Bell Promises To End "School-To-Prison Pipeline"

Bell Promises To End "School-To-Prison Pipeline"

Talks dropout prevention with Texas Sheriffs' Association

In a speech to the 128th Annual Training Conference of the Sheriffs' Association of Texas Monday, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Chris Bell discussed the growing dropout crisis in Texas schools that has been underreported by Rick Perry's Texas Education Agency and has created a statewide "school-to-prison pipeline."

"When Texas is leading the country in dropouts, you're talking about a real law enforcement issue. Leading the nation in dropouts is a moral crisis, and I salute you for having the moral courage to face this with a servant's heart and an open mind," said Bell, a former Congressman from Houston. "I think we need to have real accountability, but first we need an honest accounting. When it comes to the dropout crisis in Texas, what we're getting from Rick Perry is nothing more than Enron-style accountability."

For example, Lubbock ISD reported a 5 percent dropout rate for 2003/04. But when the number of 9th graders enrolled in the district in 2000/01 is compared to the number of 12th graders enrolled in 2003/04, an effective dropout rate of 18 percent is found. The state average is even worse. The official state dropout rate for the class of 2004 was 3.9 percent. But when you compare the number of 9th graders who started school in 2000/01 with the number of 12th graders enrolled four years later the class of 2003/04 suffered a four-year attrition rate of fully 32.7 percent, leading to the worst high school graduation rate in the country.

"We love Texas too much to turn a blind eye to this moral crisis, and I'm here today to say that as Governor, I'll do everything I can to help you," said Bell. "Because you know that if a kid doesn't wear a cap and gown, he or she is at horrible risk for wearing an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs."

Texas' high dropout rate has created a "school-to-prison pipeline," where marginal students are pushed out of school by Rick Perry's broken accountability system and all too often end up in state's courtrooms and jails. The link between grade retention, dropouts and delinquency is undeniably clear. One study published in 2003 found that by the mid-90's, 74.5% of state prison inmates across the country had not completed high school. Among women, grade retention, suspension, or expulsion in the middle school years is the single largest predictor of subsequent arrest.

Texas already has more prison space than any other state, but in 2004 state prisons reached capacity. As a result, the state is now forced to lease space from county jails for as much as $17,700 per bed. When this space runs out, it will cost the state almost $89,000 per bed to build new prisons here in Texas. In contrast, Texas spends only $6,288 per pupil in public schools.

"When we're spending more than twice as much to send a kid to prison as we do to keep him in school, Rick Perry's budget is morally unbalanced. Our state budget will be a truly moral document when we make building our kids up a higher priority than locking them away," said Bell.

In 2005, Bell criticized Rick Perry for a 2001 veto of a School-to-Work bill and promised that as governor he would promote innovative programs such as rehabilitative boot camps, as well as career and technology training programs, flexible scheduling, customer research, and local volunteer-driven campaigns such as Houston's "Reach Out to Dropouts" to end Texas' dropout crisis and "school-to-prison pipeline."

Bell's biography is available at http://www.chrisbell.com/about.

http://www.chrisbell.com/releases/072406_lubbock