Posted on 10/10/2003 8:49:57 AM PDT by Scenic Sounds
Once, long ago, there was legitimate reasoning behind the zero tolerance policy in our public schools that could be fathomed - but theres also legitimate reasoning behind the saying that good intentions pave the way to hell. Originally, zero tolerance measures were aimed at dangerous kids who brought guns and drugs to school. However, the number of items and behaviors now considered suspension or expulsion-worthy has grown to an infinitely ridiculous amount.
The terms regarding these items and behaviors are conveniently vague, as well, and vary from place to place. There is zero tolerance for weapons - what is a weapon? Is it a butter knife, a laser pointer, a beeper? The same question applies to drugs. Is a childrens multi-vitamin a drug? What about an inhaler? Certs? Mouthwash?
What about zero tolerance for disrespect or insubordination? Is that simply whatever the administrator of the school deems it to be? For example - in Mississippi, there is a law that allows students older than 13 to be expelled if they are disruptive in class three times over the course of the school year. What power that gives to administrators how convenient for them! With the vague wording of these laws, they can remand any child that they see as a troublemaker to an alternative school so that they no longer have to deal with them. What qualifies as a disruption? Is that chewing gum in class or passing notes or using profanity - or pulling out a gun and threatening the teacher with it?
Futures in the guise of college scholarships are being put in jeopardy because of zero tolerance. Consider the case of the 17 year old honors student from Arkansas that was sentenced to 45 days in alternative school because his father accidentally left a scraper and pocketknife in the car the weekend before. Despite the pleas from the father, the school system refused to budge on the inviolate weapons possession punishment. Then there was the 18 year old girl who was arrested and charged with a felony for having a kitchen knife in her car that she had been using to open boxes. She was denied her right to graduate and she now has a criminal felony on her record. Is this the ultimate aim of zero tolerance?
Does constant fear of the tiniest infraction bringing severe punishment actually cause children to respect teachers and school administrators? Hardly. On the contrary, it fosters an attitude of resentment, disrespect, and deep anger towards authority. It also leaves no room for a positive relationship between children and teachers there is, for the child, always a fear of punishment for the slightest unintended wrongdoing. It leads to a form of self-censorship that is representative of life under dictatorships.
Do we really want the cookie-cutter kids that zero tolerance strives to create, devoid of fire and passion and intelligence and creativity? Do we want kids that are always afraid to speak their own mind and stand up for themselves for fear of disrupting a classroom and being suspended or expelled for it?
Perhaps the only positive aspect of zero tolerance is the likelihood that the children who had to endure it will be the ones who are likely to change it.
Cathryn Crawford is a student at the University of Texas. She can be reached at cathryncrawford@washingtondispatch.com.
Common sense would fix SO many of this country's problems, but it's absent in virtually every element of our government. I can't tell you how relieved I am to finally have my kids (graduated) out of our local school system. They were CONSTANTLY introducing new rules and zero-tolerance policies on everything under the sun. Many were so void of logic that I could only conclude that there was some idiot in the system whose only job responsibility was the creation of new rules.
MM
Unionized or not, we need to force using reasonable judgement and authority, by repealing these asinine laws and terminating administrators who exhibit poor judgement and/or lack of discipline. If they don't like it, well there's always openings in the food service and housekeeping industries.
I actually helped my aunt take care of the problem with my cousin's school when they tried to make him keep his inhaler in the nurse's office. My fiancee is a labor/employment lawyer. She lobbed a little phone call to the principal and mentioned four little words- Americans With Disabilities Act. They freaked out and stopped bugging him about it.
It's already happened...
1991 death of a New Orleans high school student, Catrina Lewis, who was delayed by security guards before being allowed to get her inhaler from the office. When it didnt help, she asked school staff to call an ambulance; instead they spent a half-hour trying to call her mother first. Catrinas sister, another student, finally called 911 herself, but emergency help arrived too late. In 1996, a New Orleans judge ordered Lawless High Schools acting principal, a school counselor, and the school board to pay $1 million in damages to Catrinas family.
Things are not going to get better until the schools are returned to local control. The teachers and administrators have not the least sense that they work for the parents, or that they owe the parents any respect at all because in fact they don't work for the parents, and they owe the parents nothing. Until that basic fact changes nothing changes.
And none of that is going to change until there is an effective private alternative to the public schools, when the public schools become just one of an array of education choices available to parents, and that isn't going to change until parents have control over their education tax dollars.
Los vientos y la lluvia lo han lavado limpio...
De qué se refiere eso?
Well, not quite. There IS only one good thing about zero tolerance. Students and parents alike are starting to wake up about exercising their Constitutional rights. It's a heck of a way to get an education, since rights are not taught...nor honored..in school.
Long-term, students who were victimized by these policies will one day grow up to sit on school boards, run for elective office, become doctors and lawyers, serve in the military or the police force, and make life an absolute living hell for those who perpetuated this horrible system of injustice on them.
I've heard more than one victim say they would homeschool their own children. Zero tolerance will eventually serve the cause of freedom, the more it grows, the more victims, the more students will not be attending their public indoctrination centers and the whole system will eventually collapse.
Parents whose children have been unfairly punished have put up websites to educate the public.
http://www.endzerotolerance.com
http://www.savebrian.org
http://totallyunjust.hypermart.net
We're fighting back.
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