Tell Congress: Pass the Ending PUSHOUT Act!
[ [link removed] ]Take Action Now
[ [link removed] ]TAKE ACTION

Dear Friend,

Learning is a tender thing, worthy of protecting, and every child deserves
a seat in the classroom. Schools can be a safe place for students to
learn, heal, make mistakes, and grow and a place where students can build
healthy relationships with themselves, with their peers, with adults, and
with their communities beyond the classroom.

Yet for girls of color, and other traditionally marginalized students,
discrimination has led schools to disproportionately exclude them from the
classroom, through harsh discipline practices, such as suspension,
expulsion, and even arrest.

Black and Brown girls in schools are facing educational, judicial, and
societal disparities. 

* Black girls are 7x more likely to be suspended and 4x more likely to
be arrested at school compared to white girls^1.
* Latina girls are 1.6x more likely to receive out-of-school
suspensions^2. 
* Native American youth make up only 1% of students, yet Native American
girls are 3x more likely to be suspended than white girls^3. 
* LGBTQIA+ students of color are 2x more lily to be suspended than their
white peers^4. 
* Corporal punishment (e.g. spanking and paddling) is still permitted in
19 states and disproportionately administered on Black students and
students with disabilities^5. 

This is the unfortunate reality faced by too many Black and Brown students
and even more Black and Brown girls who have been pushed out of school,
making them more likely to end up in the juvenile justice system due to
systemic racism.^6

[ [link removed] ]This Pattern Must Stop! Tell Congress to Pass the Ending PUSHOUT Act
Now!

Pushout refers to the punitive discipline practices used in schools that
exclude students from class and too often harm students and communities by
pushing them out of school altogether. 

At alarming rates, Black girls, and other girls of color, experience
discriminatory, disparate, punitive, and unfair treatment in schools.
Black girls are suspended, expelled, referred to law enforcement, and
arrested in school at rates that far exceed the public school population
as a whole, and far exceed their white female peers.

[ [link removed] ]Congress must act! Pass the End PUSHOUT Act!

Lawmakers can prevent unfair school pushout now by passing the Ending
PUSHOUT Act (H.R. 2690).^7 The bill aims to stop discriminatory punishment
practices that criminalize Black and Brown students and push them out of
school and into the juvenile and criminal justice system effectively
fueling the school-to-prison pipeline.

A core part of the bill incentivizes states and schools to ban most
out-of-school suspensions and expulsions for minor infractions. This major
step can ensure there are equitable educational opportunities for girls of
color to achieve academic success by ending punitive and discriminatory
discipline practices that put Black and Brown girls at risk.^8

The Ending PUSHOUT Act includes:

* Establishing $2.5 billion in new federal grants to support states and
schools that commit to ban unfair discriminatory school discipline
practices and improve school climates.

* Protecting the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) and strengthening
the Department of Education’s (ED) Office of Civil Rights (OCR).

* Establishing a Federal Interagency Taskforce to End School Punishment
and examine its disproportionate impact on girls of color.

Together we can end the culture of criminalization in our schools and
build school cultures and environments where all kids, particularly those
who have been harmed by policies and practices that push them out of the
classroom and into the juvenile and criminal justice system, can thrive. 

[ [link removed] ]Join us in ending pushout, and dismantling the school-to-prison
pipeline for good!

Thanks for all you do,
--Beatriz, Kelsey, Monifa, Kiersten, and the whole MomsRising.org &
MamásConPoder Team

[ [link removed] ]P.S.–It’s time for Congress to address systemic problematic policing
tactics. Tell Congress to pass the People’s Response Act.

References:
[1] National Black Women’s Justice Institute, “[ [link removed] ]End School Pushout for
Black Girls and Other Girls of Color,” (Sept. 2019) 
[2] National Women’s Law Center, “[ [link removed] ]Let Her Learn: A Toolkit to Stop
School Pushout for Girls of Color,” (Nov. 2016)
[3] [ [link removed] ]The Ending Punitive, Unfair, School-Based Harm that is Overt and
Unresponsive to Trauma (PUSHOUT) Act
[4] [ [link removed] ]THE STRIKING OUTLIER
[5] [ [link removed] ]Educational Exclusion: Drop Out, Push Out, & School-to-Prison
Pipeline | GLSEN 
[6] [ [link removed] ]Resources | PUSHOUT
[7] [ [link removed] ]The Ending Punitive, Unfair, School-Based Harm that is Overt and
Unresponsive to Trauma (PUSHOUT) Act 
[8] [ [link removed] ]Bill Aims to End the "School to Confinement Pathway


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