By Nirvi Shah (Edweek.org) – The NAACP has joined forces with fiscally conservative groups, former U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige, and others to persuade legislators and policymakers to shift the growing amount of money spent on prisons to education.
In a new report called “Misplaced Priorities: Over Incarcerate, Under Educate,” the NAACP compiled research and data from a variety of sources to show that, for years, many states have spent increasing amounts of their discretionary funds on prisons and less of that money on education.
“This multidecade trend of prioritizing incarceration over education is not sustainable,” NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous said.
The NAACP presented the report here on Thursday along with leaders from Americans for Tax Reform, the American Conservative Union, the Executive Committee of Corrections USA, the founder of Lotus Development Corporation, the president of the United States Student Association, and the head of California’s correctional officers union.
Citing research and data from the Pew Center on the States, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the National Association of State Budget Officers, and news reports, the report says that in 2009, as state general fund spending declined for kindergarten through 12th grade education and higher education, 33 states spent a bigger slice of those dollars on prisons than they had in 2008.
“This is a call not to be soft on crime,” said Mr. Paige, a former Houston schools superintendent who served in the administration of President George W. Bush. Read the full story at Education Week.
