Beyond School-to-Prison Pipeline and Toward an Educational and Penal Realism

Abstract

Much scholarly attention has been paid to the school-to-prison pipeline and the sanitized discourse of “death by education,” called the achievement gap. Additionally, there exists a longstanding discourse surrounding the alleged crisis of educational failure. This article offers no solutions to the crisis and suggests instead that the system is functioning as it was intended—to disenfranchise many (predominately people of color) for the benefit of some (mostly white), based on economic principals of the free market. We begin by tracing the economic interests of prisons and the prison industrial complex, juxtaposing considerations of what we call the “educational reform industrial complex.” With a baseline in the economic interests of school failure and prison proliferation, we draw on the critical race theory concept of racial realism, to work toward a theory of educational and penal realism. Specifically, we outline seven working tenets of educational and penal realism that provide promise in redirecting the discourse about schools and prisons empowering those interested in critically engaging issues of racism that permeate U.S. orientations to education and justice.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kenneth J. Fasching-Varner

Kenneth J. Fasching-Varner is the Shirley B. Barton Endowed Assistant Professor of Educational Foundations at Louisiana State University. His research agenda centers on racial identity and the intersection of identity with critical race theory.

Roland W. Mitchell

Roland W. Mitchell is Associate Professor of Higher Education and Associate Director of the School of Education at Louisiana State University. His work centers on African American male success and critical race theory.

Lori L. Martin

Lori L. Martin is Associate Professor of Sociology at Louisiana State University. Her research centers on race and ethnicity, racial wealth inequality, black asset poverty, and the sociology of sports.

Karen P. Bennett-Haron

Karen P. Bennett-Haron is Chief Judge of Las Vegas Justice Courts. She presides over the largest justice court jurisdiction in the state of Nevada and has worked to reorganize the justice courts to include community-based initiatives.