The Donation

So classes are going on full bore. And, I stay busy. Right now, I’m the only college aide: 1. With a college degree, and 2. Not enrolled in classes. That means I’m the only T.A. available to assist. That isn’t a bad thing. Time is flying by right now. We’re already two full months into the year, only two weeks away from the end of our first eight-week semester.

            I enjoy working with the college teachers. It takes a unique outlook to willingly agree to come out here and teach. There is a screening process – to make sure the professor doesn’t have a prior criminal record – and then the pat down and search every time they come out for class. Everything they try and bring in – like plastic protractors for math – has to be pre-approved by “operations” before it’s admitted. And “operations,” like every other office here runs on “correction’s time,” which means it isn’t a priority.

            I respect those teachers who are willing to go through all that for guys in here to get a shot at an education. The easy response, the typical response usually is, “the hell with them. They broke the law, why do they deserve a college education?” That’s a tough attitude to fight. This past week the Wall Street Journal reported that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced his plan to use state funds to finance college programs in ten New York prisons. The Governor pointed out that New York taxpayers spend more to house an inmate for one year than it costs to send a student to Harvard that same year (the State will spend $5,000 per inmate/college student for its prison degree program; it costs $60,000 per year to keep an inmate locked up in New York).

            More important to the Governor was the difference a college education means to a released offender. Bard College (the same school partnering with SVCC to operate our college program here) has funded college programs in six New York prisons since 1999. The results are astounding. Since 1999, graduates of the Bard prison college program have a 4% recidivism rate versus the New York State rate of 40%. College breaks the cycle of repeat offenses.

            These teachers, who don’t get much per class to come in here and teach, matter in the long run to these men. The guys – most of them anyway – get it and appreciate it. I do too. I try and do extra to help, take on more in – and outside – the classroom to make the instructor’s job a little easier. Part of that involves grading papers for “street classes.” The teacher gives me an answer key and off I go, knocking out loads of quizzes, tests, homework assignments for kids on the street who probably don’t realize how lucky they are getting the education they do.

            I was in Math class two weeks ago grading sets of pre-calculus exams from three “street classes.” I got to the last set of papers and discovered it was a set of questions on Dicken’s “A Tale of Two Cities.” Now, Charles Dickens is one of my favorite novelists, so I went through the papers and was really impressed with the range of questions asked. “This is a really good test on the book,” I told the teacher. “I’ll let the English teacher know,” she told me. Then it hit me; I was grading papers for someone else. “I told my friend my TA wouldn’t mind grading these,” she said. And I didn’t. It just struck me funny that a guy behind bars was doing so much for Profs on the outside. “Ask her if she’s teaching on “Bleak House” (a thousand page Dickens novel that is my favorite). If she is I’d love to grade those.”

            Fast forward to yesterday. The principal called me back to the office. There were two boxes of books up front that officers were bringing back to us, class sets of classics: The “Red Badge of Courage,” “Paradise Lost,” “War and Peace,” and others. “They’re a donation from an English professor to thank us for our help. We’ll use these for our college book club.” We now have all these books we can use, books the English teacher’s “street students” weren’t interested in.

            Next month, we’re starting a series of seminars in the dorm with the college guys. If they are successful, they’ll use them in the re-entry dorm. One seminar will focus on health and discuss meditation techniques. Another will focus on financial literacy. A third seminar will deal with time management and soft job skills. Then there will be a book club with both classic literature and contemporary nonfiction such as “Band of Brothers” and memoirs/biographies such as “Job.”

            Everything we’re working on right now is to give our guys exposure to life lessons and knowledge most of us from the “good” side of the street take for granted. “War and Peace” may not stop a guy from using crystal meth when he gets out, or maybe it just might. That’s why what goes on in here matters so much. That’s why a person like the English Professor who donated the books may make the difference for one of these men deciding not to risk coming back here.

College - Convict Style

Monday morning I participated in a meeting with representatives of DOC’s central office, the warden and his staff, and the local community college. Craig, DC, Saleem, and I – the four main college aides – were asked to speak about our prison college program. See, we have funding again (a big shout out to my cousin who sent the article about Bard College. I gave it to our principal who sent it to the community college. Within a week, Bard and the college were talking.). In January, two programs for liberal arts (under a partnership with Bard and SVCC) and a Veterans college IT program funded under the GI bill. Another school – Virginia State University – has offered to take our students at release and enroll them as degree candidates.

Things are looking up for college inside. Perhaps that is because people in power are starting to admit what those of us in here know: the only effective program to combat recidivism is education. I said that at the meeting. With the warden and the assistant department director sitting there I told them what I’d seen, namely that you can have a hundred re-entry programs, but none will match the results that a college education gives.

Afterward, Dr. Hayes, the community college’s “Coordinator for Prison Education Services” pulled me aside and thanked me for my impassioned remarks. Dr. Hayes earned her PHD last year with a dissertation analyzing African-American inmates and higher education behind bars. And I do feel passionate about educational opportunities for the incarcerated. Only 1.2% of all Virginia inmates have a college – or more advanced – degree. Over 70% have a high school diploma or less, with 42% not even having a high school diploma or GED.

The vast majority of men I’ve met in here have known nothing but failure in school. And that failure carried over into failure in employment. Earning potential and stable employment with an employer who provides benefits are significantly less for the under-educated. Financial success in America is quite literally determined by the extent of a person’s education.

All the problems the incarcerated faced “BP” (before prison) are compounded on release. Only a college degree has been shown to provide the released prisoner with the job skills and self-confidence necessary to avoid a return trip to the system.

The Commonwealth of Virginia spends more than $25,000 a year to keep an inmate behind bars. That same inmate can be educated at one-fifth of that cost, roughly $5,000 per year. As I told the assembled participants the other day, I teach reading to five men each afternoon. Not one of those men (ranging in age from 31 to 65) reads above a second grade level. To a man, they tell me I’m the first teacher they’ve ever had who has taken the time to teach them phonics, and to read to them. Yes, they make progress; but their road to success when they leave here is limited.

College is coming back here. For the lucky few who get in, it is the chance of a lifetime, a chance to put this behind them.