By Editorial Class Writers: Liana Teixiera, Elissa Sanci, Jenn Harington, Amanda Kehoe, Peter DiDonato, Andrew Jones.

Did you know policymakers can predict the size of prisons based on third graders’ reading scores?

Policy violations and unbecoming physical and verbal conduct are two of the most common reasons students under the age of six are suspended in New Haven schools, according to the Connecticut State Department of Education.

The CT Mirror reported in May 2013 that 89 kindergarteners were suspended from schools in the New Haven school district. Suspending students at such a young age turns them away from the educational process in a reactive, not proactive, method in an effort to enforce discipline.

These students are in the earliest stages of social development. Sure, they’re a little rambunctious, but what child at this age isn’t? Children will be children; they get their hands dirty, they scrape their knees, and they act out. They don’t know any better. It is the responsibility of school administrators to sit down with the students if their behavior needs to be corrected, not to send the child home the minute they do not conform to the highest expectations of “proper” behavior.

Kicking students out of the classroom for minutes to days at a time robs them of valuable learning opportunities in which they could be increasing their knowledge to improve standardized test scores in math, reading, and verbal topics, but instead they are denied this opportunity through premature punishments. Thus, the connection is made: policy makers look at the lower test scores of children who were taken out of class as punishment to predict prison size.

A majority of states now require young students to participate in these standardized tests to gauge statewide levels of learning, ultimately hoping for improved funding. Without high or improving scores, many schools are denied this monetary help.

The solution begins in the classroom.

One person working towards an actual solvent to decrease suspension rates among young students is newly elected mayor of New Haven, Toni Harp.

Harp believes children are acting out in response to traumatic home experiences and learning disabilities. In order to combat these issues, Harp has devised a strategy that will keep children in school and engage them there, rather than send them home.

Children in kindergarten are still developing social skills and are learning the differences between what’s right and what’s wrong. Taking them out of an academic environment and forcing them home can confuse them and bring the learning process to a grinding halt.

School should be the place that will fix the problem, not push it under the rug. When a child is sent home, the issue at hand is being ignored. The student is only learning about the consequences of their actions; brain development to prevent future action is bypassed, and the student never learns that what they are doing is wrong.

A nation that puts effort into monitoring education through improvement in grades and test scores cannot seem to solve this problem. That is unless the education system itself is willing to reverse the issues that stunt student productivity.

Harp’s education initiatives are geared toward improving student’s motivation to learning ability. She wants educators to take the time to find solutions inside the classroom instead of resorting to suspensions.

Schools want better tests scores to increasing funding, when this objective is reached they will have the funding to provide the one-on-one counseling to help students who come from unstable home environments.

We live in a world where prison size is based on third grader’s reading scores. We shouldn’t have to. It’s a shame that the correlation between low standardized test scores and high suspension rates is directly related to adult imprisonment.

No policy for projected imprisonment rates should be based 20 years in the future off children who may not even know how to ride a bike.

Punishment doesn’t teach. People teach. Teachers teach. They teach the importance of excelling in school, holding dreams to aspire and create their own perceptions of success. It begins with a guiding hand, one that nurtures.

Under new guidance, the state can achieve their educational goals and we can hope for a future where children become doctors or astronauts and not another depressing statistic.