Question

The "Point" author acknowledges that some schools have "zero-tolerance' policies," but he or she is critical to them. Explain why the author takes issues with these policies. Use textual evidence to support your answer.

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Answer 1

Beginning in 1989, elementary and secondary school systems in New York, California, and Kentucky began implementing strict rules with rigid enforcement strategies for dealing with violations of school rules. In response to increasing concerns over violence in and around schools and clear recognition of the need for students to be and to feel safe at school, these policies proliferated rapidly over the next decade. Termed “zero tolerance,” these policies became at once popular and controversial with school officials, parents, and the general public. The goals of violence reduction and the creation of safe, nurturing environments for learning and development in schools are entirely appropriate and receive broad-based support throughout society. Psychology as a discipline has long embraced the need for safety and nurturance during childhood to foster positive development in virtually all domains. Zero tolerance policies have been embraced by some proportion of our nation’s educators and policy-makers as a means of facilitating these goals. Unfortunately, the promulgation and implementation of zero tolerance policies has outpaced the empirical or theoretical foundations of such measures. Certain applications of zero tolerance policies, typically those that seem to take the policy to an extreme, find their way into the popular media, fueling the controversy surrounding zero tolerance. For example, as reported in the St. Petersburg Times (“Educational intolerance”, 2001), a 10 year old girl found a small knife in her lunchbox, placed there by the mother, for cutting an apple. She immediately gave the knife to her teacher, but was expelled from school for possessing a weapon. A teen student was expelled for violating school rules by talking to his mother (with whom he had not spoken in 30 days) on a cell phone

Zero Tolerance Task Force Report 18 while at school – his mother was on deployment as a soldier in Iraq (Atlanta Journal Constitution, May 7, 2005, p. 1A). The Denver Post (April 5, 2005, p. F1) reported that 15 students were expelled for a full year for watching a fight between two other students. In the same article, the Denver Post reported on an 11 year old charged with theft for taking a lollipop from a classroom jar that he mistakenly thought was free. His case spent 14 months passing through the juvenile justice system. The Ottowa Citizen (September 13, 2004, p. A1) reported on a case of a 5 year old suspended for “sexual harassment” after hugging classmates despite the fact that none of the classmates or their parents complained. In 2005, a student with a disability (Asperger’s Syndrome, a disorder characterized by deficits in the development of social and related interpersonal skills) was suspended indefinitely for making “terroristic threats” after responding with verbal aggression to prolonged teasing from other students (who were not disciplined) while riding on a special education bus (Reynolds, 2005, personal communication). There are numerous reports from media sources throughout the country of students expelled for possessing properly prescribed medications at school as well as legally obtained over-the-counter medications such as Tylenol. Such cases rankle students, their parents, and the public, but are often justified as necessary sacrifices if zero tolerance policies are to be applied fairly and are to be effective in creating a deterrent effect. In the last decade, there has been tremendous progress in our research knowledge on preventing youth violence and creating safe schools. Numerous reviews have rigorously examined violence prevention programs and have identified a set of effective and promising practices that can reduce the probability of violence or disruption at school (Dwyer, Osher, & Warger, 1998; Elliott, Hatot, Sirovatka, & Potter, 2001.

Answer 2

The "Point" author acknowledges that some schools have "zero-tolerance policies," but he or she is critical of them because they do not address the reasons why the students behave the ways they do.

What is the reason?

First, zero-tolerance policies are those that prohibit some irrational attitudes by the students in schools. The author of Point acknowledges that these methods are used by some schools to prevent ill behaviors but he does not approve of them because they do not address the origins of the students' behaviors.

He believes that a better approach to solving the issues is identifying why the students behave the ways they do.