Archive for February 2015

Home Archive for February 2015

While many people might not be familiar with the phrase, School-to-Prison Pipeline, thousands of students, overwhelmingly Latinos, African-Americans, and students with disabilities, have been the targets of such practice. The school-to-prison pipeline was coined to represent the educational system that continues to push students out of the school setting and into the criminal justice system.

Policies such as Zero tolerance and No Child Left Behind have led to an increase in the criminalization of youth. Originally, the Zero tolerance policy was implemented during the 1980’s in low-income neighborhoods during the crack-cocaine epidemic, however this has been tweaked to deal with any minor offenses or misbehavior that a student might act upon. These could range from the way a student dresses, to the way they speak to a teacher, and even bringing scissors to class, which I find to be extremely absurd. In regards to the No Child Left Behind policy, standardized testing has pressured schools into kicking out students who do not perform well, negatively affecting the future of the student, and prioritizing the well-being of the school and not that of the student.

Teachers who have misused the Zero tolerance policy to suspend and expel students for such minor or no misbehavior at all have crushed the dreams of many students who wish to go back to school. Once students are expelled and/or suspended, which are “often left unsupervised” for the time being, students either become less interested in education or simply find it impossible to go back. Students who are expelled from a school usually cannot join another school in the same district (which are usually closest to home) and therefore result in an increase in the drop out rates. Overall, students are pushed out from the system and into another (left with no guidance or support from counselors) and unfortunately some dropping out and/or incarcerated.

In addition, budget cuts that have resulted in a reduction of staff members that provide a support system for the student (such as counselors, social workers, and physiologists) have also paved a pathway for hopeless students getting into drugs, street life, gang affiliation, dropping out, and incarceration in prisons and juvenile halls. Since 1984 to 2009 there has been a 700% increase in California’s prison population and a dramatic increase of suspension rates from 1.7 million in 1974 to 3.1 million in 2000. Research has also confirmed that gang alliance increases by 88% once involved in a juvenile hall. Crime also increases once you enter the criminal justice system.

When we take a look at the educational system and its current mode of operation we can see how school disciplinary policies have led to a system that perpetuates and contributes to a consistent flow of criminalized youth into the criminal justice system. However, when we focus on who are the individuals being targeted, it becomes an issue of discrimination.

In an info-graphic about the school-to-prison pipeline, the percentages highlight the racial disparity between blacks and whites. It reveals that blacks are three times more likely to be suspended form school, but even more shocking is that even when 16% of public school enrollments are black students (a very some fraction compared to that of 51% of whites), blacks are 11% more likely in receiving multiple suspensions.

How could this be?

I personally do not know why a system would continue policies that have revealed shocking rates of criminalization, drop outs, suspensions/expulsions (all which have led to a decrease in education within the population), nor am I sure how I would effectively target this issue of criminalization and discrimination. However one thing I do have in mind is that the amount of money jails get per person can be contributing to its perpetuation. The criminal justice system has been making profit through

"contracts exchanged between private prison companies and state and local governments that either guarantee prison occupancy rates (essentially creating inmate lockup quotas) or force taxpayers to pay for empty beds if the prison population decreases due to lower crime rates or other factors (essentially creating low-crime taxes)".

Therefore, efforts for rehabilitation are low and those of criminalization are high.

I am not aware of any contracts between schools and prisons, but there could be some correlation between these two systems. However if the education system is actually concerned about the well being of the students and not the reputation of the school, then as Chief Earl has said:

"In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunities of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right that must be made available on equal terms.”

Throughout the years, doctors and individuals involved in the medical field and healthcare system have questioned the reasons for such high levels of non-adherence in patients, non-adherence meaning the lack of compliance of a patient to follow the prescription of the doctor for their ailment.

In a report addressing noncompliance, "Patient Non-compliance Statistics", we can see how around 40 percent of patients do not comply to their medication regimen, and what is even more staggering is that 1250,000 individuals die due to their non-adherence to medical treatment for illnesses that can be treated. But what causes individuals to become non-compliant?

Non-complaince has been a problem that many researchers have tried to identify, for which many have came up with different reasons. Some individuals have targeted the encounter between the doctor and the patient during the patient visit as one of the reasons for non-compliance, where basically the doctor does not communicate properly with the patient. Others like Dr. Daniella Omfri have argues that individuals are crammed with so much information and requirements to fulfill that it is difficult to comply:

Besides obtaining five prescriptions and getting to the pharmacy to fill them (and that’s assuming no hassles with the insurance company, and that the patient actually has insurance), the patient would also be expected to cut down on salt and fat at each meal, exercise three or four times per week, make it to doctors’ appointments, get blood tests before each appointment, check blood sugar, get flu shots – on top of remembering to take the morning pills and then the evening pills each and every day.

Added up, that’s more than 3,000 behaviors to attend to, each year, to be truly adherent to all of the doctor’s recommendations. Viewed in that light, one can see how difficult it is for a patient to remain fully compliant.

The role of a patient can become very hectic, especially when you are expected to do so many things. However the reasons for such non-compliance is not because patients want to go against doctors or because they are loaded with so much information, which is all seen in a doctor-centered approach, rather they do not comply and instead self-regulate because they want to better manage their experience as a patient.

In an article called "The Meaning of Medications: Another Look at Compliance" by Peter Conrad, we can see how self-regulation is not a deviant act but rather a way to manage an illness as it progresses. Individuals tend to self-regulate depending on their illness experience, which is the experience that a patient goes through with an illness. Therefore, as individuals who are going through the actual illness experience and whom understand their illness, they tend to regulate their own medication regimen. As stated by Conrad, "the most common rationales for altering a medication practice are drug related: medication is perceived as ineffective if the so-called side effects become too troublesome”, which can clarify the" 30 to 50% of all patients [who] ignore or otherwise compromise instructions concerning their medications".

When we look at non-adherence through the perspective of a doctor all we understand is that patients continue to lack compliance to their medication and recommendations. However we must understand the patient's illness experience in order to see that it is not a patient being non-adherence, but rather a patient practicing self-regulation in order to manage their illness at the best possible way.

I'm sure many of you have encountered individuals who believe the SAT to be a classist exam that is largely correlated with income. But if you haven't, here's a blogger who does: la caprichosa.

In a recent blog post called "On the SAT, Test Preparation, and Extracurricular Activites", la caprichosa talks about a chart that shows the relationship between family income and SAT scores. In brief summary: the higher your income the higher your SAT score; while the lower your income the lower your SAT score. La Caprichosa also responded to VinceYang92 concerning the inequality that is perpetuated by the SAT exam and the disadvantage given to individuals of a low-income status by saying:

Yet, the problem remains that the SAT is still considered an "objective metric" when it tells us more about family income than intelligence. This is where people think of other alternatives to the SAT, but is it even necessary? GPA IS actually considered within the context of a student's high school. During the admissions process, a school profile is generated to better understand what the grades of a student mean. This, in itself, brings up a lot of important questions related to public schools and private schools in general, but that is a blog post for another day. Point being, we must not place the SAT on a pedestal and need to think about how it reinforces class privilege.

I totally agree. Why is the SAT given to students when they reveal to us the prejudice towards certain income level students? Is there a need to find other alternatives for the SAT?

In my opinion it should not be given to students if such results are being found. These results reveal that there is obviously a problem with the way that the exam is being presented to students all across the US. No exam should be so leaned for success for a certain group, those of wealth, if it fair.

In regards to finding alternatives for the SAT, GPA is the best tool to identify students with strong academic performance. We as students go through 4 years of high school trying to get the best GPA we can, therefore GPA should be valued much more than a 4 hour test. We must take into consideration that students are not all good test takers, that anxiety might intervene in their results, among many other things. Therefore the SAT should not be weighed similar to, or even half the weight of a GPA.

However, I do not think the SAT is a bad idea. The SAT allows us to get some kind of idea of the knowledge someone has (taking in consideration the the poitns mentioned above); however the SAT must not continue to perpetuate inequality nor disadvantage low-icome students. They need to change the way it is being presented to students in order to make the material more familiar to all students. We need this to be a test that is not targeted to benefit a few and not the majority, because if it is, it questions the educational system on why it has been driven by such a classist measure.

In the article called, "Major changes coming to 2016 SAT test: Here's what, how and why", we are informed of the new redesigned SAT exam that will begin examination in 2016. They themselves have become aware of the perceived notions of inequality towards the low-income and as a result are trying to take this measure of academic performance into a fair examination. Coleman, College Board President stated:

"Partnering with the free, online resource is intended to make the SAT more transparent, and cut back on perceptions of inequality around expensive test preparation services, Coleman explained Wednesday."

I think test preparation will help battle these negative notions of inequality, however as La caprichosa mentioned in her post, "[R]esearch has shown that 'there is no evidence that commercial test preparation makes much of a difference in admissions test performance....Regardless, the benefits of commercial test preparation appear to be small...". Yet, even if such does not cause any change, they are also trying to combat these issues by targeting the way it is presented in the questions themselves, Coleman mentioned that:

"Admissions officers and counselors have said they find the data from admissions exams useful, but are concerned that these exams have become disconnected from the work of high school classrooms and surrounded by costly test preparation."

The questions will now be guided by the material learned in class and not by what's given in expensive test preparations. Students will be asked to identify words that are actually used repetitively in their classes, asked to analyze a context of word to define it, and apply math to solve 'real world' problems.

I like the idea of change in this examination, however I feel like these are things that were expected from older generations. One change that I believe would lead to positive results would be to give students more time for each section. The test should be concerned about what the students know, not in how much time they can complete it. Personally I struggled a lot with the time limit and I think this can make a huge difference in getting a higher SAT score than that compared to a 4 hour test. Also, another suggestion would be the addition of another section - science. This section can be useful in preparing students for the required science class in their chosen college.

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