The Colorado School-to-Prison Pipeline: What Spatial Analysis Uncovered

• In Event: The Spatial Search to Understand and Address Educational Inequity to Inform Praxis

Abstract

Objectives/Purpose
Dominant discourse has tied racial disproportionality in the School to Prison Pipeline (StPP) to factors residing within individual students and communities. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT) we reframe these deficit explanations of racial disparities as issues of institutionalized racism. We examine the culminating effects of the StPP within Colorado for students of color. This paper addresses the spatial questions within our work, namely: (1. Does the StPP vary racially across school districts and juvenile justice districts?; (2. What racial variation is there in the StPP across space and time relative to educational policy and law?

Perspective/Theoretical Frameworks
The interdisciplinary nature of CRT allows us to examine research from law, education, psychology, and history in tandem (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001); bodies of literature that have previously been seen as disparate. Whiteness as normative creates a binary in which students of color are consistently seen as abnormal in intelligence and actions, making them more susceptible to disciplinary actions (Drakeford, 2004) and to subjective judgments in labeling them disabled (Watts & Erevelles, 2004). CRT reminds us that racism is ordinary, not an aberrant occurrence, therefore disproportionate allocation to the StPP is to be expected (though not accepted) within the public school system (Bell, 1980). Finally, social construction not only speaks to how race, ability and behavior are constructed, but also how laws and policies can be written and enforced in a manner supporting “racialized” outcomes. Given that such principles operate not only within but also across communities and institutions, there is a spatial component within this study that provides insight into the nature of inequity and potentially provides solutions.

Methods & Data Sources
We develop our case study using existing publicly available data at the school district and juvenile justice district levels to examine the spatial distribution of various components of the StPP across time periods related to important educational policy and law changes within the state. We use free web-based tools to produce maps of descriptive statistics across time. Finally, we combine our maps with economic, historic and political spatial knowledge of the state, to examine the impacts of state history, policy and law on the current lives of youth of color.

Result/Conclusions/Significance
There is an over-representation of youth of color in the StPP across Colorado, which impacts the achievement gap. Spatial differences in the degree of these statewide disproportionalities can be explained to some extent by variations in particular historical and social characteristics. However, the existence of these disproportionalities across the state appears to be related to educational policies, examples of institutionalized racism, that provide opportunities for the predominantly white school personnel to make subjective special education assignments and criminalize behaviors for students of color of whom they are likely to have little understanding. The significance of this research is in showing the spatial and institutional consistency of negative real world outcomes for youth of color within the StPP to argue for the institutional nature of racism within education.

Authors

• Subini Ancy Annamma, University of Denver

• Deb Morrison, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Darrell Jackson, University of Wyoming

• Graham Garlick