A Chicago Sun-Times article reported that Cook County Board President, Toni Preckwinkle, reports that it costs roughly $224,000 per year, per child to keep a young person imprisoned at the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center on Chicago’s west side. In contrast, it costs $52,000 a year to send a child to college. We are discussing juvenile justice in my class and the disparity between funding for education versus imprisonment. The students see the problem clearly and are being sent a strong societal message that the system would rather lock them up instead of creating scholars and productive citizens. When are we going to realize that where the money goes, goes our future? It seems that Toni Preckwinkle gets that. Hopefully more people in positions of political and judicial power will catch on and redirect their energies and monies. Prepare and send our children to college, not jail. Their futures and ours, depend on it.