from high school and enter college often lack the knowledge and skills they need to be successful: 30 percent of incoming first-year college students are required to enroll in remedial courses, and only a minority of these students end up earning a degree. Young people growing up in tough urban neighborhoods are least well served by the current system. Too often, they are consigned to schools that fail them systematically: fail to keep them safe, to challenge them to learn at high levels, to enable them to develop a vision of possibility for themselves in the world beyond their neighborhoods. Students may progress from grade to grade and from school to school without mastering key subjects and developing the skills they need to graduate from high school, be successful in college, and participate in the economy. For these young people, the educational pipeline—the sequence of continuous learning from early childhood through elementary, middle, and high school grades and postsecondary education and training—has failed to deliver. (Jeanne Jehl, The Connection Strategy: Preparing Young People To Succeed In College and Beyond, Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2007, p. 3.) http://www.aecf.org/~/media/PublicationFiles/Connection_Strategy.pdf
Indeed, for some students, there seems to be a ―school-to-prison‖ pipeline in operation. A July 2011 federal initiative by the Justice Department and U.S. Department of Education related to that pipeline. According to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, ―When our young people start getting locked up early . . . they start to move out of the schools, out of the pipeline to success.‖ Per guest blogger Nirvi Shah, this new effort ―. . . targets school discipline policies that end up pushing children into the juvenile-justice system for crimes and rule-breaking on campus—and keeping them from pursuing their education.‖ (Michele McNeil, ―New Initiative Targets ‗School-to-Prison‘ Pipeline,‖ Education Week—Politics K-12, July 21, 2011.) http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k12/2011/07/from_guest_blogger_nirvi_shah.html
According to an online newspaper account, The San Diego Unified School District planned to begin a reform project in the fall of 2011 regarding the African-American achievement gap. The posting included this quotation: ―‘The underachievement of African-Americans in this district and nationwide is a travesty and a crime against children,‘ said Shirley Weber, executive director of the San Diego Association of African Educators. ‗If we get every child to get to school and we don‘t change the academic experience for them, we are not doing anything.‘‖ (Maureen Magee, ―Schools tackle African-American achievement gap,‖ SIGNON SAN DIEGO, July 6, 2011.) http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/jul/06/schoolstackle-black-achievement-gap/
In Portland, OR, school board member Ruth Adkins spoke of a 2011 ―Cradle to Career‖ initiative to help students succeed; she stated:
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