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In
This Issue:
• Zero Tolerance: A Legal Primer (Part three of four)
• Programming for Success
• HFI News Briefs
• Teacher's Tip for Classroom Management
• Around the Web: Other Resources on the Internet
• Heard in the Halls
• Book Review |
Part Three of a Four-Part Series
Zero tolerance policies generally re-
quire mandatory suspension or expulsion of students caught
possessing a weapon, engaging in violent behavior or using
or possessing drugs. In many cases, the use of such policies
is clearly necessary. However, this is not always the case.
Increasingly, reports show that students have been suspended
or expelled for apparently trivial mistakes, including:
• Pointing a finger at another student and saying “bang,”
• Bringing a nail clipper to school,
• Turning in a gun brought to school by another student.
In
addition to these extreme applications, the question of racial
bias often arises in the implementation of zero tolerance
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 programs.
A study in Michigan, for example, found that African-American
students were suspended and expelled from school at a rate
250 percent greater than white students. This higher rate
would only be appropriate if African-American students committed
crimes at a rate 250 percent greater than white students.
Clearly
then, adoption and application of zero tolerance policies
has ventured into unexpected and uncertain territory. These
developments raise important civil liberties issues regarding
the right to an education and due process. The following review
will outline the basic legal issues raised by zero tolerance
policies.
Continued
on Page 3 |
The
Hamilton Fish Institute is administered by The George Washington
University Institute for Education Policy Studies, Graduate
School of Education and Human Development
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One
Size Doesn't Fit All:
Before
the term “alternative education” was coined, a
few schools in isolated parts of the country were doing things
a bit differently. They were operating outside the box in
which traditional public school education was packaged.
In
these communities, innovators were creating specialized programs
for youth whose needs were not being met by the “one
size fits all” approach to public education, and an
amazing thing started to occur. Students who had previously
failed started to succeed. Once engaged in the |
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Programming
for Success
process
of learning, they had fewer behavioral issues, and teachers
were able to rediscover their joy in teaching.
Alternative
schools succeed, according to Robert Barr and William Parrett
in "How to Create Alternative, Magnet, and Charter Schools
That Work," by connecting students with an active, relevant
curriculum that focuses on the individual needs of students,
basic skill acquisition, academic preparation linked to careers
and opportunities for students to participate in the design
and delivery of the learning environment.
Continued
on Page 2
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Zero
Tolerance: Suspension and Expulsion