High rates of parental incarceration among African-Americans means that criminal justice reform is now education reform

African-American schoolchildren have a one in four chance of having a parent who is in jail, or who has been previously incarcerated. In new report Leila Morsy and Richard Rothstein argue that incarceration of African Americans – which has been on the rise due to increasingly punitive sentencing policies as well as the ramping up of the “War on Drugs” – has made a significant contribution to the racial achievement gap in education. They write that criminal justice reform is now education reform, and that it should be high on educators’ lists of concerns.