Proving the School-to-Prison Pipeline (Education Next)

EDUCATION NEXT – At issue is the school-to-prison pipeline—a term often used to describe the connection between exclusionary punishments like suspensions and expulsions and involvement in the criminal justice system. Black and Hispanic students are far more likely than white students to be suspended or expelled, and Black and Hispanic Americans are disproportionately represented in the nation’s prisons.

To address this, Andrew Bacher-Hicks, David J. Deming, and Stephen B. Billings examine middle-school suspension rates in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, where a large and sudden change in school-enrollment boundary lines resulted in half of all students changing schools in a single year.