Zero Tolerance Policy of Education in America

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Recommended: Ending zero tolerance in high schools increase violence

Zero Tolerance Policy of Education in America In Bedford, Texas, a 16-year-old honor student was expelled after a

security guard noticed a kitchen knife on the floor of the student's

car. The knife apparently had fallen unnoticed as the student carted

some of his grandmother's possessions to Goodwill. He was ordered to

spend a year in a juvenile-justice education program and banished from

district property and school-sponsored activities. [...] In Deer

Lakes, Pennsylvania, a kindergarten student was suspended for bringing

a toy axe to school. He was dressed as a firefighter for Halloween.

[...] In Thornton, Colorado, a fifth-grade girl was arrested for

sexual harassment after repeatedly asking a classmate if he liked her.

(Starr 2)

Zero tolerance is a policy concerning issues in today's society that

are thought to be extremely dangerous. The three main focuses of the

policy are incidences of violence, drugs, and alcohol. Zero tolerance

treats children as if they were adults, and removes the "innocent

until proven guilty" philosophy on which our country thrives. This

policy could be extremely harmful to the lives of the students it

affects and, "[...] disrupts the lives and educations of good students

nearly as often as it does those of troubled students." This happens

by treating all offenses dealing with the aforementioned issues and

all students equally, even if the student has had a flawless record

and had obviously no harmful intent (Starr 1).

Before the zero tolerance idea came about, the school system treated

discipline in a completely diffe...

... middle of paper ...

... that handing

out candy is similar to distributing heroin laced with rat poison is

relaying the message that the real, hard drugs are not that bad. Also,

calling the use of vernacular "racism" is implying that people that

truly do suffer from racial issues are actually complaining about

nothing really important. Finally, this tells people that that are not

involved in these issues at all that these things are actually just

trivial, and they do not have anything to worry about (Cassingham 3).

Zero tolerance policies must be stopped because they are simply not

benefiting children in any way. These policies are providing the

illusion that schools are dealing with trouble youth, when in fact

they are simply attempting to shove it outside and lock the door. The

problem is, these policies are locking the children out, too.

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