Childhood Education Reform – Cycle of Poverty / School to Prison Pipeline:
MAJR is making a special effort for the 2019 legislative season to partner with other groups such as the Strong Schools Maryland, ACLU, and Casa de Maryland to advocate for education reform. In particular, we are joining with Strong Schools Maryland to form “teams of 10” that will meet monthly through April 2019 to write letters advocating for legislation, and will participate in some other advocacy activities when possible. If you would like to join (or lead) a “team of 10” to advocate for education reform with support from MAJR and Strong School Maryland please let us know.
The correlation between the failure to provide a good public education and the flow into prisons is well documented.
- Investing in pre-Kindergarten education in low-income areas greatly reduces thenumber of these children who will end up in prison later in their lives.
- Thereading level of 3rd/4th graders in a community can be used to accuratelypredict the percentage of the population who will end up in jail/prison.
- Improvingthe student teacher ratio has a large effect on the quality of education andthis is known to have the most dramatic effect on children from poor families.
We have a rare opportunity to achieve substantial educational reform this legislative season for several reasons:
- Marylanders have shown the will to increase funding to public education this year, by overwhelmingly voting for Question 1, requiring that state revenues from video lotteries and commercial gaming go to public education funding – supplementing existing funding, instead of replacing them.
- We believe the recommendations from the Kirwan commission on education are likely to lead to an education bill that includes much of what we know will advance MAJR’s goal to reduce the flow into prisons (by breaking the cycle of poverty and helping to dismantle the school to prison pipeline).
MAJR will be advocating for the following educational reforms (these are also supported by the Kirwan commission’s preliminary report):
- provide early childhood education before kindergarten, especially for disadvantaged children,
- reduce class size and increase teacher pay,
- develop an ample supply of high-quality and diverse teachers,
- increase pathways to careers, including better vocational technical programs, and
- provide more counselors to schools (especially in poor communities) and modify the discipline model so that there is not a “school to prison pipeline”.
The needed education reforms will require a substantial financial investment. We need to convince the Maryland legislature that these expenditures are a sound investment and that it has the support of the public.
Governor Hogan recently announced an initiative to use a substantial part of the gaming funds for school construction. MAJR hopes to add our voices to the discussion on education funding and let our legislators know that the quality of the education within the buildings is our highest priority and that additional resources need to be invested for children from poor families.
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES AND LINKS:
* Kirwan Commission Begins Finalizing Recommendations (by Kevin Kinnally, August 23, 2018, for Maryland Association of Counties) https://conduitstreet.mdcounties.org/2018/08/23/kirwan-commission-begins-finalizing-recommendations/ This is an excellent summary of recommendations of the Kirwan commission.
* MD Counties with Concentrated Poverty: a school site is considered to have “Concentrated Poverty” if 40% or more of its students qualify for free or reduced price lunches. A county map of MD with the percentage of schools with concentrated poverty can be seen at: https://www.strongschoolsmaryland.org/why-now. (original source: Maryland State Department of Education free and reduced priced meal data by school.)
* Hogan sets up a schools showdown (Baltimore Sun, Dec 12, 2018) https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-1213-hogan-school-construction-20181212-story.html. On the line they observe, “We welcome Gov. Larry Hogan’s focus on education equity, but we need to pay attention to what happens in the classroom, not just the classroom itself”.
* StrongSchools Maryland: https://www.strongschoolsmaryland.org
* MAJR Childhood Education Reform Contact: You are welcome to contact Jenny Zito (MAJR Front Door Work Group) at jennyzito@gmail.com for more information about childhood education reform and how you can help advocate.
