Advocates fighting to dismantle what the Department of Justice has called the “school-to-prison pipeline” won a small victory last week when the agency agreed to investigate the legality of truancy courts in Texas. Along with Wyoming, it’s one of only two states in the country to send kids to adult criminal court for skipping, or missing, school.
In Texas, “failure to attend school” is a Class C misdemeanor. When students have too many absences or latenesses, both they and their parents can be fined, jailed, and sometimes even sent to a detention facility. And they don’t have the right to an attorney along the way. According to the Justice Department, Texas’ Dallas County prosecuted about 20,000 cases where a student missed school.
[For more of this story, written by Lauren Kirchner, go to http://www.psmag.com/politics-...ncy-in-texas-schools]
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