9486 in the collection
No tolerance, no sense
Reg Felt Comments: At long last, the Arizona Republic has decided to join the fight, following my many letters to the editor arguing against zero tolerance policies.
editorial
If you want to understand why an Arizona child could get kicked out of school for sketching a gun, you've got to know how we got here.
Zero tolerance arose in Arizona public schools, as it did across the country, in a time of unprecedented gunplay on campus. With more and more young people drawn to gang culture and its accoutrements, guns and knives were too often showing up in school settings.
Parents and educators grew deeply concerned and wanted to send a message. There would be no condoning even the slightest weapons violation. This would stop.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, zero-tolerance laws arose in most states before tragedies at Columbine High School in suburban Denver in 1999 and in Paducah, Ky., in 1997.
Most states passed stricter penalties in the late 1980s and early 1990s to counter the rise in gangs and guns in urban schools. In 1994, Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Gun-Free Schools Act, requiring states to enact get-tough laws or risk losing federal funds. Schools expanded the policies to apply to alcohol, drugs, gang membership and fighting.
More than a decade later, parents throughout the United States see the unintended consequences of zero tolerance and wonder if it hasn't zeroed out common sense: Like suspending an eighth-grader in Chandler for doodling a picture of a gun.
Across the country, stories of kids getting suspended for sketching guns or slapping behinds demonstrate not only the unintended consequences of these well-meaning rules but their inherent problems:
• They make us lazy. They offer broad, blanket solutions to complicated problems and thus spare us having to make tough calls based on evidence and reasoned judgment.
• They don't differentiate. In their application, there's no discerning between unruly, incorrigible delinquents and essentially good kids who made a mistake.
• They take away decision making. The people with experience, judgment and on-the-ground observation are replaced by rule books.
• They give a false sense of security. Prevention, through consistent, fair and firm discipline and early identification and intervention with at-risk students, is a far more rational and effective long-term prescription for healthier kids and safer schools.
Some youngsters are so habitually disruptive they deserved to be removed promptly from school. But discretion is necessary when cases aren't that simple, when a basically well-behaved student wanders into forbidden territory in a way that is uncharacteristic of him and of no great threat to other students and their teachers.
— Editorial
Arizona Republic
2007-09-06
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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