The current behavior system set up in schools around the country include the well none zero-tolerance policy. Beginning in the mid 1990’s, zero-tolerance policies have become widespread in most schools around the country. Due to the increase in violence in schools and widespread fear of danger in schools, education systems have implemented these policies. Originally, these policies were only to give consistent suspension or expulsion to serious crimes in school settings like firearms, drugs, or other weapons brought to school. They were designed to show students that no matter the offense with weapons or drugs, serious consequences would result. These rules were intended to help prevent prejudices from influencing student’s consequences. However, …show more content…
On the other hand, many critics of the policy believe that it is an ineffective way of combating the problem with young students and is not useful in school settings. Examining the history of the zero tolerance policy and the results that have come over the almost twenty-five years of its existence provide an insightful look into the effectiveness of the policy on students.
Jacob Kang-Brown is a research associate of Vera Institute of Justice, which is a nonprofit organization that investigates problems in different justices systems, such as school. Kang-Brown examines the Zero Tolerance policy in schools and what has been learned from them twenty years later. He has a MA in social ecology and has done extensive work in school disciplinary policies and juvenile justice systems. According to a recent article he wrote, school discipline has changed greatly over the past 25 years, with much more severe punishments in school systems today. These punishments include suspension and expulsion for a variety of offenses and now include less severe crimes, which were not originally intended to be included. The reason zero
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Martinez previously worked in schools as a special education teacher and is currently doing research about the school wide PBS. With this extensive research, she has been able to evaluate the effectiveness of zero tolerance policies in school and whether they have proven effective. Martinez discusses the many unintended side effects of the zero tolerance policy. School administrators have overused the policy as a way to avoid dealing with students who have behavioral problems. By using the zero tolerance policy, administrators automatically have a consequence of either suspension or expulsion set in place, no matter how severe the behavior is. This prevents administrators from dealing with the problem in school; it just gets rid of the student who has misbehaved. Martinez also brings up another good point about how schools have been using zero tolerance policies as an excuse for a high rise in suspensions. Yes, there should be a small rise in the number of suspensions or expulsions in the beginning, but overtime there should be a decrease. A decrease would prove that students are responding to the policy, and the policy is being effective in its main goal: decrease the amount of students who are breaking the rules. Martinez also provides alternatives to zero
For my second article review I decided to do mine over the article Harry Wilson titled Turning off the School-to-Prison Pipeline. The main theme that this particular article deals with is how our school systems have become a direct pipeline for kids to end up in prison and the way to break this pipeline is through our schools changing certain policies they operate by. The main topic of this article that the author talks about frequently that contributes to the “pipeline” is the zero tolerance rule that school systems follow. The author speaks frequently about how the zero tolerance policy is a key factor to the school-to-prison pipeline being eliminated. Throughout the entire duration of the article the reader can expect to be confronted with
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
A new policy is needed and most certainly should start out with holding schools to handle their own discipline situations, rather than relying on school security and police (Wilson, 2014). School administrators must be able to differentiate between what is a true discipline situation and when a student simply made a mistake. The rate of school suspensions have skyrocketed over the last thirty years from 1.7 million nationwide to 3.1 million and growing today (ACLU, n.d.). Each school needs to create policies of when to get school security involved and what the school’s security job involves. Unless there is a true threat to the safety of the school and/or its student’s law enforcement should never be called (Wison, 2014). The instinct to dial 911 at every infraction has to stop. Furthermore the schools must develop a gender and racial fairness; black children should not be receiving harsher punishments for similar infractions of white students (Wilson,
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.
The intent of this argumentative research paper, is to take a close look at school systems disciplinary policies and the effect they have on students. While most school systems in the nation have adopted the zero tolerance policies, there are major concerns that specific students could be targeted, and introduced into the criminal justice system based on these disciplinary policies. This research paper is intended to focus on the reform of zero tolerance policies, and minimizing the school to prison pipeline.
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.
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.
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).
In all grades of education, from kindergarten to college, there is a form of discipline known as a zero tolerance policy. While the exact wording is different from school to school, basically a zero tolerance policy means that a student is immediately suspended, asked to attend an alternative school, or expelled if they are suspected or caught doing certain things. These policies are in place to hopefully deter students from doing drugs or being violent, but the ethics behind them are questionable. Some research has shown that these policies may not even work, and other forms of discipline would be better suited to help students. The three main activities that result in the zero tolerance policy are being caught with drugs or alcohol, being caught with a weapon, and bullying.
A science teacher in Mississippi asked her students to take a picture with their completed DNA Lego model. John Doe took his picture with a smile and a hand gesture in which his thumb, index, and middle finger was raised. This was enough to earn him an indefinite suspension with a recommendation for expulsion because his school administrators believed he flashed a gang sign although he was simply putting up three fingers to represent his football jersey number. (NPR Isensee, 2014). This kind of criminalization of young people contributes to suspension, dropout, and incarceration, and too often pushes students into what is referred to by many education scholars and activists as the “school-to-prison pipeline,” a term that refers to “the policies and practices that push our nation’s schoolchildren, especially our most at-risk children, out of classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems” (ACLU 2013). The School-to-Prison Pipeline is one of the most urgent challenges in education today. This paper will focus on the following circumstances and policies contributing to the school-to-prison pipeline: 1) resource deprived schools, 2) high-stake testing and 3) zero-tolerance discipline policies. However, it is important to note that the school-to-prison pipeline is a broad problem not limited to these three components and has been influenced by historical inequities (segregated education), concentrated poverty, and racial disparities in law enforcement (NAACP, 2005). They have each served to isolate and remove a massive number of people, a disproportionately large percentage of whom are youth of color, from their communities and from participation in civil society (NAACP, 2005). I argue for attention to the school-to-pr...
Khadaroo, Teicher. A. “School suspensions: Does racial bias feed the school-to-prison pipeline?” The Christian Science Monitor. March 31, 2013. Web.
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
On my first day at Dunn Middle School, I learned that I had the gifted and talented classes, and assumed that discipline would be no problem for me. There was minimal chatter and the students seemed eager to learn. When I walked in on the second day, my co-op handed me a sheet of paper with the suspensions listed. This floored me, the infractions included fighting and sexual harassment. Over the next few weeks I saw that both out of school and in school suspensions were given a lot.
When a student starts acting up, it’s easier and takes less resources to suspend them for a few days then it is to implement a “restorative justice” system that doesn’t teach the kids anything but how to fake an apology and an apologetic face. In the article “Why Do We Suspend Misbehaving Students?” by Brian Palmer it says, “ Why is suspension such a common punishment? Because it’s familiar, cheap, and convenient.” While some say it’s about helping the students, The less resources a school has to put toward helping students with behavioral issues, the more they can put toward things that contribute to the school’s well