Hillary Clinton Proposes $2 Billion Plan to End ‘School-to-Prison Pipeline'

Clinton will announce the proposal during a speech on race in Harlem.

ByABC News
February 16, 2016, 3:05 PM

NEW YORK CITY -- Hillary Clinton is set to propose a $2 billion plan to reform public schools in low income areas and end the so-called “school-to-prison pipeline," according to an aide.

Clinton is expected to announce the proposal during a speech on race this afternoon at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. She will call for an end to zero-tolerance discipline policies in schools, which she says disproportionately affects African American children and has helped lead to the country’s mass incarceration problem.

Clinton’s plan is part of her new "Breaking Down Barriers” agenda, which includes an investment of $20 billion to create youth jobs, $5 billion in reentry programs for formerly incarcerated people and $25 billion to help entrepreneurship and small business growth in low-income communities.

Her remarks today come just hours after a meeting with Rev. Al Sharpton and other prominent civil rights leaders at the National Urban League in downtown Manhattan.

"My campaign is really about breaking every barrier because I believe absolutely that America can't live up to its potential unless every individual has the opportunity to live up to theirs,” Clinton said during the meeting.

Taking a knock at her Democratic presidential opponent, Bernie Sanders, she added: "I'm not a single issue candidate. We don't live in a single issue country and we have work to do.”