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Unlocking Potential: Organizing a School Inside a Prison
“Kids are in a jail cell all day long for months and months and months…They’re entitled to receive an education but no one has worked out how to provide that education.”
—Senator Evie Hudak, D-Westminster, Colorado
“It is refreshing to see information and concerns navigated towards our unique situation. It is not often that I find information specific to what we are doing.”
—Robert Leyrer, Correctional Educator & Special Education Coordinator
Would you model success after a school that looks and feels like a prison?
In Unlocking Potential award-winning educator Hilderbrand Pelzer III shows corrections professionals, teachers, and educators of all levels how to make superior educational services for incarcerated school-age youths a priority as they await trials as “adults.”
Having sharpened his expertise in one of the largest urban county jail systems in the United States, Pelzer presents a successful approach to confronting the legal, logistical, and educational dilemmas that have thwarted most programs dealing with the education of incarcerated school-age youths in county jail systems across the country. Pelzer examines the assumptions that have existed about the capacities and capabilities of schools in prisons and he offers a successful reform model that focuses on solutions.
Unlocking Potential stresses the power of education and the importance of leadership. Professionals working with incarcerated school-age youths can use this book to review their educational practices; examine their assumptions about the capacities and capabilities of schools in prisons; plan action to overcome legal, logistical, and educational dilemmas; design schools that align with a deliberate correctional education purpose; and raise educational dialogue to the level that such work merits.
This timely book emphasizes how education can and should play a prominent role in all institutions that are responsible for children.
—Senator Evie Hudak, D-Westminster, Colorado
“It is refreshing to see information and concerns navigated towards our unique situation. It is not often that I find information specific to what we are doing.”
—Robert Leyrer, Correctional Educator & Special Education Coordinator
Would you model success after a school that looks and feels like a prison?
In Unlocking Potential award-winning educator Hilderbrand Pelzer III shows corrections professionals, teachers, and educators of all levels how to make superior educational services for incarcerated school-age youths a priority as they await trials as “adults.”
Having sharpened his expertise in one of the largest urban county jail systems in the United States, Pelzer presents a successful approach to confronting the legal, logistical, and educational dilemmas that have thwarted most programs dealing with the education of incarcerated school-age youths in county jail systems across the country. Pelzer examines the assumptions that have existed about the capacities and capabilities of schools in prisons and he offers a successful reform model that focuses on solutions.
Unlocking Potential stresses the power of education and the importance of leadership. Professionals working with incarcerated school-age youths can use this book to review their educational practices; examine their assumptions about the capacities and capabilities of schools in prisons; plan action to overcome legal, logistical, and educational dilemmas; design schools that align with a deliberate correctional education purpose; and raise educational dialogue to the level that such work merits.
This timely book emphasizes how education can and should play a prominent role in all institutions that are responsible for children.
115 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 1, 2011
4 people are currently reading
14 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 6, 2022
Whether or not you teach in the prison system, plenty of food-for-thought about how we approach the education of urban youth. And if in a position to teach or make policy about young people who are incarcerated, this is a must-read. No frills, just honest insights, real facts, and yet, a hopefulness a lesser voice might gloss over. Very worth reading.
April 23, 2023
“If we believe we are the gatekeepers of our society, we must remember that “they can because they think they can,” - helping them to believe they can is our duty as educators.” p. viii
“The performance of public schools affects the overall health and future vitality of neighborhoods. For example, the level of academic accomplishment affects the property values of entire neighborhoods and cities.” p.6
“Teachers’ low expectations often undermind the educational and academic progress of the very students they are responsible for educating…The key is the desire to deliver instruction to other people’s children with the same veracity, intensity, and desire for success that one would offer one’s own children.” p.6
“Public schools sometimes rely on police responses and student arrests as methods of disciplinary control. Teachers dole out poor grades as a method of discipline. These factors widen the distrust between students and their schools.” p.10
“…fourteen urban school districts have graduation rates lower than 50%; these include: Detroit, Baltimore, New York City, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas, Denver, Houston, and Washington, DC.” p.12
“Research suggests students who do not read by the fourth grade have only a 12% probability of every learning to read.” p.13
“…only 29% of juveniles in adult corrections facilities across the U.S. were enrolled in education programs.” p.53
“The performance of public schools affects the overall health and future vitality of neighborhoods. For example, the level of academic accomplishment affects the property values of entire neighborhoods and cities.” p.6
“Teachers’ low expectations often undermind the educational and academic progress of the very students they are responsible for educating…The key is the desire to deliver instruction to other people’s children with the same veracity, intensity, and desire for success that one would offer one’s own children.” p.6
“Public schools sometimes rely on police responses and student arrests as methods of disciplinary control. Teachers dole out poor grades as a method of discipline. These factors widen the distrust between students and their schools.” p.10
“…fourteen urban school districts have graduation rates lower than 50%; these include: Detroit, Baltimore, New York City, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas, Denver, Houston, and Washington, DC.” p.12
“Research suggests students who do not read by the fourth grade have only a 12% probability of every learning to read.” p.13
“…only 29% of juveniles in adult corrections facilities across the U.S. were enrolled in education programs.” p.53
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews