able to control the dropout rate, they can, in essence dictate the number of blacks that go into the prison system. High dropout rates for black boys have immensely disparaging consequences. According to a recent study, one in every four high school dropouts will end up incarcerated, or otherwise institutionalized. The study, conducted by Northeastern University, used the compilation of data from the U.S. Census and other government data to track employment, parenting, workplace and criminal justice experiences of young high school dropouts.
It is clear that the dropout rate is driving the increasing prison population. What is also important is to understand that the dropout rate is the result of a complex dynamic in which our black youth have been failed, and while it is apparent the school-to-prison pipeline that is currently funneling our young black males into the Private Prison Industrial Complex, there is also a failure within the black family and the black community as far as properly engaging, educating and preparing our youth to not only survive in a world that is hostile toward them, but to successfully compete as business owners, free thinkers and creators.
It is time for blacks to write our own narrative — to tell our own story through our successes, challenges, and even those failures that serve to push us to those successes. We must be an integral part of the educational process of our youth, especially when it comes to creating a self-image that is proud and confident in its blackness. We have to stop asking for permission to be great, and simply live in our innate greatness. We are a transcendent people, and it is imperative that we push inexorably toward that place of transcendence, where we shake free of the psychological chains of slavery to walk freely in our greatness. It is time to adopt an implacable yearning to be all that we were designed to be. We are the answer to the school-to-prison pipeline. We are the masters of our fate! ~ Dr. Rick Wallace, Ph.D.