The Illinois legislative session wrapped up late last month without tackling the pervasive issue of school ticketing, a practice where schools refer students to police to be disciplined for school misbehavior.

As a civil rights attorney at the MacArthur Justice Center, I’ve traveled around the state to witness the impact of these tickets. One of the first ticketing hearings I saw was in Joliet, purportedly for “disorderly conduct”: A girl with stomach problems disobeyed a teacher’s instructions to leave the bathroom, resulting in a referral to the police, an obligation to attend a hearing on a school day and a $150 fine.

Her experience is not unique. Across Illinois, tickets of up to hundreds of dollars are issued for things like littering, swearing or hallway scuffles — behaviors that schools should address internally with evidence-based solutions like restorative practices.

The ticketing practice is a debilitating symptom of a larger problem: the transformation of our classrooms into carceral spaces. Over the past decades, schools and prisons have become more alike in law, policy, and staffing. Courts have granted prisons tremendous control over prisoners purportedly in the name of rehabilitation and safety — and they’ve extended that same power to schools.

As incarcerated people lost the right to write each other love letters, students lost the right to discuss teen pregnancy in their news publications. As incarcerated people lost the right to be free of strip searches, students lost the right to demand probable cause before administrators dug through their purses. Supposedly, this is to let schools teach kids values and keep kids safe — but in practice, we know our education system is failing.

Policymakers have mirrored our judiciary in treating schools like carceral institutions, adopting adult surveillance measures and zero-tolerance rules. Scholars say it’s because of the superpredator myth that came about in the 1990s — the racially coded idea that we would see a wave of “elementary school youngsters who pack guns instead of lunches.” The rise of school shootings — perpetrated largely by white young men — only motivated school authorities to intensify their policies. And with inadequate resources to address the complex needs of students with disabilities or trauma, schools resort to pushing “problem” kids out to maintain order.

More cops, fewer social workers

There are serious consequences to these fear-driven shortcuts. As schools pour money into staffing law enforcement officers instead of medical providers and social workers, students can find themselves handcuffed in the halls, interrogated without counsel and ferreted toward a cell.

Research on the school-to-prison pipeline proves that police exposure makes young people vulnerable to future lock-ups. In Illinois, one of the most common ways kids get exposed to police is through ticketing. Investigators found that from 2019 to 2022, police were involved in student incidents about 17,800 times in 200 Illinois districts and in more than half of these incidents, they issued tickets.

Rockford Public Schools, a district serving nearly 30,000 students, is an expert at ticketing. During the past school year alone, they issued 590 police referrals as of March 24. Every Wednesday at 1 p.m., when kids should be in school, Rockford City Hall holds its hearings for municipal tickets. Though kids can be as young as 8, these hearings are not privacy-protected. There’s no right to an attorney. And if a kid doesn’t show up, the default fine is $750.

I’ve also never seen a white student ticketed in Rockford. Data shows Black students are more than twice as likely as their white peers to receive a police referral, and Black students with disabilities are more than three times as likely. The disparity is so stark that the National Center for Youth Law and the MacArthur Justice Center have filed a civil rights complaint against Rockford, alleging violations of federal anti-discrimination law.

The same disparities have been playing out across the state. In spring 2022, the Illinois attorney general’s office launched an investigation into the alleged discriminatory ticketing practice in one of Illinois’ largest school districts. There have been no updates.

To be sure, the safety of our children and a shortage of resources are serious concerns. But over-policing students has turned our schools into punitive institutions that devastate our most vulnerable. We need to do better.

For years, advocates have been trying to pass a bill that will end the ticketing practice — and for yet another year, the state has been resistant. It’s long past time for the state to do the necessary work to reform discipline in schools.

Zoe Li is a Liman Public Interest Fellow and civil rights attorney at the MacArthur Justice Center, where she primarily focuses on policing in schools and police misconduct.

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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana GOP party chair Anne Hathaway is stepping down about 10 months after outgoing Gov. Eric Holcomb appointed her to the role.

Her departure was announced

shortly after delegates at the state party convention rejected party leadership and the endorsement of former President Donald Trump to nominate an ultra-conservative pastor for lieutenant governor to run alongside gubernatorial nominee U.S. Sen. Mike Braun.

Hathaway was the first woman to hold the position. She also chairs the panel organizing the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this July 15-18.

The state party’s announcement said Hathaway was unanimously reelected Friday as national committeewoman and informed members in the same meeting that she would be stepping down from her state leadership role. Hathaway’s successor will be elected by members of the Indiana Republican State Committee June 24. Executive Director Joe Elsener is also stepping down, the party said.

“The timing is right having just concluded our 2024 State Convention, and I look forward to working with Senator Braun and the members of our Republican State Committee to select our next chair,” Hathaway said in the party’s announcement.

The convention came to shocking end on Saturday when delegates elected Micah Beckwith, who promotes uncompromising views as co-host of the “Sex, Jesus and Politics” podcast, instead of Braun’s choice of state Rep. Julie McGuire to be his running mate.

A national Democratic group is boosting seven candidates for the Iowa House and Senate as the party aims to flip Republican-held seats this November and begin to climb out of the minority.

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, an arm of the national Democratic Party dedicated to electing Democrats to statehouses around the country, named the seven Iowa “spotlight” candidates Tuesday. They are:

• Rep. Josh Turek, D-Council Bluffs, who is running for a second term in House District 20.
• Heather Sievers, who is challenging Rep. Bill Gustoff, R-Des Moines, in House District 40.
• Tiara Mays-Sims, who is challenging Rep. Eddie Andrews, R-Johnston, in House District 43.
• Aime Wichtendahl, who is running for House District 80, an open seat in Cedar Rapids, Hiawatha and Robins.
• Matt Blake, who is challenging Sen. Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, in Senate District 22.
• Sen. Eric Giddens, D-Cedar Falls, who is running for reelection in Senate District 38.
• Nannette Griffin, who is challenging Sen. Jeff Reichman, R-Montrose, in Senate District 50.

The news comes one day after the DLCC announced a plan to spend $10 million nationwide as part of its “Summer of the States” campaign. It’s not clear how much money the group could spend in Iowa.

Democrats are in the minority in the Iowa House, holding 36 seats to Republicans’ 64. And Republicans enjoy a supermajority in the Iowa Senate, with 34 seats to Democrats’ 16.

More: Iowa Democrats urge focus on education, abortion as they seek wins in November elections

House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst, D-Windsor Heights, is the top Democrat in the Iowa House and a member of the DLCC board.

She said the national party’s decision to highlight candidates in Iowa “shows that what we’ve been saying for a while is true, which is that Iowa is a purple state.”

She pointed to the fact that Iowa’s 1st and 3rd congressional districts, which are held by Republican U.S. Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn, are on national Democrats’ list of top congressional seats to flip this year.

“It just goes to show you that the message that we’ve been giving for a long time, which is don’t give up on Iowa, has broken through,” she said. “And that some national folks are looking at Iowa and saying, ‘OK, this place can come back to purple. This place can come back into balance. Let’s get engaged and see what we can do.’”

Konfrst said it will take time for Democrats to win back majorities in the Iowa House and Senate, but argued the national party can see “we’re doing really good work to rebuild.”

“The DLCC knows that we’re not going to flip the Iowa House this year or the Senate,” she said. “But they also know that you don’t get there unless you start investing now. And so that’s why it really means a lot that they’re here and they’ve picked some great candidates.”

In a news release the DLCC said Republican majorities in the Iowa House and Senate “has posed grave threats to Iowans’ fundamental freedoms.”

The group highlighted Iowa Republican policies to restrict abortion, including a bill that passed the Iowa House to raise penalties for ending someone’s pregnancy without their consent.

Democrats and Senate Republicans said the legislation could endanger access to in vitro fertilization because it would have defined an “unborn person” as beginning at fertilization. The bill did not become law.

More: IVF fears scuttle Iowa bill raising penalty for ending pregnancy without consent

“Iowa Republicans made national headlines this year for their egregious threats to reproductive rights, and Democrats have the candidates this year to fight back and win targeted races,” DLCC President Heather Williams said in a statement. “The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee is proud to announce our Spotlight candidates in Iowa, whose fierce support of fundamental freedoms and democracy will be instrumental for combatting the GOP agenda.”

Stephen Gruber-Miller covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com or by phone at 515-284-8169. Follow him on Twitter at @sgrubermiller.