News & Commentary written by Harold Jordan

Harold Jordan is Nationwide Education Equity Coordinator at the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Beyond Zero Tolerance: Discipline and Policing in Pennsylvania Schools, co-author of Cops and No Counselors: How the Lack of School Mental Health Staff is Harming Students, and the editor of Know Your Rights: A Handbook for Public School Students in Pennsylvania. Recently, he served on the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency’s Behavioral Health and School Climate and Threat Assessment Work Groups and on the coordinating committee of the national Dignity in Schools Campaign. Mr. Jordan served on the stakeholder planning committee for the 2015 White House Rethink Discipline Summit, and he has chaired the board of the Philadelphia Public School Notebook, a nonprofit news service reporting on the city’s public schools. For 17 years, he coordinated a national youth program at the American Friends Service Committee. Jordan is the former Executive Director of the National Coalition of Education Activists. He is the proud parent of two graduates of the Philadelphia Public School system.

Mr. Jordan is also the recipient of the Education Law Center’s Education Champion Award and, most recently, the Marcienne and Herman Mattleman Award for Excellence in Public Education. He serves on the Professional Advisory Board of the Learning Disabilities Association of America and holds a degree in social thought and analysis from Washington University in St. Louis.