Overdue rethinking of zero-tolerance policies
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The counterproductive nature and sheer absurdity of zero-tolerance disciplinary policies that schools rushed to institute in the 1980s and 1990s have become ever more apparent the longer they’ve been entrenched in code books.
Sidestepping flexibility and dodging nuance, zero-tolerance has generated farcical situations like the one we noted last month, where a Colorado 6-year-old was suspended from first grade for “sexual harassment” after he kissed the hand of a girl he had taken a fancy to, or the suspension of a Fox Chapel High School student in the fall who accidentally brought a hunting knife to a football game and was punished, after realizing his oversight, when he voluntarily turned the knife over to a security guard.
Educators and administrators have begun to publicly voice second thoughts about zero-tolerance and last week the Obama administration joined the chorus of doubters. Guidelines issued jointly by the Justice and Education departments urged the abandonment of zero-tolerance, and suggested punishments should be meted out with less draconian zeal.
According to Attorney General Eric Holder, “A routine school disciplinary infraction should land a student in the principal’s office, not in a police precinct.”
Moreover, the administration is arguing zero-tolerance policies have more rigorously targeted African-American students than students of other races. David W. James, the superintendent of Akron Public Schools in Ohio, told the Associated Press last week that higher percentages of black students have been disciplined in every category, and that he’d been criticized for not suspending some students when he believed their misdeeds didn’t rise to that level.
“If we’re supposed to be here for these kids, what we want to try to do is work with them to find alternatives, to really drill down and find out what it is we’re doing that’s not meeting their needs,” James explained.
This isn’t about sparing the rod and spoiling the child, or letting discipline fall by the wayside. It’s merely about the application of common sense. Using it would be a valuable lesson we can pass on to our children.