What Students Learn from Zero Tolerance in Schools

Don · Feb 12, 2011

John W. Whitehead, an attorney specializing in civil rights, presents a frightening summation. The whole article, with more examples than you'd care to read, is here.

What we are witnessing, thanks in large part to zero tolerance policies that were intended to make schools safer by discouraging the use of actual drugs and weapons by students, is the inhumane treatment of young people and the criminalization of childish behavior.
...
Finally, these policies, and the school administrators who relentlessly enforce them, render young people woefully ignorant of the rights they intrinsically possess as American citizens. What's more, having failed to learn much in the way of civic education while in school, young people are being browbeaten into believing that they have no true rights and government authorities have total power and can violate constitutional rights whenever they see fit.

There's an old axiom that what children learn in school today will be the philosophy of government tomorrow. As surveillance cameras, metal detectors, police patrols, zero tolerance policies, lock downs, drug sniffing dogs and strip searches become the norm in elementary, middle and high schools across the nation, America is on a fast track to raising up an Orwellian generation -- one populated by compliant citizens accustomed to living in a police state and who march in lockstep to the dictates of the government. In other words, the schools are teaching our young people how to be obedient subjects in a totalitarian society.

This isn't about teachers, but about legislatures, school boards and administrators who seem to have lost all common sense. On this issue, teachers often find their hands tied.

Thoughts?

PrincessofPersia · Feb 12, 2011

My ex is a teacher, and she spoke against zero-tolerance policies all the time. She had similar examples and arguments. It made sense to me.

But yes, she said that there are a lot of teachers who disagree with it, being on the front lines so to speak, but don't have a choice to enforce it. In addition to the problems mentioned in your quote, it just widens the gap between teachers and students, which is never good.

Zoombie · Feb 12, 2011

As someone whose seen zero tolerance do nothing but screw me over while letting actual bullies go free, I'm pro giving it the boot.

Clair Dickson · Feb 12, 2011

I think another part of the problem is stupid lawsuits. Schools don't want to spend money on litigation, so they make sure to stick to the books, period.

Take for example the parent on another forum who was all worked up because a classmate of her child's brought a diffused grenade (hole drilled through it) to class for show and tell. She wanted to know if she should take action against the school for them allowing this "weapon" on school grounds without punishing the kid. She said it was the same as unloaded gun.

Vince524 · Feb 12, 2011

The problem with 0 tolerance policies is that there are always cases where people feel that exceptions should be made.

The flip side is that when you give people in authority to use discretion, you end up with people who use really bad judgment. Judges who decide, absent any mandatory sentencing, will give a rapist probation.

There just doesn't seem to be a right balance.

Shadow Dragon · Feb 12, 2011

Clair Dickson said:
Take for example the parent on another forum who was all worked up because a classmate of her child's brought a diffused grenade (hole drilled through it) to class for show and tell. She wanted to know if she should take action against the school for them allowing this "weapon" on school grounds without punishing the kid. She said it was the same as unloaded gun.

She sounds like she only really wanted an excuse to sue someone and get money. Either that or she's way too paranoid. A diffused grenade is no more of a weapon than a rock or anything sold that weighs around a pound. Sure you could throw it at someone, but you can do that with most things students are allowed to carry around.

This problem, like others have pointed out, is the fault of politicians and administrators. They implement this simply because it sounded good. And thus made parents feel better. At least for a little while.

Shakesbear · Feb 12, 2011

render young people woefully ignorant of the rights they intrinsically possess as American citizens.

It is the failure to teach that responsibilities go hand in hand with rights that is a major fault in many countries, not just the US. Zero tolerance becomes an extreme form of crowd control when it is used to dumb down education and deny large groups of society of knowledge of their rights and responsibilities. This can lead into a situation with parts of society being so ill educated that they are easily exploited by others. Sounds almost Victorian.

Magdalen · Feb 12, 2011

Good thing I make my kid read all of Don's posts!!

I've certainly felt the need to "augment & enhance" various aspects of the public school curriculum and have done so, almost spontaneously, during my portion of homework assistance, IIRC.

LOG · Feb 12, 2011

And as atrocities of administration propagate, people will start to demand a swing back in the other direction.
Home-schooling will likely also continue to become more common. It wouldn't surprise me if people create private schools intentionally oriented to NOT be what public schools are.

blacbird · Feb 12, 2011

"Zero-tolerance" policies may have been well-intended in theory, at their beginnings, but they have quickly become co-opted as cover-your-ass policies for school administrators.

Zoombie · Feb 12, 2011

Oh, uh, I forgot this before: My experiences, while deeply troubling on a personal level, cannot be taken as a truth for the entire system. Anecdotes =! evidence.

blacbird · Feb 12, 2011

Zoombie said:
Oh, uh, I forgot this before: My experiences, while deeply troubling on a personal level, cannot be taken as a truth for the entire system. Anecdotes =! evidence.

Don't effing apologize.

Dodge · Feb 13, 2011

Shakesbear said:
It is the failure to teach that responsibilities go hand in hand with rights that is a major fault in many countries, not just the US. Zero tolerance becomes an extreme form of crowd control when it is used to dumb down education and deny large groups of society of knowledge of their rights and responsibilities. This can lead into a situation with parts of society being so ill educated that they are easily exploited by others. Sounds almost Victorian.

Spot on. If parents would take care of their home and family maybe we wouldn't be in this pickle (I'm a parent too). Since many parents have shrugged their responsibility to their children off then government steps in and takes charge. Although in some cases it is the government that has scared parents off from disciplining their own kids and/or steered them away from religious education. I'm getting a bit off-topic here but it all seems to add up to something dreadful in the long run.

astonwest · Feb 13, 2011

I find it ironic that an attorney would find issue with zero-tolerance policies, since (as blacbird alluded to) they're used by schools more often than not to avoid being an attorney's target.

Don · Feb 13, 2011

Magdalen said:
Good thing I make my kid read all of Don's posts!!

Raising a little agorist anarcho-capitalist of your own there, Mags?

Zoombie said:
Zoombie said:

As someone whose seen zero tolerance do nothing but screw me over while letting actual bullies go free, I'm pro giving it the boot.

Click to expand...

Zoombie said:

Oh, uh, I forgot this before: My experiences, while deeply troubling on a personal level, cannot be taken as a truth for the entire system. Anecdotes =! evidence.

Click to expand...

blacbird said:

Don't effing apologize.

Click to expand...

What blacbird said. Srsly. I mean it. It was really, really creepy, like the whole point of the OP was personified in that little display of meekness. Own your opinions as thoroughly as you own the right to speak them.

Dodge said:
Spot on. If parents would take care of their home and family maybe we wouldn't be in this pickle (I'm a parent too). Since many parents have shrugged their responsibility to their children off then government steps in and takes charge. Although in some cases it is the government that has scared parents off from disciplining their own kids and/or steered them away from religious education. I'm getting a bit off-topic here but it all seems to add up to something dreadful in the long run.

I think you raise a good point, in that it's not hard to find the slippery slope that led to today's situation. When parents and teachers are at risk from higher authority for trying to discipline children, not only do you end up with policies like this where every decision is already spelled out, no matter how ridiculous, but you end up with school administrators passing the buck even farther up the food chain and calling in the police with the slightest provocation.

Which means that a substantial part of the problem is that the whole chain of command between a kindergarten student and the police -- parents, teachers, and administrators -- have already learned the lesson the OP claims is being taught; how to be obedient subjects in a totalitarian society. They know if they don't pass the buck up the chain of command, they may be the next ones to be made an example of.

It's going to take some courageous parents, teachers and administrators willing to take the bullet themselves to save the kids from the fate in the OP.

ETA: And I don't know how I missed this one, but the bear is spot on.

Shakesbear said:
It is the failure to teach that responsibilities go hand in hand with rights that is a major fault in many countries, not just the US. Zero tolerance becomes an extreme form of crowd control when it is used to dumb down education and deny large groups of society of knowledge of their rights and responsibilities. This can lead into a situation with parts of society being so ill educated that they are easily exploited by others. Sounds almost Victorian.

... or feudal.

Michael Wolfe · Feb 13, 2011

I disagree with zero tolerance, but that doesn't even scratch the surface of what's wrong with schooling. Most schools in the U.S. are still largely based on the outmoded Prussian model of education. Private schools, too. Even though public schools in particular are often discussed in these types of threads, both zero tolerance and the education model are aspects that typically overcome the gap between private and public. In fact, some private schools even market themselves based on having lower tolerance levels than public schools.

Don, I don't know how many others are going to like this, and since this is your thread, I'll address it to you. The most radical idea I've ever held about anything, anything at all... is that education is something you do, not something done to you.

Don · Feb 13, 2011

Michael Wolfe said:
I disagree with zero tolerance, but that doesn't even scratch the surface of what's wrong with schooling. Most schools in the U.S. are still largely based on the outmoded Prussian model of education. Private schools, too. Even though public schools in particular are often discussed in these types of threads, both zero tolerance and the education model are aspects that typically overcome the gap between private and public. In fact, some private schools even market themselves based on having lower tolerance levels than public schools.

Agreed. I've referenced The Underground History of American Education before, by a three time NY City teacher of the year, and one time NY State winner -- who walked away from it all. It's a free read online, and well worth the trouble. A much shorter version with pictures and stuff is his American Education History Tour. Either one does a good job of passing along a ton of stuff they (shockingly!

) don't teach in school.

Knowledge will set you free; but first it's going to piss you off. (yeah, it's a paraphrased quote, but I don't remember the source at the moment.)

Michael Wolfe said:
Don, I don't know how many others are going to like this, and since this is your thread, I'll address it to you. The most radical idea I've ever held about anything, anything at all... is that education is something you do, not something done to you.

Agreed. Schooling <> Education, and in many ways they are antithetical. The conflation of the two terms is one of the major sins of authority, particularly considering it's not accidental. The measure of their success is that most people assume that's a really radical idea.

See the American Education History Tour for an elaboration. It's a ten-minute read that ends with a sales pitch for the book -- but this link is to the free online version of the book.

ETA: And I don't own this thread; it's property of Mac. I'm just borrowing the space.

Plot Device · Feb 13, 2011

Zero-tolerance policies are the school system equivalent of Weapons of Mass Destruction: their existence is aleady pretty scary, and in theory that scainess might in and of itself prevent their ever actually needing to be used. But then when the day arrives that you do indeed enter the launch codes and employ one of them, the result is annihilated lives and years of dangerous fallout.

I see zero-tolerance policies as a failed attempt to never actually have to resort to the distasteful task of disciplining students. (Kinda like the atomic bomb brought "peace" to the world.) As long as you THINK the students are sensible enough to be too scared to actually violate the rules, then you continue to THINK the rules will never be violated. But kids aren't sensible -- they are impulsive and short-sighted, and that's my description of the GOOD kids. The BAD kids are downright destructive, and usually self-destructive.

This desire to avoid ever actually having to discipline is NOT a form of laziness on the part of the teachers, nor even of cowardice, it's more properly seen as a weariness over the two worst types of parents. A) The "obstructionist parents" who insist that there's no way their precious little Johnny or Suzie could possibly be the problem here. And B) The "absentee parents" who dont give a shit that Johnnie or Suzie brought a gun to school. The past 40 years worth of the failure of parents to accept the word of the teacher that some sort of at-home intervention is needed has resulted in this legacy of schools having to fortify themsevs against ass-hat parents. But as soon as a wall or a barrier or a fortification of any kind gets built between parent and school, then all is lost. All of it --lost for good.

Parents and schools need to partner with each other, not lock horns. The losers in that battle are the kids in the short-term and society itself in the long-term.

Devil Ledbetter · Feb 13, 2011

The problem I've experienced with zero tolerance is it makes administrators look the other way. At my childrens' schools there is "zero tolerance" for bullying. Bullies will be suspended. Except they won't, because the harsh, automatic consequence encourages administrators take a stance of "If I or a teacher did not witness it, or it wasn't caught on film, it never happened."

I get it, because if you're suspending a kid, that kid's parents are probably going to demand some proof of wrongdoing. The automatic consequence is so high that no administrator will dare address an incident without irrefutable proof.

When my son was in third grade, a fifth grader attacked him on the bus and smashed his head into a window several times. This happened two seats behind the driver -- an adult who didn't give a shit. The school's response? "The bus's video camera wasn't on that day, so we can't prove it happened. There's nothing we can do." What? We knew exactly who'd attacked him, but without the Orwellian proof, it was my bruised child's word against that of a little turd who of course lied when questioned about it.

Last week two big boys shoved my eighth-grade daughter into a chair hard enough to produce an eggplant-sized lump on her thigh. Again, no adult saw the incident, so as far as the school is concerned, it never happened.

The lesson? If you're going to get beat up, be sure to film it or make sure your abuse happens in front of a school official who actually gives a crap.

Who me, bitter?

Michael Wolfe · Feb 13, 2011

Devil, in those incidents you mentioned, were they any fellow students who witnessed what happened?

Devil Ledbetter · Feb 13, 2011

Michael Wolfe said:
Devil, in those incidents you mentioned, were they any fellow students who witnessed what happened?

Yes, but as students they automatically lack the credibility to warrant the administrator's intervention. It's the zero tolerance, automatic consequence that has raised the bar of proof to the point where bullying is routinely overlooked.

Plot Device · Feb 13, 2011

Devil Ledbetter said:
The problem I've experienced with zero tolerance is it makes administrators look the other way. At my childrens' schools there is "zero tolerance" for bullying. Bullies will be suspended. Except they won't, because the harsh, automatic consequence encourages administrators take a stance of "If I or a teacher did not witness it, or it wasn't caught on film, it never happened."

I get it, because if you're suspending a kid, that kid's parents are probably going to demand some proof of wrongdoing. The automatic consequence is so high that no administrator will dare address an incident without irrefutable proof.

When my son was in third grade, a fifth grader attacked him on the bus and smashed his head into a window several times. This happened two seats behind the driver -- an adult who didn't give a shit. The school's response? "The bus's video camera wasn't on that day, so we can't prove it happened. There's nothing we can do." What? We knew exactly who'd attacked him, but without the Orwellian proof, it was my bruised child's word against that of a little turd who of course lied when questioned about it.

Last week two big boys shoved my eighth-grade daughter into a chair hard enough to produce an eggplant-sized lump on her thigh. Again, no adult saw the incident, so as far as the school is concerned, it never happened.

The lesson? If you're going to get beat up, be sure to film it or make sure your abuse happens in front of a school official who actually gives a crap.

Who me, bitter?

*getting angry*

*reassuring self of having no regrets over leaving the teaching profession*

*weeping for humanity itself*

Michael Wolfe · Feb 13, 2011

Devil Ledbetter said:
Yes, but as students they automatically lack the credibility to warrant the administrator's intervention. It's the zero tolerance, automatic consequence that has raised the bar of proof to the point where bullying is routinely overlooked.

Interesting. I attended a private school that managed a way to get around this problem. Any student was able to file an official complaint against another student (or even staff member), and the case would be heard by a judicial committee made up of younger students, middle-age students, older students, and staff. The plaintiff could call fellow students in as witnesses, and their testimony would be written down by a secretary and could be discussed during deliberations about how to handle the case. It was taken seriously.

In what you're describing, the students have so little credibility that even their combined voices are worth nothing, seemingly as a matter of course. And that lack of credibility is just a tag applied by authorities, rather than something merited.

How horrifying.

clintl · Feb 13, 2011

Where the problems start is when administrators don't use an appropriate sense of judgment in determining whether some is actually a violation of the policy. For example, when the elementary school girl brought a knife to cut up the chicken breast or whatever it was that was packed for her lunch. That deserved nothing more than a conversation letting her know why she shouldn't do that, and a call to her parents to let them know not to send knives to school in lunches.

However, I don't see why anyone would object to automatic suspensions for things like bringing real weapons to school, or drugs, or getting into fights. Also, don't blame all this on the administrators, either. I think their options with respect to drugs and weapons are limited by state laws. The law mandates certain actions against violators.

Don · Feb 13, 2011

Thread title changed from "What Zero Tolerance Schools Teach" to more accurately reflect the intent of the thread.

What Students Learn from Zero Tolerance in Schools

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