News » September 4, 2007

Restoring Classroom Justice

Restorative justice in schools has picked up steam in response to “zero tolerance” policies, which lead to “schoolhouse-to-jailhouse tracking”

By Lewis Wallace

When the Chicago School Board passed a Student Code of Conduct on June 27 that made “restorative justice” a central approach to school discipline, a coalition of Chicago students, parents and educators celebrated a step forward in a four-year-long organizing campaign.

“Young people were being expelled and arrested for everything from throwing a pencil in class to pushing a teacher,” says Yusufu Mosley, an organizer for the prison-abolition group Critical Resistance. Restorative justice programs focus on using community networks and dialogue to reconcile the offender to the community. “It’s about trying to find resolution rather than being punitive,” says Mosley.

The growing movement for restorative justice in schools is partially a response to “zero tolerance” policies that require students to be suspended or expelled for certain violations. Such policies grew popular after the 1999 Columbine massacre, despite multiple studies that show violence in schools decreased between 1992 and 2004. Zero tolerance, say critics, comes down hardest on black and Latino youth.

“Students in some schools complain that if there’s a fight, the first thing teachers do is call the police,” says Martine Caverl, an organizer at Blocks Together, a Chicago community organization that worked on the campaign. Caverl says it is important to find conflict resolution options that circumvent the criminal justice system. “It’s about a shift from seeing students as criminals to seeing them as people who have to be engaged.”

Parent activists in Chicago call the draconian discipline trend “schoolhouse-to-jailhouse tracking.” A study released in 2005 by the Advancement Project found that in 2003, more than 8,000 students were arrested in Chicago public schools, including four 7-year-olds. Black students constituted 50 percent of the student body, but more than 77 percent of arrests, and the city spent $53 million on armed guards and metal detectors, which are now installed in every school.

A group called Parents Organized to Win, Educate and Renew—Policy Action Council (POWER-PAC) formed in 2003 and began lobbying the city’s board of education to eliminate zero tolerance, reinstitute recess (which most Chicago public schools have cut in recent years), and reduce suspensions and arrests.

Two years later, POWER-PAC created the Austin Peace Center at Brunson Elementary School on the city’s west side. The center allows students faced with suspensions to speak with an adult “peacemaker” or attend an after-school program twice a week where they receive personal attention from parent volunteers and participate in “talking circles” with other youth.

Lynn Morton, mother of a 12-year-old student and co-chair of POWER-PAC, says the Austin Peace Center creates disciplinary alternatives that involve parents and teachers. “We have students who started out in the office in trouble, five days a week,” Morton says. “They went from five days a week to no days a week. When students start to get to know each other, they are less likely to hurt each other.”

POWER-PAC and their allies succeeded in eliminating zero tolerance from Chicago Public Schools in 2006, and this year’s new Student Code of Conduct lists community service, mediation and peer juries as alternatives to suspension and arrest. However, the district has not yet allocated funding for these initiatives, so the burden will remain on nonprofit organizations and parent volunteers.

Restorative justice has a proven track record. A 2001 study by the Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning found that restorative justice programs in Minnesota successfully decreased the number of out-of-school suspensions, in some schools by 50 percent. Morton visited Minneapolis in 2005 with a group of parents to observe its program. “I was kind of shocked,” she says. “I walked into this building, I didn’t see any metal detectors and I didn’t see a security guard. The kids, when they had a difference, they asked for a talking circle.”

Nationally, Madison, Wis., Los Angeles and Boston have restorative justice programs in elementary and high schools. And community organizations are pushing for programs in community centers, penal systems and even public housing.

“Restorative justice gives people the means to control their own destinies,” says Mosley. “We are all relatives, and we can respond to each other as relatives, not enemies.”

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• Reader Comments

  “Black students constituted 50 percent of the student body, but more than 77 percent of arrests”

  If we add crap like the statement above, we should also add in how often the particular demographic causes problems. More than likely, the number of black arrests is too low statistically rather than too high.

  Of course, the real problem is not with the schools, but rather with parents who are absent, criminal, abusive, etc.

  Posted by wolf on Sep 4, 2007 at 4:10 PM

  Wolf is right about laying the blame back on the parents. A child acts in public like he is reared at home.
  Back in the 50’s, when I attended public schools in Texas, Principals had the authority to paddle a student that misbehaved in class. No cops patrolled the hallways, and were seldom seen on campus. And when you went home and cried to momma about the mean Principal, daddy tore your butt up when he got home.
  But that isn’t politically correct any more.
  Now, we have armed cops patrolling most urban campuses.
  Two years ago, an Asian youth (16) knocked on a door in his neighborhood (Dallas suburb) and shot and killed the person who answered the knock. No grudge, no motive other than he wanted to kill someone.
  His daddy said that it was the fault of the teacher’s for not doing something.
  ‘Course, I guess if I had raised a sociopathic monster, I’d want to blame someone else as well.
  Another telling incident in Dallas ISD involved one female teacher leaving her classroom and going to another school and assaulting another female teacher, in class, for daring to tell her daughter that she needed to be in class rather than talking in the hall.
  The parents noted in this article seem to be doing a good thing. But not all parents are as involved nor as caring about what goes on in school.
  And those parents are the root of the problem.

  Posted by farmer on Sep 4, 2007 at 8:18 PM

  I’ve been in the classroom for 22 years. Public, private, rich kids, broke kids, dozens of cultures and demographics, schools with gang-violence issues, racial conflict issues, issues of substandard educational practices, labor-district issues, budgetary shortfall issues, religio-cultural issues, you name it, I’ve seen it.

  Rephrasing what has been said (but that is apparently lost upon legions of parents) into the form of a pointed charge, I ask: If you all don’t teach your kids the limits of decent behavior at home, how in the bloody hell do you expect us in the classroom to do anything with them, other than crowd control (to the extent that we can control 3 dozen or so rowdy teens who know damn well their mommies and daddies will never back the teacher, no matter how obnoxious they act)?

  Also…

  “The growing movement for restorative justice in schools is partially a response to “zero tolerance” policies that require students to be suspended or expelled for certain violations.”

  Which violations? Be specific! Shouldn’t a kid be suspended for violent behavior? Why would they not be, what would be the rationale for “tolerance” of this? How about death threats made to teachers? Sexual harrassment of other students as well as teachers? Theft? Dealing? The phrase “certain violations” is weak and doesn’t really say anything.

  “Zero tolerance, say critics, comes down hardest on black and Latino youth.”

  Why is this, and what’s the difference anyway? If a black or Latino kid is doing things that disrupt or prevent other kids’ learning, or if he is threatening or hurting people, why should it make a difference if he’s black or Latino? Should such misbehavior be overlooked for some reason derived from ethnicity? Isn’t that an insult to all the black and Latinos who work to learn and never cause trouble?

  And if it’s a negative form of halo effect, where black and Latino kids are being unjustly censured under zero tolerance (i.e. there was no substantive offense), then say that, and back it up.

  “A study released in 2005 by the Advancement Project found that in 2003, more than 8,000 students were arrested in Chicago public schools, including four 7-year-olds.”

  My response: for what? What occured such that arrests were made? Did they, for instance, bring a gun to school?

  What would happen to me if I was caught bringing a gun to school? (more than suspension, I assure you!) Should it be explained away because of my ethnicity, or because I was raised by a single mom, or because I’ve felt alienated and angry at society many times?

  “Black students constituted 50 percent of the student body, but more than 77 percent of arrests…”

  Again, why? Were black kids rounded up en masse? That’s unjust. Did kids do criminal or highly disruptive things, who also happened to be black. Not unjust.

  How about you all actually raise your damn kids with values other than self-indulgence and American-style feelgoodism. Sure would make the school’s job easier. Feasible, I should say.

  Posted by Kuya on Sep 5, 2007 at 3:02 AM

  “How about you all actually raise your damn kids with values other than self-indulgence and American-style feelgoodism.”

  Hi Kuya - Thanks for being on the front line in the classrooms. I could not agree more with your quote above (as the father of 4).

  Posted by wolf on Sep 5, 2007 at 2:46 PM

  Wolf, Farmer, Kuya,

  Right on!  I wish you were on our school board.

  Back in my grade school days in the forties two brothers who lived up the block were expelled from our school for continued disruption.

  They were sent to the Catholic school where the nuns were totally in charge. They both learned to toe the line, avoided graduation to reform school and became good, hard working citizens.

  Kids need structure and limits. If they don’t get it at home where they should and schools have their hands tied, the kids are the ultimate losers.

  Posted by whattheheck on Sep 5, 2007 at 6:35 PM

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