Monique W. Morris

Fifteen-year-old Diamond stopped going to school the day she was expelled for lashing out at peers who constantly harassed and teased her for something everyone on the staff had missed: she was being trafficked for sex. After months on the run, she was arrested and sent to a detention center for violating a court order to attend school. Just 16 percent of female students, Black girls make up more than one-third of all girls with a school-related arrest. The first trade book to tell these untold stories, Pushout exposes a world of confined potential and supports the growing movement to address the policies, practices, and cultural illiteracy that push countless students out of school and into unhealthy, unstable, and often unsafe futures. For four years Monique W. Morris, author of Black Stats, chronicled the experiences of black girls across the country whose intricate lives are misunderstood, highly judged—by teachers, administrators, and the justice system—and degraded by the very institutions charged with helping them flourish. Morris shows how, despite obstacles, stigmas, stereotypes, and despair, black girls still find ways to breathe remarkable dignity into their lives in classrooms, juvenile facilities, and beyond.

The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools

Pushout

Monique Morris

"Black girls represent 16 percent of female students but almost half of all girls with a school-related arrest. The first trade book to tell these untold stories, Pushout [explores] a world of confined potential and supports the growing movement to address the policies, practices, and cultural illiteracy that push countless students out of school and into unhealthy, unstable, and often unsafe futures"--

Ron Bronson

Goodness, I can't say enough good things about the quality of this book's reporting. The statistics even dating back to earlier periods of education re: criminalization of black women was massively informative. Beyond that, it gives actionable and substantive ways that we can move forward based on her own work. Often books like this examine the problem and walk away without offering concrete solutions.

Ultimately, it covers ground that we knew in broader cases of the education of young black kids in this country and how our systems are not designed to benefit students - especially of color. But the specific focus on vulnerable young black girls is not an audience that gets focused on enough and for a light to be shined on that population is well-needed.

Fraser Simons

Comprehensive and very well formatted. I found it easy to follow and there are action items attached to the problems diagnosed from the personal to systemic level. I don’t know what more you could ask for. 

If I had to dig for something Sometimes it’s a bit wooden when it gets into stats, but without that empirical data listed where it is, such as if it were moved to an appendix or something, I think it would lose some of the weight and the formatting would suffer. The numbers are pretty pivotal, so.

Jeni Enjaian

I found this book profoundly meaningful and challenging. Morris put a spotlight on the voices of the very girls she advocates for throughout this book. That fact brought home the realities facing these girls. Then when Morris uses the last chapter to lay down her call to action, she has made her readers invested in the cause and more willing and ready to start the kind of advocacy she calls for. I highly recommend this book.

Mina Chan

written more from a research perspective instead of a narrative (which I wasn't expecting, but still an eye opening read), Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools discusses the various interviews by Black students who have been pushed out of the education system really hit home for me as an educator.

this book highlights and challenges the readers' bias and stereotypes towards Black girls, asks where these things come from, as well as gives insight to understanding cultural influences and history of behaviour and how that looks like in the Black community (really challenged the current discipline philosophies in education and how they are terribly rooted in racism and bias against the Black community). 

lots of things to unpack.

The “powerful” (Michelle Alexander) exploration—featured by The Atlantic, Essence, the Washington Post, New York magazine, NPR, and others—of the harsh and harmful experiences confronting Black girls in schools In a work that Lisa Delpit calls “imperative reading,” Monique W. Morris (Black Stats, Too Beautiful for Words) chronicles the experiences of Black girls across the country whose intricate lives are misunderstood, highly judged—by teachers, administrators, and the justice system—and degraded by the very institutions charged with helping them flourish. Called “compelling” and “thought-provoking” by Kirkus Reviews, Pushout exposes a world of confined potential and supports the rising movement to challenge the policies, practices, and cultural illiteracy that push countless students out of school and into unhealthy, unstable, and often unsafe futures. Called a book “for everyone who cares about children” by the Washington Post, Morris’s illumination of these critical issues is “timely and important” (Booklist) at a moment when Black girls are the fastest growing population in the juvenile justice system. Praised by voices as wide-ranging as Gloria Steinem and Roland Martin, and highlighted for the audiences of Elle and Jet right alongside those of EdWeek and the Leonard Lopate Show, Pushout is a book that “will stay with you long after you turn the final page” (Bookish).

Pushout The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools

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