Using banks and credit unions gives low-income immigrants a safe place to save
money and ways to build credit building alternatives other than subprime loans. Expanding options for
remittances encourages competition, lowers costs, and fosters innovation and
improved transparency for remittance transactions. Texas Appleseed has pressed for transparency in the remittance market,
urged that a history of sending remittances be used to establish credit-worthiness, and fought taxation of remittances.
This report focuses on the connection between disciplinary referrals and dropout rates, a dynamic that creates a pipeline into the
juvenile and adult criminal justice systems.
African American and special education students are significantly overrepresented in schools’ discretionary referrals to
Disciplinary Alternative Education Programs compared to their percentage in the overall student population.
Texas Appleseed is proposing increased monitoring of Disciplinary Alternative Education Programs (DAEPs) by the Texas Education Agency (TEA); improved
transitional planning to reintegrate students, disciplined off-campus, to their regular classroom; and requiring TEA provide additional training to school districts that exceed statewide averages for disciplinary referrals or that significantly
over-refer minority or special education students for disciplinary action.
To read more about the School-to-Prison Pipeline project, please click
here.
Texas' School-to-Prison Pipeline: Dropout to Incarceration: The Impact of School Discipline and Zero Tolerance Report:
Executive Summary
Full Report
Press Coverage:
"Prison track: Texas Has to Make Schools Safe for Learning
Without Turning Misbehaving Students into Criminals"
Houston Chronicle,
November 23, 2007
"Report Critiques How Texas Districts Send Students to Alternative Schools"
Austin American Statesman,
October 19, 2007
"New Texas Appleseed Report: School Discipline Reforms Needed To
Help Dismantle Texas' School-To-Prison Pipeline"
Press Release, Texas Appleseed,
October 18, 2007
"Disciplinary Policy in Texas Schools Raises Concerns"
NPR,
June 26, 2007
"Counsel Assist With Report That Alters Education Code"
Texas Lawyer,
June 11, 2007
TEXAS APPLESEED & ADVOCACY, INC. REACH COMPROMISE WITH TYC ON PEPPER SPRAY USE
Texas Appleseed and Advocacy, Inc. took legal action twice in 2007 to stop the overuse of pepper spray
against young inmates in Texas Youth Commission (TYC) facilities. As a result, TYC is currently reviewing its use
of force rule and has modified the use of pepper spray, resulting in a drop in the number of reported pepper spray
incidents in TYC facilities.
Under the terms of the original settlement agreement reached last fall, TYC had agreed to return to a previous
policy of only using pepper spray after other interventions were attempted to maintain order in TYC facilities. However,
in October, Appleseed and Advocacy went back to court arguing that TYC was not complying with the settlement.
All plaintiffs named in the suit have either a diagnosed
mental illness or emotional disability, and each has suffered physical and or psychological harm after being exposed or
repeatedly threatened with pepper spray by TYC staff. The suit alleged that the agency's Acting Executive Director circumvented
rule-making procedures required under the Administrative Procedures Act when she issued her August 2007 executive order expanding
the use of pepper spray in TYC.
To read the new compromise agreement, click
here. To read the new compromise agreement addendum, click
here. To read the Motion to Enforce, click
here. To read the settlement agreement, click here.
To read the original petition, click here.
Press Coverage:
"Teen Inmates Pepper-Sprayed on Videotape"
Austin American-Statesman,
December 4, 2007
"TYC Considers Changes To Use-Of-Force Policy"
KXAN.com,
December 4, 2007
"TYC Urged to Limit Pepper Spray"
Houston Chronicle,
December 3, 2007
"State, Youth Advocates Reach Deal to Limit Pepper Spray"
Austin American-Statesman,
November 30, 2007
"TYC Agrees to Change Pepper Spray Policy"
Houston Chronicle,
November 29, 2007
