He who opens a school door, closes a prison.”
—Victor Hugo
French writer Victor Hugo wrote about the atrocities of prison in the early 1800s. His seminal work, Les Miserables, is a story of the horrific conditions in the prisons of his day and the life of a man who was never quite free from the specter of incarceration.
More than 150 years ago, Hugo clearly saw the link between incarceration and education—a link that is as true now as it was in 1862. The fact is that 85 percent of all juveniles who come into contact with the court system today are functionally illiterate. School dropouts are 3.5 times more likely to be arrested than high school graduates. Nationally, 68 percent of all males in prison do not have a high school diploma.
In a world where half the human race is bi-lingual, we are not even making sure all our students can read and write in our own language. Of course they drop out of school. It seems obvious that rather than spending tax dollars on incarcerating dropouts, new efforts should be focused on helping young men and women complete their high school educations—focusing on the basics of reading and writing, because literacy is the very key to a successful life.
Let’s get back to basics,
Jim
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