California’s Top Cop Says Quality Public Education is Essential to Public Safety

By Sadie Reynolds

California Attorney General Kamala Harris’s keynote speech for this year’s CFT Convention illuminated the relationship between education and crime and argued for the importance of policies that support teachers, students, and safe communities. According to Harris, the number of words a child knows by the age of four is an excellent predictor of how he or she will fare academically. Students who are not up to reading level by third grade are four times more likely to drop out, 95% of violent offenders are drop-outs, and the correlation between crime and graduation rates is tight. Noting that a top concern of Californians is public safety, Harris argued that being “soft” or “tough” on crime is not the answer. We need to be “smart” on crime.

Her smart on crime method has focused on a systematic approach to tracking and minimizing truancy, non-punitive support of parents, reducing recidivism among youth, and early childhood intervention promoting academic success with a view toward prevention. Harris is fully behind CFT’s Healthy Kids, Healthy Minds legislative program—lauding its focus on ensuring better access to school nurses and libraries in our K-12 system. Her office recently established “Back on Track”—a multi-organizational pilot program in Los Angeles focusing on supporting low-level young offenders through Community Colleges, job skills training, and parental support. Harris sees quality public education as the foundation of community safety and pledged the Justice Department’s support of teachers in the interest of promoting the well-being of all Californians. It is far better to address educational issues early than to wait until our children find themselves, in her words, “in the emergency room or a prison cell.”