Zero tolerance or zero sense?

The government educational system leaves much to be desired, in terms of results. This is unarguable and even the greatest supporters of government education realize this. However, the system not only fails with test scores, but also with the way it handles its students.

"Zero tolerance" is a policy that always clashes with young people. You simply cannot treat all children the same for all problems. Coupled with a lack of communication and thinking, the result is disastrous.

For your reading pleasure, here are some examples of the government's inept stab at teaching American school students:

In Grand Junction, Colo., a 6th-grader was playing a recess game when a student-referee called his ball out of bounds. So, the 12-year-old promptly shot back, saying his call was "gay."

The boy thought at the time that the word meant "dumb," but he found otherwise when he was suspended for two days by the Junior High's principle. According to the Associated Press, "Principal Jody Mimmack said the school uses a national curriculum called 'Bullyproofing Your Schools,' and that students have learned they cannot say things that might be hurtful. She said students are warned about such behaviors before they are suspended."

This is another example that proves that a "no tolerance" policy really means "no common sense" policy. Treating young girls and boys without any uniqueness, but rather with a broad restrictive policy, is simply insane.

Early this month, in Inverness, Fla., a middle school student was handcuffed and taken to a local police station holding room. His crime? The boy had the audacity to jump in puddles in the rain, despite numerous calls by teachers to stop. A police officer on duty at the school saw the situation and quickly took him into custody, charging him with the crime of disrupting an educational institution, which is a misdemeanor.

The 6th grade school-boy was held in a cell, with access to other inmates, for over two hours.

In El Paso, Texas, 12-year-old Sal Santana II, was suspended for three days. As reported by the El Paso Times, "[H]e stuck his tongue out at a girl who declined his invitation to be his girlfriend. School district administrators viewed the incident as sexual harassment, suspended him … and are considering placing him in an alternative school."

The boy's mother was reported as saying, "This is crazy. It's a shame that a guy trying to be cute with a girl can get himself into this much trouble. I don't think he even knows what sexual harassment is."

Don't blame the school, however, because they were simply following the student handbook with the appropriate punishment, according to the school district spokesman.

It's amazing that the most innocent actions of America's children can be twisted to bring on insane reactions. How about the kindergarteners who were arrested at their New Jersey school in 2000 for playing cops and robbers? They were charged with making terrorist threats – this is our wonderful zero tolerance at work.

Understanding and enforcing discipline in schooling is one thing, but calling on the police for a boy jumping in puddles? Please. Sexual harassment for sticking a tongue out? The kid just wanted a girlfriend. Suspending a kid for calling another boy "gay?" You better plan on suspending a large portion of grade-school kids.

The government system of education will always fall short of success in teaching unless swift and radical changes come about. Until then, we will continue to hear of students being arrested on campus for minor "offenses" and the lack of broad academic success in high school and college.

My daughter's boy friend was expelled from school last fall. His crime? He had a pen knive at an after school function. He had taken it away from his younger brother, whom he babysits after school every day I might add, and absentmindedly took it out during the play, showed it to a friend, then put it back. Of course, a nosy parent sitting nearby immediately "reported" him and he was subsequently suspended, then expelled. He never threatened to harm anyone with it or anything. It was just an innocent mistake, but too bad, no exceptions.

So now a bright, motivated high school junior has decided to just drop out of school. He plans on working for a while, then will return to get his GED.

Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater -- this "zero tolerance" thing is just waaay out of control.

We now Home School

you are to be heartily commended !

aside from the superior education most responsible parents could impart to their kids via homeschooling,
seeing a fatally hot poker applied to the sphincter of the educrat establishment would be nationally uplifting.

alas, it seems most folks would rather foist off their kids' development to the spineless bastards highlighted in this article,
than deprive themselves of that spiffy split-level, those new vehicles bi-annually, 'mandatory' club membership, etc, etc ...

<hypocrisy>
had i arrived on the scene when the mrs' two boys were younger ...
</hypocrisy>

This phenomenon cannot be fought by people who totally misunderstand it. Unfortunately, the author is one of them. This author tells us:

"Zero tolerance" is a policy that always clashes with young people. You simply cannot treat all children the same for all problems.
Treating young girls and boys without any uniqueness, but rather with a broad restrictive policy, is simply insane.
Don't blame the school, however, because they were simply following the student handbook with the appropriate punishment

No. That is not what's going on at all. In fact the opposite is the case. Children are not being treated the same. There is no clear policy, restrictive or otherwise.

The entire point of feminist jurisprudence — and that's what this is — is that both the law and the enforcement power are arbitrary, capricious, and based on the subjective situational judgements of a combined judge, jury, and executioner. It is the opposite of the "rule of law." There are no laws. There are vague 'policies,' but no one can say precisely what they mean. The meaning is determined after a behavior occurs, by means of subjective judgement exercised by an administrative Humpty Dumpty to whom the policy means "just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less."

Nowhere is it written that a child cannot jump in a puddle. Nothing says that a child cannot stick his or her tongue out. Instead there are deliberately fuzzy concepts like "interfering with an educational institution" or "sexual harassment," either of which can arbitrarily be invoked after the fact to criminalize virtually anything, at the whim of a teacher or other official.

In feminist jurisprudence, it is not the act itself which is punishable; the subjective reaction that any act might stimulate in others gives rise to the offense. It is therefore not possible to know in advance whether an act is prohibited. And the same act might be punishable on Monday but not on Tuesday, depending on how someone who watches it feels at the time.

The purpose of feminist jurisprudence is to turn law, and law enforcement, into a system of arbitrary and capricious punishment of some individuals by others, seemingly at whim and in a totally unpredictable fashion.

What does a child learn by living under this system?

That there are no rules; there are only things that you can get away with somestimes but not others, apparently at random.
That authority figures can adminsiater arbitrary punishments for arbitrary crimes at indeterminate times, for any reason or for no reason.
That you "can't fight City Hall." City Hall does what it wants; if necessary it has armed force available to it to enforce its whims.

The question to ask is not why our educational establishment is treating all children alike according to rigid, codified rules, but why it is teaching our children to expect arbitrary rulings from arbitrary rulers, in a system where there is no codified law... only "Humpty Dumpty" laws that mean whatever the authorities say they mean.

People say that the schools no longer teach civics. They teach it all right; it's just not what any of us would recognize as the system we have in this country. It is the "civics" for living under Fidel Castro, or Saddam Hussein.