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Randy Cassingham's BlogHistorical Details and Author's Notes from This is True®
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Zero Tolerance and the 800-lb Gorilla
The New York Times had an article today on a ridiculous zero tolerance situation: a kid in Delaware who was so excited to get his Cub Scouts camping utensil -- a fork, knife and spoon combo -- that he took it to school to eat his lunch with. Yeah, a Cub Scout: Zachary Christie is just 6 years old. Wait: it had a dull, kid-appropriate knife included? Why, knives are weapons! Run in circles! Pull out your hair! Scream like a little girl!
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You guessed it: Zachary is out of there -- suspended, and he must spend 45 days in reform school before he can return to classes with his friends. And they had the frigging gall to say they "had to" suspend him because knives are banned "regardless of the possessor's intent."
Sigh
There was a case in Delaware awhile back when a third-grade girl was expelled -- thrown out of school, not just suspended -- when her grandmother sent a birthday cake to school with the girl ...with a knife to cut it. The teacher called the principal in ...but only after she used the knife to cut the cake up, since she had no other way to serve it to the kids! Yep, that's the mentality behind this garbage!
State legislators were outraged by this and introduced a law -- which passed -- to allow school boards to, "on a case-by-case basis, modify the terms of the expulsion." But that doesn't help Zachary: he's not expelled, he's "just" suspended and sentenced to a term in reform school.
The boy's mom apparently rejected the reform school garbage: she's home-schooling him while trying to get the punishment overturned. She has set up a web site appealing for help -- and is trying to get legislators to modify the state's zero tolerance law yet again to make it rational in all discipline cases, not just expulsions. Imagine that! They again have to address rationality and force schools to be reasonable in punishing kids, rather than terrorize them, screwing them up for life over minor transgressions! The previous law even acknowledges, right within the law's text, that "the American Psychological Association recently reported that zero tolerance policies do not effectively improve school safety."
When will this madness end? But at least I'm not the only one beating on this drum anymore (and I started on it in February 1997!) This story was on the front page of the New York Times today. After nearly 13 years, it's finally getting major national news treatment. Welcome aboard this issue, NYT. Glad to have the 800-lb gorilla behind me at last.
Zero tolerance is destroying children under the guise of helping them. It's causing more harm than good. It's not time for state laws to be adjusted to address the outrage of ZT. It's time for changes in federal law.
Updates
- The New York Times has published an editorial on the subject. "'Use Common Sense' should be at the top of the list for the state -- and for the Christina district," it concludes. And, showing that it truly grasps the problem, adds, "If teachers and administrators don’t follow that rule, how can they expect children to?"
- "The school board made a hasty change to its code of conduct," reports NBC's Today Show. "The seven-member board voted unanimously to reduce the punishment for kindergartners and first-graders who bring weapons to school or commit other violent offenses to a suspension ranging from three to five days." Well, it's a start: kindergartners and first-graders get the benefit of common sense; second-graders up don't. Law rewrites are still desperately needed.
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Most Recent Comments
Posted by Ginny, Utah on October 26, 2009:
I can confirm, as someone who was a high school senior when Columbine happened, that ZT was already in place when it happened. It's definitely grown worse in that it seems to be enforced far more now. I know by the time my brothers, citizenship grades were required for graduation, and you lost citizenship for any absence, including being sick. If you were sick too much, even with a doctor's note, you would be required to do community service or not graduate. I was an honors student and a National Merit Scholar, and under the policies in place when my brothers were in high school, I would not have graduated. ZT is quite simply insane.
As for the spanking issue, behavioral science has proven that heavy use of things like physical punishment is damaging to those who are treated that way. It is entirely possible to teach and train children to behave well without resorting to violence. AllanW and the wonderful foster mom are both excellent examples. Spanking is outright illegal in many European countries, but I don't see widespread complaints about children's behavior from my European friends the way I do from other Americans (or from my own experiences in public).
The real problem is a lack of discipline and consequences from birth, not a lack of spanking. I've seen it in my own family, where siblings have threatened their kids over and over again, but then not followed through, so the kids run wild and do what they please. Saying, "If you don't stop doing x, you don't get dessert," does nothing if the kid gets dessert anyway.
I'm obviously kind of young to be very familiar with Dr. Spock's philosophies, but if he helped contribute to a decrease in the acceptability of domestic abuse, he did a great thing. But maybe not. After all, look at how out of control women are now! They talk back to their husbands and even go out and get jobs rather than staying home and taking care of the house. We better start spanking them again, too, so they'll listen to their fathers and husbands again.
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Longtime readers of course know that ZT was in place before Columbine, since I started talking about ZT in early 1997, and Columbine happened more than two years later. In fact, one reader was so tired of hearing about ZT that she ranted that if ZT were policy in Colorado, ZT would have never happened! Not true, of course: zero tolerance was the law in Colorado at the time of Columbine! (My response to that reader is here.) Your conclusion about ZT is right on: "ZT is quite simply insane." -rc
Posted by Antonio, Zurich, Switzerland on November 4, 2009:
Ginny wrote: "Spanking is outright illegal in many European countries, but I don't see widespread complaints about children's behavior from my European friends the way I do from other Americans (or from my own experiences in public)."
As someone who currently lives in what is supposedly one of the most civilized countries in the world, which happens to be in Europe, I can give another view on this.
Certainly, Europeans do not complain about kids' behavior: they rightfully recognize "kids being kids", like we used to in USA.
But the flip side is that Europeans totally coddle their youth, to the point of tolerating some behaviors (like littering and vandalism) that I consider outrageous. These kids also grow up feeling very entitled, having experienced significant preferential treatment during adolescence.
Alas, Europe is dutifully following in the USA's footsteps and beginning with fear-based policies exactly like what led to ZT in USA. There has been talk here in Switzerland of weapons bans and metal detectors, despite the fact that significant school violence is as rare here as it is in USA. (And I say this as someone who was a constant victim of bullying in school in USA and Switzerland... but that's another matter.)
Common sense is long gone, and the media, in its endless quest for numbers thanks to sensationalism, has people believing that our world is more dangerous than ever, when in fact, there's never been a better time to be human.
Posted by Mike from Dallas on November 7, 2009:
The problem is nothing new. That it's now codified as Zero Tolerance is relatively recent, but the trend has been around since at least the 1930's as far as I've been able to track it. It's not about purpose; it's not about logic; it's not even about manageability. It's all about shuffling the blame for not thinking.
How many of you have heard the mantra, "It's just our policy"? A mantra that removes the need to think, removes the need to apply rational intelligence to the situation at hand, and shuffles the blame to the nameless (and unreachable) Powers That Be.
I said it before in private; I'll say it again in public:
Them that can, DO.
Them that can't, TEACH.
Them that can't teach, TEACH TEACHERS.
And them that can't teach teachers, BECOME SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS.