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Zero tolerance policy in american schools
Zero tolerance policy in american schools
Zero tolerance policy in american schools
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The zero tolerance policies that date back to the mid-1990’s originally targeted issues such as drugs and weapons. Over time, schools have broadened their list of punishable offenses, creating more disciplinary issues. These policies in public schools enforce punishment, in the form of expulsion or suspension, on students in response to certain rule violations. The goal of these policies is to promote the safety of all students and staff. If rules are broken, students are punished without exceptions. I oppose the zero tolerance policy in public schools because of its lack of leniency and rationalization. I believe schools should alter consequences based each individual situation. To support my argument, I will be discussing the issues, consequences and alternatives related to zero tolerance policies.
Concerns: Why zero tolerance is unjust.
The biggest issue with zero tolerance in schools is that these policies treat every individual equally, regardless of their age, intent, history of behavior, or specific needs. This is dangerous because children can be held responsible for crimes that they had no intention of committing. Everyone is punished severely if they make a mistake, despite the fact that they might not being at fault. For instance, a victim of bullying may be given the same punishment as the bully while trying to fight back in an act of self defense. Under a zero tolerance policy, both the bully and the victim will be punished because violence is impermissible according to the school rules. This shows that there really is no tolerance with violence. Children are punished regardless of the reason why they acted a certain way. Another fault with these policies is that they do not take age into account. In the past, studen...
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... with disabilities, children who may or may not have the understanding of why they are being punished. I am in favor of alternatives such as practices that promote topics such as cultural/racial sensitivity, impacts of drugs and alcohol, violence and more. The awareness of these issues ensures that students differentiate right from wrong. Parental involvement in school activities along with support from health experts is also a way to reduce misbehavior. To target the reason why children are acting out and helping them resolve their problems decreases the risk of the child misbehaving again. While the intention for zero tolerance policies is well, the strict methods being used are not only unfair, but ineffective as well. Using other ways to target rule violations will create a healthy and secure school environment, making a child's learning experience successful.
These kids don’t misbehave in the classroom for no reason. They are probably releasing those emotions that are bottled up from them at home in school. Not coming from a stable background can have quite the effect on trying to learn in a classroom. The problems that need to be fixed are trying to make schools feel more like a “safe haven” rather than a prison. Afterschool programs need to be put into place, to allow kids to stay at school for long so they don’t get involved in street life, or so they can just not have to deal with the outside problems of the world for a little bit longer. Also, school need to change. They need to try and make learning more fun, and more integrated with the children they are teaching. An easy an example of this is teaching these kids about their history, so they have many people to look up to besides just Martin Luther King Jr. or Rosa Parks. Only teaching black and Latino kids about people that don’t even look like them or go through anything they have gone through, makes them bored and uneager to learn. Also, more rewards in to be into place to make kids feel more welcomed and wanting to do good in class. Even though it may seem out of the ordinary for some, suspension needs to stop. Allowing these kids to take a break from somewhere they already don’t want to be is ushering them towards a life of hating school. Suspension not only hurt the school district but also hurt the
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
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
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,
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.
Kafka, Judith. 2011. The history of "zero tolerance" in American public schooling. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. http://www.palgraveconnect.com/doifinder/10.1057/9781137001962.
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.
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.
In response to expressed concerns over the causes of the Columbine High School massacre and other school shootings, some schools have renewed existing anti-bullying policies, in addition to adopting a zero tolerance approach to possession of weapons and threatening behavior by students. (Kass, 2000). Despite these and other responses, it did not stop school massacres and history would repeat itself again on April 16th,
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).
More specifically, safeguarding the rights of students with disabilities, while maintaining a safe learning environment for all are top priorities. I currently oversee a middle school who has a large special education population, as 23% of the students receive special education related services. In addition, the school has two new assistant principals who have limited administration and special education experience. Providing ongoing support as well as relevant information is critical. Sharing evidenced-based practices combined with elements of Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBiS) has proven to be beneficial. It is imperative students with disabilities who engage in maladaptive behaviors are exposed to proactive interventions as opposed to reactive response. A suspension may mask the issue, as the primary root of the behavior is not addressed. Creating functional equivalent replacement behaviors (FERBS) that seek to meet the behavior need in a more appropriate fashion is
National Dissemination Center For Children With Disabilities (2010). Applying Discipline Rules to Students with Disabilities. Retrieved from http://nichcy.org/SchoolsAndAdministrators/Pages/discipline.aspx
This injustice is commonly referred to as the school-to- prison pipeline. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, “zero tolerance” policies in schools criminalize minor violations of school rules, resulting in resource officers placed in schools lead students to be criminalized for situations that should be handled within the school. Moreover, students of color are three times more likely to be severely punished for their behavior than white students. This discrimination follows the student into young adulthood where they are more likely to be incarcerated. This continuous cycle of entering the prison system and then continuously going in and out of it was discussed in the documentary. Possible solutions that have been discussed to end the school-to-prison pipeline include: police being the last resort in fixing conflict, improving the student to staff ratio, and providing more alternative discipline practices. Recently, more schools are noticing the damaging effects related to taking students out of class for disciplinary reasons and have since came up with alternatives to suspension such as restorative justice, which allows students to resolve conflict through conversations that may include the student, the person the student hurt and their
As a teacher managing problem behavior in your classroom can be one of the most challenging tasks. Behavior problems can range from disruption of lessons to acts of violence against fellow students and teachers. Children’s emotional setbacks and life challenges can also contribute to behavior issues at school. A study done by the Justice Center and the Public Policy Research Institute found that six out of ten students suffered from an “emotional disturbance” and were expelled or suspended between seventh and twelfth grade (Firke, 2011). This same study showed that discipline varied greatly between schools. This report also revealed the urgent need for a more thoughtful technique in school discipline policies. In many cases teachers have exhausted their classroom management strategies without success. Behavior Modification is aimed at improving school and classroom behavior, and can give teachers additional tools to help them to deal proactively and effectively with behaviors that are disruptive to students and teachers in the classroom. When children are disruptive in the classroom it can cause a lot of problems for their classmates and their teacher. Yet, in the long run, it's the disruptive child themselves who is most impacted, on both a social and educational level (Epstein, Atkins, Cullinan, Kutash, & Weaver, 2008). Behavior modification techniques should be used in school, to change the negative behaviors, and increase the positive behaviors seen in these children.