Opposition to “zero tolerance” school
disciplinary policies continues to grow. A comprehensive new report
urges schools to stop kicking students out of class and arresting
them for committing trivial offenses.
The 400-page
School Discipline Consensus Report was published by
the Council of State Governments Justice Center. The U.S.
Department of Justice paid for roughly half the project’s $2
million cost.
Chief among the report’s many recommendations is
scaling back the incessant suspensions and expulsions handed
down by school administrators over minor and even accidental rule
infractions:
Research and data on school discipline practices are clear:
millions of students are being removed from their classrooms each
year, mostly in middle and high schools, and overwhelmingly for
minor misconduct. When suspended, these students are at a
significantly higher risk of falling behind academically, dropping
out of school, and coming into contact with the juvenile justice
system. A disproportionately large percentage of disciplined
students are youth of color, students with disabilities, and youth
who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT).There is no question that when students commit serious offenses
or pose a threat to school safety they may need to be removed from
the campus or arrested. Such incidents, however, are relatively
rare, and school typically remains the safest place a young person
can be during the day. In schools with high rates of suspension for
minor offenses, however, students and teachers often feel they are
not safe or supported in their learning environment.
Zero tolerance policies arose during the ’90s as part of a
tough-on-crime approach to school violence, which was perceived to
be increasing.
Nowadays, news stories about students ill-served by such
policies pop up constantly. They include a student
expelled and arrested for forgetting to take his fishing
supplies out of his car before heading to school. Another
suspended for a harmless science experiment. A third student
was
suspended for chewing a Pop-tart into the shape of a gun. Every
day, students lose class time for committing slight offenses.
Sometimes, these offenses involve the police, court proceedings,
and even short jail stints.
But as the report points out, when schools involve law
enforcement in routine and minor disciplinary actions, students
feel like criminals. Exposing kids—especially at-risk kids—to the
criminal justice system as a penalty for slipping up in school is a
surefire way to ruin their futures,
notes Pedro Noguera, a New York University education professor,
in The Wall Street Journal:
“It’s the most disadvantaged, most vulnerable kids who are being
denied learning time in the guise of discipline,” Mr. Noguera said,
adding that some schools suspend students for truancy. “These are
the kids who don’t like to be in school anyway, and you’re sending
them home to watch television?”
A groundswell of dissatisfaction with zero tolerance policies
has
prompted legislators in several states to
instruct school districts to abandon them. This effort has
largely been bipartisan, and even President Obama’s Department of
Justice has advised schools to move away from zero tolerance.
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