It Calls You Back | CJ Reading Book Review Interview by Tina F. (CJ432 Spring 2012)

To read the interview by Tina Fletcher with Luis Rodriguez: CLICK HERE

"...All kids are reachable. Often it’s simple—love, never giving up, deep engagement, allowing for their maximum contribution, and allowing for their mistakes. Zero tolerance is meant to fail and it does—kids are pushed out of the schools, into the streets (often for very little) and are soon pushed into the juvenile lockups and prisons. Again, a profitable industry arises to meet the crisis. No kid should be given up on. But this is the very center of every zero tolerance policy. It’s now in our homes, not just our schools. For example, so-called “tough love” where parents are pushing their kids out when they don’t “conform,” “abide,” or listen. Drugs, mental illness, suicide, and other aspects need treatment, short and long-term care, family and community. Instead we look at the youth as the problem and try to change them, instead of the environment. Ritalin and similar “ADD” drugs does the same—make the student the problem, not the school.."

~Luis Rodriguez

| Tina F. |