Zero tolerance policies are the reason why students with strong potential can have their bright futures ruined. Many students who work hard and achieve good grades with high GPAs could hurt their chances of scholarships and even college acceptance because of these unreasonably strict policies that give no moral judgement or reasoning. Not only do zero tolerance policies appear to have no data of improvement, but they also “...appear to have negative effects on student outcomes and the learning climate.” (Skiba 4) Students who do regularly misbehave repeat these misdemeanors and their behavior worsens over time, and students who don’t usually show bad behavior are punished severely for the small infraction they commit. Students who become victims …show more content…
of Zero tolerance policies’ harsh punishments will not just break that same rule again, for they are more likely to break other rules along with it, accidentally or intentionally, and will lead to creating negative decisions in the future. Since students are more likely to misbehave, schools employ security guards and police officers to remain present on campus, creating a negative environment, for students and teachers, that would be deemed inappropriate for schools. Zero tolerance policies have been shown to have seldom positive effects and many negative effects on schools and students, and they are in need to be replaced with other methods of preventing students from breaking rules. Zero tolerance policies have been tested that it is shown that they have a negative effect on student behavior and an increasing number of punishments used. It is proven that “over the last two decades, suspension and expulsion rates in schools have doubled.” (Black 3) This increase in misdemeanors negatively impacts school ratings and quality, and student performance has been in a decline over these last two years. Ratings such as these make the United States as a nation look like a disgrace compared to suspension and expulsion rates in other countries across the world. These increases in suspensions and expulsions will also lead to higher rates of dropouts, leading to more people becoming unemployed, leading to higher numbers of homeless citizens. Policies as strict as these give a negative impact in the long and run and also give immediate negative side effects. It used to be that schools never had to deal with suspensions or expulsions unless under special circumstances, but now “...over five hundred schools in the country suspended more than half of their students.” (Black 10-11) This increase in school suspensions and expulsions are a shame to the education system, and it’s a huge shame that our future generations could possible experience the same, or even more strict policies in the future. Unless zero tolerance policies are abolished or drastically changed to be less severe, they will face the same treatments as students in today’s generation that experience harsh and unreasonable punishments. Zero tolerance policies’ forms of preventing bad behavior are too extreme for education purposes and it imposes a bad impression that all students are a high risk of getting into severe trouble, no matter how good they are, whether it was intentional or accidental, or why they broke the rule.
As what professor Dewey Cornell and assistant professor Anne Gregory have stated, “A hallmark of zero tolerance is that it permits little or no consideration of the student’s intentions or the circumstances of his or her misbehavior.” (2) This leaves school systems without any form of argument or explanation for what they have done, leaving students helpless and overcontrolled. This gives school systems less responsibility and they aren’t permitted to look too deeply into certain situations of student getting involved with trouble. This leads to schools not nearly as attached to the students and makes the whole education seem automated, making students feel less special, worthless, and can decrease self-image and self-confidence. These feelings can lead to a decrease in class participation, extracurricular activities, and school work completed; this can also create an increase in negative hygiene, self-harm, emotional problems, and even suicide. Any system that can lead to death is unacceptable, and the zero tolerance has done so. The death of “...an 11-year-old boy that was denied possession of his asthma inhaler, which resulted in his death.” (Martinez 3) is in no way acceptable for …show more content…
any education system and should be replaced with a system that actually protects the students that attend such schools. Excessively strict rules with no exceptions can affect more than they seem, and could impose a more dictated school system, creating an freedomless overpowered system that has no intention of protecting the students that are required by law to attend for the sake of a better future. Zero tolerance policies are intended to set strict regulations in order to eliminate unacceptable behaviors and items that will create a positive learning condition. This is not the case with what is actually occurring in schools due to this policy. What is actually happening is students who do end up breaking minor rules will end up repeating the same misbehavior and even commit more severe behaviors. Students who regularly end up in trouble won’t cease bad behavior because they would more than likely create misdemeanors without even intention of doing so. This will make the student feel as if trouble is inevitable, and he might as well go and have fun with it and enjoy the things he regularly does, which is certainly some sort of misbehavior. Making students who routinely perform these unacceptable actions is understandably difficult, but finding a policy that actually increases the number of suspensions and expulsions isn’t a valid nor a proper method. If just that makes zero tolerance policies look unappealing, this doesn’t even mention the students that don’t regularly misbehave and are put a lot of effort into their education. Students who are good learners and excel at their learning habits get into trouble that isn’t even intentional or threatening. This is because these students accidentally perform a small infraction that they didn’t mean to, and will do what they are told to not get in trouble. Because of zero tolerance policies, these students have no way of excusing themselves or even correcting their mistakes, falling into harsh punishments such as suspension and expulsion. Examples of these misdemeanors that lead to suspensions include “...a 6-year-old male student kisses a female classmate, a student uses a plastic knife to cut a piece of chicken at lunch…”, “hair dyed blue” and “the classification of a snowball and kicking as deadly weapons.” (Martinez 3) These examples follow hundreds of other cases that involve minor infractions resulting in major punishments. Outrageous punishments like these are terrible examples of how a school system should be ran. These strict regulation, lead to many students being punished for seemingly harmless and innocent acts that can harm the student’s emotions, mental processing, financing, and overall future. Since zero tolerance policies create an increase in the number of in-school offenses, schools have had to resort to having police be present on school grounds. Schools that follow these policies believe that having security and police in schools will intimidate students into behaving and decrease the number of on-campus offenses. The problem with this, as stated by Stephanie Francis Ward and Etienne Delessert, is that “...these officers, referred to as school resource officers, often lack sufficient training, leading to more arrests -- sometimes for infractions as minor as flatulence or dress code violations.” (1) Having on-campus security and police officers is one of the many reasons why more and more students are getting into all sorts of trouble. Officers will do what school board members and school personnel enforce and will arrest students who violate any of the strict rules imposed by schools under zero tolerance policies. This evidence supports the idea that schools using strict policies such as the zero tolerance policy will increase school suspensions, expulsions, and arrests, many of which for infractions that are inoffensive and forgiving. Zero tolerance policies are shown to increase rates of school students being suspended and expelled as a whole, but if one were to look at the details of the statistics, it becomes worse than it originally seems.
Tests have shown that African American students are much more likely to be reported for misbehavior than any other race. Stephanie Francis Ward and Etienne Delessert state that “Nationally, black students are more than three times as likely to be suspended or expelled...:” (1) Many organizations are complaining and taking action against schools using zero tolerance policies because they claim that they single out African American students, and that these policies are racially unequal. Proper policies should be promoting equal opportunities for all races and that no policy should single out any type of group in a negative
manner. With all that zero policies have done for the education system in the twenty years it has been strongly enforced, schools are showing results that are as strongly negative as the rules they impose on students. Many have offered suggestions for what to replace zero tolerance policies with to fix as much damage as possible that zero tolerance policies have caused. One suggestion that seems to be discussed the most is a method called restorative justice. Restorative justice is defined as “...an alternative to retributive zero tolerance policies that mandate suspension or expulsion of students from schools for a wide variety of behaviors including possession of alcohol or cigarettes, fighting, dress code violations, and cursing.” (Teasley 2) These policies are not nearly as punitive as zero tolerance policies tend to be, meant to lower the number of suspensions and expulsions of students per school. Martell Teasley also states that, “Restorative justice is based on the development of a value set that includes building and strengthening relationships, showing respect, and taking responsibility.” (2) These methods are becoming more and more popular over time, with “...approximately 12 states implementing restorative practices.” (Teasley 2) These are methods that all schools should take on, for they approach punishment in a more understanding and reasoning way, rather than zero tolerance policies’ take on punishments with brutal sentences for tiny misbehaviors. This is the fix to zero tolerance policies and the mistakes it has made over the twenty years it’s been implemented in schools. Zero tolerance policies are the reason why most students may never reach their true potential of academic success and can end up living a much harder life with less happiness. Zero tolerance policies are shown to be ineffective, contrary of intended purpose, hurtful to students, racist, careless, and just an all around example of an atrocious abomination to the education system. The fact that many people actually support these policies is even more horrifying, meaning that there is a chance that it could worsen. There is hope for future generations to succeed in education. A hope that a new method, such as restorative justice, can replace the zero tolerance policy to control the behavior of students in a more friendly environment that is more suitable for learning. With the help of the people’s support, we can help the education system return to its’ rightful ways of having a proper system that will promote learning in a truly safe environment that everyone can be happy to have their children attend without worry.
He makes some very valid points pertaining to the zero tolerance policy practiced by schools and how it has a negative effect on children in our school systems and essentially pushes them into our juvenile and prison systems. I am a firm believer that the zero tolerance does nothing good for students in school. In my mind it completely goes against everything our schools supposedly stand for. We tell kids to go to school to learn, but the first time they break a rule we suspend them and send them home or even worse we expel them for the entire year. I just don’t see how that isn’t setting kids up for failure down the road and neglecting them of a quality education. One statistic the author presented that really caught me off guard was when they said that when someone is suspended or expelled even once in their entire time in school their chances of ending up behind bars is increased at a rate of five times than that of someone who doesn’t get suspended or expelled. This made me really reflect on how many friends I had in high school that were suspended and ultimately flunked out. It made me wonder if the system truly wasn’t there for them to help them get an
Martinez, S. (2009). A system gone berserk: How are zero-tolerance policies really …..affecting schools? Preventing School Failure, 53(3), 153-157. Retrieved from …..http://search.proquest.com.ezproxylocal.library.nova.edu/docview/228530113?acco…..untid=6579
If you did not know, the zero tolerance policy is when students break school behavior rules and strict regulations created by the district or school and get severe consequences for it. Carla Amurao, the author of the article, “Fact Sheet: How Bad Is the School-to-Prison Pipeline?”, stated that “statistics reflect that these policies disproportionately target students of color”. Students of color are being affected so badly by this policy, that statistics show black students are 3 times more likely to get expelled than white students. Since these students are being expelled or arrested for breaking zero tolerance policy rules, they are missing valuable information in classes due to court hearings. But, some people argue that the zero tolerance policy is unfair to all students, making the education system equal for all to succeed. For example, a “2007 study by the Advancement Project and the Power U Center for Social Change says that for every 100 students who were suspended, 15 were Black, 7.9 were American Indian, 6.8 were Latino and 4.8 were white”. As you can see, the zero tolerance policy affects all races, making them miss their education because of certain consequences. Because the mindset of these people is that, if the zero-tolerance policy does not affect just one race or group of people, then the education system
Race as a factor in inequity. Ladson-Billings and Tate (1995) posit that race continues to be a significant factor in determining inequity in the United States. Race matters in society. If we look at high school drop out, suspension, and incarceration rates of men of color in America we see a disproportionate amount of men of color marginalized and profiled by society. This is further compounded by the perception that male faculty of color cannot be educators or at least are not often conceptually visualized in that capacity (Bryan and Browder, 2013).
Another major reason why juveniles are ending up in the juvenile justice system is because many schools have incorporate the zero tolerance policy and other extreme school disciplinary rules. In response to violent incidents in schools, such as the Columbine High School massacre, school disciplinary policies have become increasingly grave. These policies have been enacted at the school, district and state levels with the hopes of ensuring the safety of students and educators. These policies all rely on the zero tolerance policy. While it is understandable that protecting children and teachers is a priority, it is not clear that these strict policies are succeeding in improving the safety in schools.
In the most recent years, the relationship between educational institutions and the juvenile justice system, which was once created to protect children, has displayed an ultimatum for minors through “zero tolerance” policies that result in sending individuals from school to prison to pipeline. Studies have shown that these policies are not beneficial to students or the educational environment that should be guaranteed to children. Opponents argue that the policies promote safety, but through this research it can be concluded that the policies actually increase danger. Studies demonstrate the factors that affect the enforcement of these policies which include media, the sociopolitical atmosphere, and the racial disproportionality, yet there are valid solutions for this issue that can be explored.
Kafka, Judith. 2011. The history of "zero tolerance" in American public schooling. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. http://www.palgraveconnect.com/doifinder/10.1057/9781137001962.
Following the Columbine tragedy in 1999, “school systems across the nation introduced the zero-tolerance policies aimed at the curtailment of harmful student behaviors” (Noll, 2014, p. 295). The original focus of the policies was to eliminate the use/carrying of weapons but soon after spread to restricting drugs and medication (2014). By 2006 95% of the U.S. public schools had adopted the zero-tolerance policies and more than half of them reported taking significant action against students, many of which resulted in expulsion (2014). While the zero-tolerance polices were originally welcomed by all members of a community as a means of promoting and keeping a safer environment-- as of late many individuals are questioning the relevance of some actions and some school officials (2014).
The zero tolerance policy has become a national controversy in regards to the solid proven facts that it criminalizes children and seems to catch kids who have no intention of doing harm. Although, there has been substantial evidence to prove that the policies enforced in many schools have gone far beyond the extreme to convict children of their wrongdoing. The punishments for the act of misconduct have reached a devastating high, and have pointed students in the wrong direction. Despite the opinions of administrators and parents, as well as evidence that zero tolerance policies have deterred violence in many public and private schools, the rules of conviction and punishment are unreasonable and should be modified.
Today's education is often viewed as failing in its goal of educating students, especially those students characterized as minorities, including African American, Hispanic, and Appalachian students (Quiroz, 1999). Among the minority groups mentioned, African American males are affected most adversely. Research has shown that when Black male students are compared to other students by gender and race they consistently rank lowest in academic achievement (Ogbu, 2003), have the worst attendance record (Voelkle, 1999), are suspended and expelled the most often (Raffaele Mendez, 2003; Staples, 1982), are most likely to drop out of school, and most often fail to graduate from high school or to earn a GED (Pinkney, 2000; Roderick, 2003).
“It is harder for a white college student to understand the need that minority students feel to band together against discrimination” (Waters, 1996, 236). Waters points out that often times in colleges where diversity is not apparent, the minority students—Asian, African Americans, Jewish, Arab and Latino—bind together no matter their racial differences. Since Senate Bill 1070 was passed in Arizona, racial profiling by local forces has become very problematic.
Schools inevitably must deal with disciplinary action when it comes to misconduct in students. However, at what point should the courts and law enforcement intervene? “Zero tolerance” policies started as a trend in the school setting during the 1990s in “response to the widespread perception that juvenile violence was increasing and school officials needed to take desperate measures to address the problem” (Aull 2012:182-183). However, national statistics indicated a decrease in juvenile’s share of crime during the influx of zero tolerance policies in schools (National Crime Justice Reference Service 2005).
America demands that all youth receive an education and that its educational system is free and open to all—regardless of class, race, ethnicity, age, and gender. However, the system is failing. There is still inequality in the educational system, and minorities’ experience with education is shaped by discrimination and limited access, while white people’s experience with education is shaped by privilege and access. The educational experience for minorities is still segregated and unequal. This is because the number of white children that are withdrawn from school by their parents is higher than the number of people of color enrolling. White parents are unconsciously practicing the idea of “blockbusting,” where minorities begin to fill up a school; whites transfer their children to a school that has a small or no minority population. They unconsciously feel like once their child is in a school full of minorities that school would not get the proper funding from the federal government. Bonilla-Silvia (2001) states that “[i]nner-city minority schools, in sharp contrast to white suburban schools, lack decent buildings, are over-crowded, [and] have outdated equipment…” (97). The “No Child Left Behind” Act, which holds schools accountable for the progress of their students, measures students’ performance on standardized tests. Most white children that are in suburban schools are given the opportunity to experience education in a beneficial way; they have more access to technology, better teachers, and a safe environment for learning. Hence, white students’ experience with the education system is a positive one that provides knowledge and a path to success. Also, if their standardized testing is low, the government would give the school...
The discrimination against Caucasian and Asian American students a long with the toleration of lower quality work produced by African American students and other minority students is an example of the problems caused by Affirmative Action. Although affirmative action intends to do good, lowering the standards by which certain racial groups are admitted to college is not the way to solve the problem of diversity in America's universities. The condition of America's public schools is directly responsible for the poor academic achievement of minority children. Instead of addressing educational discrepancies caused by poverty and discrimination, we are merely covering them up and pretending they do not exist, and allowing ourselves to avoid what it takes to make a d... ... middle of paper ... ...
According to the most recent data from the Department of Education, preschoolers who are racially diverse are being disciplined at a rate 3 times as great as their white classmates (Rich, 2014). The Department of Education data shows 48 percent of preschool suspensions were of black students who only make up 18% of all students attending preschool (Rich, 2014). This data is deeply disturbing. What could a preschooler possibly do to warrant a suspension?