The New Year is always a time to reflect, renew and refocus. As an educator, my reflections focus on removing the oppression that prevent students from accessing the high quality of education all students deserve.
As the first female school superintendent in Topeka, Kansas, as a lifetime member of the NAACP, as a black parent with two adult children, I am compelled to review the year from the perspective of systems that remove quality educational opportunities. My reflections this year have led me to examining further the systematic incarceration of children.
The Committee on Education and Workforce at the U.S. House of Representatives reports that more than 1 million children are currently involved in the juvenile justice system, and many more youth are at risk of entering the system because of difficult circumstances, such as poverty, broken families, and homelessness. Youth who have been incarcerated are 26 percent less likely to graduate from high school and are more likely to return to jail.
In 2017, Topeka Public Schools was one of the early adopters of the Juvenile Justice Reform Act. I am proud of the work Topeka Public Schools has started as a school district that adopted policies to partner in reducing incarcerated youth that target men and students of color at alarming rates. However, we recognize the deeper effort must also focus on changing mindsets.
Incarceration removes or reduces quality educational experiences that empower youth. In this New Year, I encourage all to reflect on the 56 percent of Hispanics and African Americans who made up the incarcerated population in 2015, although they represent only 32 percent of the U.S. population overall. According to the NAACP, African-American children represent 32 percent of children who are arrested yet 52 percent of children whose cases are sent to criminal court. African-American people, particularly men, are criminalized at high rates, and it starts with our children.
After joining Topeka, I started visiting youth in the correctional facility in 2017 and holding formal graduation ceremonies as they completed high school requirements in an effort to restore hope and dignity to students, empower youth to access education and seek the opportunities it provides as part of their future.
To build onto this, we began giving leadership staff development through our Equity Council at the juvenile detention center. New leaders are required to participate in the Equity Council, which I co-chair, for three years. Through my Equity Council role, I can listen, learn and shape mindsets by offering new experiences. Leaders cannot effectively serve those whom they don’t understand. Juvenile justice reform measures are a positive step; however, legislation doesn’t change hearts and minds, which ultimately impacts actions and outcomes.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me.” I believe Dr. King’s insistence on legislation is key, but I also believe restraint through legislation without a changed heart limits true reform.
Congress passed the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act in 1974, and 15 years later over 1 million youth are incarcerated, resulting in the Juvenile Justice Reform Act. The Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 2017 aims to reduce the high rates of incarcerated youth. I offer a challenge to all to renew commitments and relight the fire to take action to change hearts, minds and inspire true reform.
We know people learn best by doing. Educators must ask themselves how much have we done individually to change outcomes? Most school leaders have not spent much time in detention centers, and most students don’t have graduation ceremonies while incarcerated. Most public schools do not teach about the system that can create what Michelle Alexander, author of the book “The New Jim Crow,” refers to as a caste system creating a new type of Jim Crow laws targeting people of color.
However, we can expose, teach and target reform through education, and 2019 is a year to accept the challenge to act now. Time is so precious. The time to act is now. We do not know what tomorrow holds, but we know our actions today can influence what happens tomorrow.
Actions do not have to look like those taken in Topeka. However, they should confront implicit bias and expose patterns and trends that indicate unequal educational opportunities. Our actions must empower ourselves and others to be disrupters of poverty and injustice. Fear diminishes positive impact, and we must educate and remove the fear that breathes life into systems that place children in cells systemically at the earliest of ages.
I believe each educator and community member has a divine calling. We must have the courage to walk in our calling in order to create a system and conditions where all know they truly belong. Imagine what changes would occur in 2019 if all public school educators committed to reflect on and teach about incarceration. Imagine if we all renewed a commitment to truly reform our juvenile justice system in 2019 with leadership from the heart so well-meaning legislation can have the intended positive impact.
Tiffany Anderson is superintendent of Topeka Public Schools.
