EDUCATION
For decades, education has been recognized as a pathway to youth success and wellbeing. Indeed, access to quality education can be transformative to the lifelong success of our young people. However, inequities permeate all levels of the school system, from pre-K to college. Those inequities are felt more even more profoundly when they fuel a 'school-to-prison pipeline'.
Learn more about how education can at once serve as a 'hook for change' and how disparate exclusionary practices within school settings may further entrench youth of color into the justice system.
Access to quality education can be a transformative tool for equity.
Receiving a high-quality education is related to many lifelong benefits, including increased economic earnings, as well as improved physical and mental health.
However, when access to quality education is limited, consequences can be severe.
Like many other systemic processes, this exclusion has disparate impacts.
For example, research shows that "youth of color & youth with disabilities experience exclusionary discipline,
including expulsion due to zero tolerance policies, at higher rates than their white peers and peers without disabilities."
NEW YORK'S STUDENTS
BY THE NUMBERS
In 2018, 202,000 students entered
9th Grade in New York.
By the end of 2022:
87%
of students in this cohort had graduated on time;
5%
dropped out;
1%
received their GEDs; and
7%
were still enrolled.
By 2022, when they reached Senior Year, Students with disabilities, English Language Learners (ELLs), Migrant Youth, and Youth in Foster Care had the lowest graduation rates in their cohort.
Students with disabilities
English Language Learners
Here is how the graduation rates for these groups of youth break out >>>
Migrant Youth
Youth in Foster Care
Chronic Absenteeism
among New York Students