Skip to main content

New top story from Time: We Must Give All Prisoners Access to Resources to Pursue College Education

https://ift.tt/3hYCJyc

One of the lies that people tell about prison is that men and women and children inside don’t crave the wonders that can be found in a book. Some stories I tell often, one in particular, about being in solitary confinement and having a man whose name I never knew slide me Dudley Randall’s The Black Poets is a favorite. A favorite because the telling always surprises me, makes me remember that it did happen that way, and it captures so much of what contributes to a great educational experience: the desperation of a student wanting to learn, the willingness of an educator to offer tools to facilitate that learning, and the sheer discovery that comes with being introduced to the unexpected.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Unlike some folks, in 1997, months after entering the Fairfax County Jail as an eleventh grader facing life in prison, I earned my high school diploma. Though I had a year of high school left, I’d earned enough credits to graduate. These were the years when access to Pell Grants completely disappeared due to 1994’s federal crime bill.

While politicians and advocates continue to plan for the future of our education systems, one thing troubles me still: will people in prison be left behind? Before the pandemic, I was in Connecticut’s Cheshire Correctional Center, visiting Professor Lori Gruen’s philosophy class. Just yesterday, on May 26, eight of those students received Bachelor’s degrees as a part of Wesleyan University’s Center for Prison Education. I gave the Wesleyan commencement speech and also received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters. The day was wild. Moments after giving the speech, I represented a friend in Virginia at his parole hearing. The board wondered about the programs that he’d participated in, but there has never been a college education program in the prisons that he and I served time in. And this is why one of the most important questions of today is: will what I’ve had access to since my release from prison be given to more students like them?

As someone whose world was opened up by books and whose life since, as a writer and as a lawyer, has revolved around them like the sun, people’s right to study—to expand their minds and deepen their lives through reading and learning—is unshakable. Access to the Pell Grants that put higher education in reach for people in prison must stay a key implementation priority for the U.S. Education Department.

Last December, Congress passed a year-end omnibus bill that included the reinstatement of Pell Grants for people in prison. This bipartisan decision to reverse a destructive remnant of the punitive “tough on crime” era now gives incarcerated people an opportunity to take college courses when they otherwise couldn’t afford them. Prison threatens to turn your time there to lost years, and while I know plenty of people who resisted—who remade themselves into different men through the hard, private work of relentless self-confrontation—I know more who could have used the push and call of a college opportunity. I could have come home at 24 a college graduate, instead of with only a bus ticket and a sense of years of catching up to do.

Read More: Why I’ll Always Drop Everything to Answer My Brother’s Call From Prison

Quiet as kept, most people in prison return home. Statistics put the figure at over 90 percent. And people want to go home. Studies aren’t needed to understand that desire for freedom, nor why people who participate in prison education programs are less likely to return to prison. The chance they’ve had through college inside to imagine and prepare for a different life once home is one we should all defend and expand.

Now in its fifth year, the Second Chance Pell Experimental Sites Initiative has shown promising growth in closing racial inequities through broad access to postsecondary education. So far, we’ve seen Black students enroll in college in prison programs at a rate 2.5 times higher than those on college campuses. Part of that means that institutions like Yale University, where I received my law degree and am pursuing a Ph.D, aren’t doing enough to recruit and mentor the students who live down the street from me. But another part of this is that Yale, in supporting college programming in prison, has chosen one place to work on a solution.

That is why our nation’s leaders must prioritize the implementation of Pell Grants for people in prison. There are thousands of people currently behind bars who deserve to experience the transformative power of a quality postsecondary education. To make education a right for all, the U.S. Department of Education must work with higher education institutions, correctional facilities and technical advisors to promptly and thoughtfully implement Pell Grants for all incarcerated people.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Bihar: Stages collapse during Congress rallies in Darbhanga, West Champaran https://ift.tt/37QFnks

The stage on which Congress candidate from Jale assembly seat, Mashkoor Ahmad Usman was addressing a rally broke and collapsed in Bihar's Darbhanga on Thursday. In a similar incident, another stage collapsed and took down party leaders Imran Pratapgarhi and Akhilesh Singh along with several party workers who were on the dias, during a Congress rally at Bagahi Deoraj in Champaran.

New Dashboards Give a Window into Muni Service Changes

New Dashboards Give a Window into Muni Service Changes By Kate McCarthy An inspector manages Muni service. New dashboards that help inform changes to Muni service are now live at SFMTA.com/MuniData Many factors inform our decisions about Muni service adjustments. These include making sure changes to service support the SFMTA’s values, which are economic vitality, environmental stewardship, trust and equity. We also evaluate travel patterns. You can now explore these patterns using the new Muni data dashboards  (SFMTA.com/MuniData). When looking at possible Muni service changes, the first thing we do is turn to the Muni Service Equity Strategy for guidance. Using the Muni Service Equity Strategy, we prioritize providing Muni service along routes that more often serve people of color, members of low-income households, and/or those who are dependent upon transit service, including people with disabilities and seniors. We also use ridership data to analyze where riders are boa...

India reports first 6 cases of new coronavirus strain after UK returnees test positive https://ift.tt/3pA0T2j

India on Tuesday reported the first six cases of the new coronavirus strain after six people who had returned from the United Kingdom were tested positive for the new UK variant genome. According to the details, the new coronavirus strain cases were reported from Hyderabad, Pune and Bangalore. Samples of 3 UK returnees were tested and found positive for the new UK strain in NIMHANS, Bengaluru. The other two cases were tested at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad; while the last case was tested at the National Institute of Virology, Pune.

FOX NEWS: Ohio amusement park shut down after multiple fights break out Kings Island in Mason, around 20 miles north of Cincinnati, closed down 30 minutes early Saturday night after several fights among teenagers occurred, reports suggest.

Ohio amusement park shut down after multiple fights break out Kings Island in Mason, around 20 miles north of Cincinnati, closed down 30 minutes early Saturday night after several fights among teenagers occurred, reports suggest. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/3wsn8uI

PM Modi lauds IFS officers for their work towards serving nation, furthering national interests https://ift.tt/36HoEzw

Greeting Indian Foreign Service officers on IFS day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that their work towards serving the nation and furthering national interests globally are commendable. Their efforts during the Vande Bharat Mission, which was launched to bring Indians home from abroad during the COVID-19 pandemic as international travel came to a halt, and other related help to our citizens and other nations is noteworthy, Modi added.

FOX NEWS: Bride's father asks stepdad to help walk her down the aisle in sweet viral moment A selfless gesture by the father of a bride was shared on social media in a viral moment of him surprising the girl’s stepfather by asking him to help walk her to the altar.

Bride's father asks stepdad to help walk her down the aisle in sweet viral moment A selfless gesture by the father of a bride was shared on social media in a viral moment of him surprising the girl’s stepfather by asking him to help walk her to the altar. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/ZkQ1Rpt

Better Connections from Bayview and Hunters Point to Downtown

Better Connections from Bayview and Hunters Point to Downtown By Enrique Aguilar To better connect southeast San Franciscans with downtown, the SFMTA debuted the 15 Bayview Hunters-Point Express in late January, coinciding with the return of T Third train service. Within weeks, average daily boardings reached 1,000 customers on this new service. The 15 Bayview Hunters Point Express  We added this route based on community feedback from the Southeast Muni Expansion Project in 2018, which prioritized a more direct trip to downtown from the Bayview. With the sudden rise of the COVID-19 pandemic and its disproportionate impacts on communities in the Bayview and Hunters Point, fast-tracking the project became critical to our transit planning. Adding service capacity and a direct connection between these neighborhoods and downtown is a crucial step in supporting the City’s economic recovery and increasing job access for essential workers using transit. Using data from the SFMTA Equ...

Plan Your Next Golden Gate Park Trip with Muni

Plan Your Next Golden Gate Park Trip with Muni By Eillie Anzilotti   A map of San Francisco showing Muni lines that offer direct service to Golden Gate Park, including: The 18 46th Avenue, the 29 Sunset, the 5 Fulton and 5R Fulton Rapid, the N Judah, the 44 O’Shaughnessy, the 33 Ashbury/18th Street, the 7 Haight/Noriega, the 43 Masonic and the 28 19th Avenue. Around each bus route shown on the map, a red zone shows the range within 1,000 feet of a stop, orange shows within 2,000 feet of a stop, and yellow shows within 3,000 feet. Here’s a fun fact: 70% of San Franciscans are within a 15-minute walk of a transfer-free Muni ride to the largest public space in our city: Golden Gate Park.   Especially as COVID-19 has heightened the importance of outdoor recreation and park access, SFMTA has made efforts to update Muni service to get people to Golden Gate Park. As of now, ...

New top story from Time: ‘I Should Be Presumed Innocent.’ Hong Kong Media Tycoon Jimmy Lai Criticizes His Arrest

https://ift.tt/342b8VJ Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai said he was arrested on “trumped up” charges, pushing back against landmark national security legislation that has raised questions about press freedoms and the future of the democracy movement. “They’re trumped up. I can’t go further on the details,” Lai said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Friday morning. “Before any evidence, they just claimed and presumed that I’m guilty. This isn’t the way the law is. I should be presumed innocent. We have never supported the independence of Hong Kong.” He said Hong Kong’s future as Asia’s main financial hub was uncertain if there was no respect for the rule of law under the new security measures. “The future of Hong Kong is the future of any other Chinese city,” he added. “Without the rule of law, the international financial center will be finished.” He added that the law sent a “very negative” message to the business community in Hong Kong and overseas. Lai has ...

अगर मैंने आत्महत्या की तो लोगों को पता होना चाहिए किसकी वजह से की - फूटकर रोते दिखे विकास गुप्ता

सुशांत सिंह राजपूत की आत्महत्या हर किसी को एक गहरा सदमा दे गई है और अब सुशांत के करीबी दोस्त विकास गुप्ता ने एक वीडियो में अपनी आपबीती सुनाई है। विकास इस वीडियो में बेहद टूटे हुए नज़र आ रहे हैं from टेलीविजन की खबरें | Television News in Hindi | TV Serials Update in Hindi – FilmiBeat Hindi http:/hindi.filmibeat.com/television/vikas-gupta-reveals-people-want-him-to-commit-suicide-cries-his-heart-out-for-sushant-singh-rajput-090284.html?utm_source=/rss/filmibeat-hindi-television-fb.xml&utm_medium=23.213.205.12&utm_campaign=client-rss