Dear Governor Snyder,
In these tough economic times, schools are hurting. And yes, everyone in Michigan is hurting right now financially, but why aren’t we protecting schools? Schools are the one place on Earth that people look to to “fix” what is wrong with society by educating our youth and preparing them to take on the issues that society has created.
One solution I believe we must do is take a look at our corrections system in Michigan. We rank nationally at the top in the number of people we incarcerate. We also spend the most money per prisoner annually than any other state in the union. Now, I like to be at the top of lists, but this is one ranking that I don’t believe Michigan wants to be on top of.
Consider the life of a Michigan prisoner. They get three square meals a day. Access to free health care. Internet. Cable television. Access to a library. A weight room. Computer lab. They can earn a degree. A roof over their heads. Clothing. Everything we just listed we DO NOT provide to our school children.
This is why I’m proposing to make my school a prison. The State of Michigan spends annually somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 per prisoner, yet we are struggling to provide schools with $7,000 per student. I guess we need to treat our students like they are prisoners, with equal funding. Please give my students three meals a day. Please give my children access to free health care. Please provide my school district Internet access and computers. Please put books in my library. Please give my students a weight room so we can be big and strong. We provide all of these things to prisoners because they have constitutional rights. What about the rights of youth, our future?!
Please provide for my students in my school district the same way we provide for a prisoner. It’s the least we can do to prepare our students for the future...by giving our schools the resources necessary to keep our students OUT of prison.
Respectfully submitted,
Nathan Bootz
Superintendent
Ithaca Public Schools
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
School Superintendent Asks Gov. Snyder to Make His School a Prison
Nathan Bootz, the Superintendent of Ithaca Public Schools in Michigan, wrote a letter to the editor asking Gov. Snyder to make his school a prison: I did not fact-check this as to whether Supt. Bootz's assertions on prisoner treatment are correct; I know that here in California we cut most of these services from our prisons years ago. I also know that anytime you make this kind of comparison, there is a risk of public backlash that will have the result it did here, removing program after program leaving our correction system little more than an overcrowded warehouse that makes serious criminals out of even the least violent offender.
Still, it breaks my heart to see this kind of desperation in a school administrator.
H/T to Big Think
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Oh dash it all, he ruined it at the end there by breaking the deadpan effect. What would Mr. Swift say about that conclusion?! Yes! Let's just eat them all instead of geese for Christmas dinner. Very economical....
ReplyDeleteSeriously, though, yes, there's something wrong in a country that lavishes more attention on the prison industry than the schooling needs of its kids. When the going gets tough, many of our politicians start laying into teachers. Stay classy, righty pols -- don't ever change.
Bloggingdino, the unfortunate situation with the prison system is that we have somehow managed to accumulate the largest per capita prison population in the developed world. We have (at least in California) taken away nearly all the programs and facilities listed above (except health care -- inmates still get that).
ReplyDeleteI could go on a rant about our private-sector prison industry, but I'll save that for another time. Suffice to say there's a powerful lobby that operates virtually invisibly and is behind almost every piece "get tough on crime" legislation.
Yes, I do worry when we spend so much less on giving our children an education than we do on locking up criminals. But I also worry about our ever-growing prison population, and if prisoners in Michigan still get those services, I'd hate to take them away. Most of those prisoners are going to get out someday, and I'll bet the people of Michigan would rather they not be hopeless, beaten down, and incapable of re-joining society.
Godlizard,
ReplyDeleteSpoken like a wise reptile. Yes, that's why I use the word "industry." Once the prison system gets hold of a person, they never really let go, even if they toss them out on the street with a few bucks and no hope or skills.
I've long thought that incarceration should be reserved mostly for people who are violent and therefore a threat to others. Putting people in prison for using drugs is one of the stupidest things imaginable as it does no good and a great deal of harm, at great expense. Here in CA, I think there's a big to-do over a court order to release something like 30,000 thousand prisoners because of basic rights violations due to overcrowding -- that's how swollen our prison system is here, while at the same time we end up cutting programs and park funding, etc.
Having worked in the prison system I have found that the depressing reality is one, incarcerating drug users hopelessly clogs the system and allows more violent offenders to slip through the cracks.
ReplyDeleteTwo, by the time neglected,abused, underfed, undereducated juveniles hit the prison system, it is too late. The level of sociopathic behavior among this group is truly scary.
Legalize soft drugs, provide for rehab if needed and clean out half your inmates. Use the left over money to feed, clothe and ensure the safety of your children and halve the juvenile criminal population.
It is disgusting to hear politicians whining about how they have to cut expenditures and the first budget items they go after are for those who are most vulnerable in our society, incluing our children - the hope of our nation.
Not sure if the numbers are well-substantiated, but I've heard we incarcerate 700,000 marijuana offenders per year. While that sounds crazy, it very well could be true. And even though some states (like California) have legalized it for medical use, the feds still like to pop in from time to time to round up some AIDS and cancer patients and make a big show of taking away their weed.
ReplyDeleteSo there's the cost of law enforcement, court processing, incarceration, and of course losses suffered by families whose loved ones are in the system. If now's not the time to stop spending money on that, well, I just don't know.