10 ms·

Seeing the Toll, Schools Revise Zero Tolerance

83 points by 001sky 13y ago

jcromartie 13y ago
Thank God. I suffered 7 out-of-school suspensions and numerous other punishments in 6th-8th grades in the US under these policies. In nearly every case, I was the victim in a clearly one-sided assault. I am not going to subject my daughter to the same environment.
ds9 13y ago
"Zero tolerance", by normal princicples of interpretation of English, implies "no exceptions to the rules". But that was never what it has meant in practice. The practical meaning, which has caused all the problems, is "stupidly over-broad rules, ignoring obvious relevant distinctions that should have been incorporated into the rules". If the rule for example is "no drugs", and the "zero tolerance" mantra promotes fearfully over-broad interpretation, then you have students being suspended or expelled or arrested or whatever for having an acetaminophen from a parent or nurse, for a headache. If that's not the intent, the rule needs some intelligent thought at the writing stage - then you could still have "zero tolerance" meaning "no exceptions", yet avoid the outcomes which defy common sense and fairness. The fact that all this has taken years to penetrate the minds of school officials makes me wonder whether we still have a lot of lead poisoning, or some flaw in the way people are selected or trained for these positions, or something else is badly wrong with the education system.
- jerf 13y ago
  I disagree; the idea that we can write a complete rule set for humans is something that has tempted humans for a long time, but there's no evidence we can pull it off. How does your rule set handle "Student A sneaks some aspirin into Student B's backpack"? A strict reading says that Student B has some aspirin. Obviously that is not what was meant, but we can't afford to specify all the "obviously"s, and it's probably just plain impossible.
  - ds9 13y ago
    We don't have to have perfect rules, we just have to go from "crazy over-inclusive and treat all violations alike" to "reasonably targeted and allow for severity of the violation".
  - DanBC 13y ago
    The basic concept of zero tolerance would handle this fine. B is a victim. A is a perpetrator. The type of drug sets the punishment. Drugs would normally mean recreational drugs. Aspirin is not recreational, so A doesn't need punishment for carrying this drug. But medical drugs, even aspirin, need cautious use and A should be told about the risks of handing out medication to other people, and about the stupidity of sneaking stuff into other people's bags. The zero tolerance policy has handled the situation appropriately. A not-zero-tolerance policy would have said "Bah, we've got better things to worry about than that" and not done anything to A. Unfortunately, what zero tolerance means in most implementations is that B gets no opportunity to explain that they're a victim, and thus B is expelled from that school. And if A is caught they're also expelled.
  - kps 13y ago
    This is (arguably) the difference between civil law and common law systems — the former seeking to codify correct rules in advance, the latter to adapt rules correctly to new circumstances.
  - Thrymr 13y ago
    Which is one of the advantages to a jury trial in criminal proceedings, so that a defendant's peers can evaluate the circumstances surrounding the alleged crime. Traditionally judges in the USA have considerable leeway in sentencing as well, though mandatory minimums and "three strikes" laws have eroded that. In schools, "zero tolerance" rules take away the leeway of administrators to make punishment proportional and humane. Going down the road of making better rules that can be perfectly enforced is exactly the wrong direction.
- VLM 13y ago
  My personal experience is no exceptions to the rules means massive petty corruption. He's a mostly good white kid; don't look at the contents of his "cigarette" too closely. I'm not going to look in your backpack because I don't particularly want to have to have you arrested, but god help you if I ever have to talk to you again about smelling beer on your breath... This is usually the hidden story behind draconian enforcement. The kid didn't get busted for having a tablet of tylenol, she got busted using tylenol as a weapon for disrespecting a teacher, being the wrong race (not necessarily black, in some schools white is the wrong race), etc. The real purpose is if everyone is inherently a criminal all the time, then everyone can be punished as much as any tin pot dictator desires at any time. That's the true purpose of the rule. Or the true educational lesson for the kids.
  - TallGuyShort 13y ago
    Of course it's hard to tell if allowing arbitrary exceptions also allows the same kind of problem. "I'll give you a warning because [you're white and] you're normally a good kid and one mistake shouldn't ruin your education"
    - throwaway0094 13y ago
      Yeah. I landed on the privileged end of this. I think my white privilege saved my ass in highschool.
      - Crito 13y ago
        Being the sort of "exceptional" kid that people like @will_brown talks about helping saved my ass on numerous occasions. In the post-Columbine crackdowns in schools, I use to come and leave highschool as I pleased. The administration was terrified of doing anything to 'gifted' kids because a few years earlier the parents of a gifted kid got a lawyer and apparently gave them quite a scare. I probably spend less than 25% of my senior year actually in the classes I was suppose to be in, spending the rest of the time either playing quake under the pretense of "gifted seminar", or knocking around town under the pretense of taking college classes. Had I been a 'regular' kid, I would have surely been expelled. Getting declared "gifted" can give you massive amounts of privilege.
- nimble 13y ago
  Once when I was riding passenger with a friend, a cop pulled him over and told him that he was getting a ticket as part of their new "zero tolerance" policy: anyone caught exceeding the posted limit by more than 10 mph was going to be ticketed. I sometimes wonder if cops say stupid things just to identify the smart asses out there (I kept my mouth shut).
  - DanBC 13y ago
    Why is that a stupid thing to say? Before the zero tolerance policy cops had discretion whether to ticket or not. After the policy they must issue a ticket to anyone going X over the limit.
    - VLM 13y ago
      Zero tolerance would be 65.0001 in a 65 zone means ticket, but the humorous psuedo-zero tolerance is +10 so 74.9999, although nearly 15% out of tolerance, is OK
      - Crito 13y ago
        Throw on some error bars to your speedometer and whatever it is the cop is using to track your speed (not a radar gun unless they are state police, in some states), and 10mph over is probably reasonably close to the lowest amount they can nail people for without significant false positives.
        VLM 13y ago
        The philosophical point of "zero tolerance" is error bars and "reasonable" don't exist.
        Crito 13y ago
        Consider a draconian zero-tolerance drug policy in an office place, where they can demand a piss test at will. Does "zero tolerance" imply that they will disregard all standard laboratory procedures, disregard the margin of error on the tests, and fire you even if the lab tech points out that the test technically returned a negative since the result was below the margin of error? No, "zero tolerance" isn't, literally interpreted, a statement about how the test will be executed. It is a statement about what happens after the test returns a positive. Of course in practice "zero tolerance" means "we are going to do whatever the hell we want, and then wash our hands of responsibility". That is how "zero tolerance for guns" can turn into "nail this kid to the wall for eating a poptart".
- peterwwillis 13y ago
  The problem with the education system is similar to that of a corporation, or politics. Nobody who sees the need for changes has the authority to make those changes, and those in authority do the bare minimum needed to keep their jobs. I was expelled or "asked to leave" from several high schools (in Broward County) when I was growing up about 12 years ago. Ironically, it was never for drugs or misbehavior, but instead for being too smart for my own good. The offenses were always minor: a "dangerous" amount of "knowledge of school computer systems". Pushing a chair across the room "in a violent manner" (fast enough to make it clang into the wall). Strange electronics diagrams that they could not decipher (an FM transmitter project kit from RadioShack). Having a website with links to VisualBasic AOL proggies and punters that "could be slowing down the Mac network". What it took me years to figure out was that nobody wanted to deal with a special case. Nobody wanted to take the time to help you or understand you. They have thousands of kids to deal with. They're happy as long as everyone is towing the line and they'd much rather get rid of you (or pass you) than educate you. And I can sum up the motivation in one sentence: There is zero incentive for educators to help troubled kids.
  - VLM 13y ago
    "There is zero incentive for educators to help troubled kids." Brevity is overrated; none the less strike out "troubled".
    - peterwwillis 13y ago
      Not so fast. There are incentives for teachers to help talented, excelling individuals who have no problems. It makes the teacher and the school look good, especially for local and national government programs that reward teachers/schools with good results. You could say this is much more relevant in universities where millions of dollars may hinge on the ability of a student to develop something the school can shop around. Actually, there is one incentive for teachers to help troubled kids: High school and college sports. The sports brings in the money, and so they need to make sure the kids don't completely fail out so they can keep bringing in the dough. Other than that, though...
- jcromartie 13y ago
  > If that's not the intent The cynic in me says that it is the intent. Public schools needed a blunt instrument to simply beat the notion of blind obedience to authority into thick adolescent skulls, and they got it through zero tolerance policies. Now it seems that it's unsustainable, so they'll need another way to subjugate the future generations. Again, just my cynical side... being the product of zero tolerance policies, myself.
  - degeneratekids 13y ago
    > Public schools needed a blunt instrument to simply beat the notion of blind obedience to authority into thick adolescent skulls, and they got it through zero tolerance policies. Punishing teenagers for violating drug laws or damaging property is "beating the notion of blind obedience to authority into thick adolescent skulls"??? What do you think is going to happen to them when they turn 18?
    - epochwolf 13y ago
      > What do you think is going to happen to them when they turn 18? This is why we have jails.
    - superuser2 13y ago
      My high school administrators approached underage drinking like a secret police force. There were skilled interrogators, effective emotional manipulation, good-cop-bad-cop routines, physical intimidation, etc. There was an administrative employee built like a tank who would be sent to (very publicly) collect suspects from their classrooms for interrogation. They made plea bargains (which they sometimes didn't honor) for informing on others. They performed social engineering attacks to increase their signals intelligence capabilities - give us a look at your Facebook account (or just hand over your password), identify these (pseudonymous) Tumblr URLs, etc. and we won't destroy your future by calling your college and having your admission rescinded. They made deals and adjusted punishments based on whether or not you would identify photographs. When there were reports of drinking on one of the international class trips (to a country with a low drinking age) they rounded up and interrogated everyone from all of the foreign trips. A good portion of the senior class confessed and was suspended. Because some people ordered wine with dinner in France. If a party was busted by the village police, they'd brethalyze and ticket every single person, then notify the school - which would kick them out of their current extracurricular activity for the remainder of the season/play. I turned 18 and went to college. We were taught about responsible drinking - extensive lessons on consent, standard drink sizing, alcohol poisoning, etc. And we were told that administration and the university police are concerned only with safety and noise. RAs know about parties in the dorms (in fact, they have to be registered and neighbors are given a chance to veto if they have a test the next day or something) and do not care. The university police shut down apartment parties for noise complaints but make no inquiries as to the ages or intoxication of the partygoers. So, to answer your rhetorical question: that. That is going to happen to them when they turn 18. Authority will stop caring about bullshit.
- Daniel_Newby 13y ago
  "God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board." — Mark Twain
girvo 13y ago
Good. When I was in highschool, I consistently found security holes in our network. I even got naughty and abused some of them for pranks, and for installing Quake on every computer on the network (lunchtimes became far more interesting, had at least 40-50 people in the LAN!). I was caught multiple times (and turned myself in a few, with bug reports). My IT coordinator wanted me hung, drawn and quartered, but my vice principle made him give me admin access to our secondary servers running Suse Linux. If he'd followed the rules to the letter, I would've been expelled, "zero-tolerance" could have seen something even worse. I learned my lesson(s), and it started a lifelong fascination with Linux, and the schools network was more secure for it. A better outcome, I think.
- angersock 13y ago
  it started a lifelong fascination with Linux indeed, a far worse punishment... ;)
  - girvo 13y ago
    Considering that that year I completely hosed my computer at least 5 times trying to get Slax running off a HDD in dual boot (back in 2005), and now I tinker with it daily... Yeah you'd be right ;)
  - normloman 13y ago
    I hereby sentence you to virginity!
    - angersock 13y ago
      It's funny, you know, because the most attentive lovers I know of are all programmers. Probably the practice at being patient while debugging cranky and seemingly whimsical systems.
      - girvo 13y ago
        I treat my lover the way I treat my mission critical config files: carefully and with patience?
vampirechicken 13y ago
Special case treatment invites lawsuits by those who do not get special treatment. Lawsuits are bad (expensive) for public school districts already struggling to fund teaching programs. No special treatment, no lawsuits.
- aidenn0 13y ago
  Zero tolerance doesn't eliminate special treatment, it actually increases it. If someone breaks a rule, and you know that if you notice it, they will be expelled, you turn a blind eye more often than if you know that more appropriate action will be taken.
will_brown 13y ago
As a lawyer who has represented school children in Broward and Miami-Dade disciplinary and IEP proceedings, I have been involved in some outrageous cases. For example in one IEP matter the school refused to purchase a deaf student a ~$50 reading program violating her Constitutional right to free and appropriate education, only after retaining a lawyer did the school comply. Maybe of more interest to the HN crowd, I represented an exceptional (in the ESE definition) student, who had already been expelled for uploading a script to the school's computer network that shutdown the server on 10 minute intervals. Under the county code his conduct was labeled as hacking and subject to the same punishment as student's charged with hate crimes. The student actually volunteered his free time to work with the school's IT department, he brought the vulnerability to the attention of the IT department, and only did what he did after bringing it to the attention of the IT department and they failed to take action. After 6 months, the student was finally reinstated, only through a technicality that he too was being denied a free and appropriate education. In his case he was 17 in his Sr year, in an IB program where he normally split his time between high school and college classes and was on track to graduate high school with 2 years of college credit, but as a result of his expulsion he was placed in an alternative school where he could no longer take IB classes or his college classes so it was determined he was not receiving an appropriate education. Personally I was detained in school by the secret service for counterfeiting when I was 14, I received no school related disciplinary action, and as a direct result I am a lawyer who gives back to children in similar circumstances - how many have lost a similar opportunity to learn from their mistakes and allow their mistakes to have a positive impact of their future?
- throwaway0094 13y ago
  I was suspended multiple times in middle school ("hacking" -- nothing had restricted permissions back in those days) and high school for being stupid and mouthing off to a teacher who wasn't going as fast as I wanted. I took all of the math available at my local community college ("advanced" calculus, differential equations) in sophomore and junior years of highschool, took AP CS AB senior year, got a 5 on a number of AP exams (CS AB, Chemistry, ...), graduated HS with a 3.9 (of 4.0). I am really lucky to have had a principal who was able to see past my immature behavior and strike the suspensions from my record for college applications. As a result I was directly admitted into the CS program at the U of Washington (semi-uncommon), finished undergrad in 2⅓ years, and graduated cum laude with a ~3.85 (of 4.0). Now I work at an amazing software company hacking on a really cool operating system. I can't imagine I would be in the same place making the same kind of $$$ if a zero-tolerance policy had applied at any point during my K-12 education.
mattgrice 13y ago
I have a theory about zero tolerance or other types of blanket policies such as mandatory minimum sentencing. They are a way for the management class to divest liability or responsibility for decisions. If there is no room for discretion, there is no real decision to make, and no way to be wrong. You see this sort of thing in large organizations of all types but government is the one everyone has experience with.
- ScottWhigham 13y ago
  I don't really know that that's a "theory". That's just how you scale, isn't it? "Common sense" works for a company of 25 people when the founder is directly involved with hiring and training of every person. It fails though when you employ 50,000 and the CEO turns over four times in a decade. Putting in "policies" and requiring adherence to these policies is a way to keep the train moving even when the CEO is fired/arrested/etc. "Just follow the SOP and you'll be fine."
- adekok 13y ago
  > They are a way for the management class to divest liability or responsibility for decisions I'd also say they are a way for bureaucrats to blame the victim. Someone's complaining that they were attacked? Kick them out of school for being in a fight. That will shut up the people who want to fix things.
danso 13y ago
Even if zero-tolerance were good in principle, we really need to consider the burden it places not only on the accused, but on the system. We barely have time and resources to prosecute and incarcerate law-breaking adults. And this sounds really banal, but the paperwork and bureaucracy for all those involved is a real pain in the ass. I was recently involved in a drawn out legal process as a victim...and even though the only thing I had to do was show up and testify, it was such a pain in the ass to coordinate my schedule with the court's, who also had to schedule it around the other parties' schedule...which, when you're an adult, basically means missing work, appointments, etc., to wait for hours in the court halls. I imagine it's just as much a burden on the accused, even if they aren't incarcerated...and if the accused in this situation is already having a tenuous time attending classes and staying focused, well, going through the judicial system process -- and even being exonerated -- is not going to help things at all. The legal system is slow...and that's a good thing. However, it means we need to be cognizant of that reality before readily throwing people (and children) into that grinder.
at-fates-hands 13y ago
While I whole heartedly agree with schools taking the approach of helping kids instead of simply handing them over to the cops to deal with, the problems are much deeper. We have allowed socio-economic and cultural factors go untreated for too long, thus placing more of burden on the school system with having to deal with these kids and their issues - most of which should not have anything to do with schools. I firmly believe if these issues were treated at the root source, instead of burdening school districts, I bet the kids would have less issues in school and would be more successful academically. We just have to let teachers focus on what they do best - educate our children.
- betterunix 13y ago
  Sure, we have deep-rooted social problems, but right now we are reinforcing those problems via our school system. We will never solve those social problems if we are starting kids off in life with criminal records.
degeneratekids 13y ago
What about the students who aren't smoking weed and spraying graffiti? Why should they be grouped with students who need more than an education and fed a curriculum geared towards the lowest common denominators (students who aren't even prepared to function in a school environment)? Arbitrary tolerance will fail for the same reason zero tolerance fails. Schools are being asked not just to educate but to parent. In many places they are falling short with the former so why do people believe they can do the latter? School administrators need to be honest with themselves and with the people they answer to. If parents raise children who lack the basic skills required to function in civil society the burden can't and shouldn't fall on schools.
- sukuriant 13y ago
  Great, so what do we do with them? > Schools are being asked not just to educate but to parent. I agree a hundred fold that schools are being asked to educate and parent. Latch-key kids do happen and are probably pretty common. > If parents raise children who lack the basic skills required to function in civil society the burden can't and shouldn't fall on schools. (emphasis mine) Yeah, but it will. Now what? Parents aren't going to step up. Or are they? How do they? With all that parents, both very rich and business-focused; and poor and very busy to make end's meet, that aren't able to properly care or don't want to care for their children, what do we do next? People aren't going to stop having kids for a LOT of reasons, and I don't think they should. So, what's the next step. We can't just say "this sucks" and not provide some sort of next step. Maybe the first solution isn't sufficient, but what about the second? Third? Four hundred and thirty-second? An amalgamation of several? Unique per student per class? It sucks, but we have to say more than "this is wrong" in these situations. [edit: changed school per class to student per class]
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > If parents raise children who lack the basic skills required to function in civil society the burden can't and shouldn't fall on schools. It manifestly can and does, whether or not it should. And if we build a society which demands, in practice, that even in two-parent families, both parents work outside of the home full-time to provide the necessities of life, we probably shouldn't be surprised that suboptimal parenting often occurs.
johngalt 13y ago
The goals of Zero-Tolerance policies have nothing to do with student outcomes and everything to do with legal outcomes. If you expel Johnny, but only suspend Jane for the same infraction; Johnny's parents are going to sue. Conversely if if you don't expel Johnny for drawing that picture of a gun, you'll be sued if he ever becomes violent. The most insidious thing about Zero-Tolerance is how it sharply outlines the differences for 'connected' students. A direct contradiction of it's goals. Before policies like these, a school board member's kid might get a preferential slap on the wrist in lieu of expulsion. Now that lower punishment isn't an option, anything they do wrong is invisible entirely.
ctdonath 13y ago
One under-discussed problem with "zero tolerance" is the application of the (misguided) principle to that which doesn't even constitute a relevant offense. Suspending a kid for pointing a finger and saying "bang!" under "zero tolerance weapons policies", or for having mundane analgesic for menstrual pain under "zero tolerance drug policies", or for wearing a religious-themed T-shirt under "zero tolerance hate speech policies", etc. is not equal reprimand for violations, it's arbitrary abuse born of sociopolitical bigotry doled out by people suffering a tenuous grasp on reality - demonstrating exactly why they should not be empowered as in loco parentis. Alas, most parents defer to "the severity of the charges" and alleged authority, rather than retorting "you're NUTS" and press child abuse charges.
MattGrommes 13y ago
I'd love for there to be less "by the book" and more communication in general, not just in schools. It's insane how much corporate america relies on "it's in the company handbook" rather than just communicating with people. I worked at a place where a male employee was caught spending literally hours a day on the Victoria's Secret website. Instead of talking to him about it they waited until the next year's handbook was issued with a new directive about computer use so his manager could say "it's not personal, it's in the handbook".

83 points by 001sky 13y ago

Thank God. I suffered 7 out-of-school suspensions and numerous other punishments in 6th-8th grades in the US under these policies. In nearly every case, I was the victim in a clearly one-sided assault. I am not going to subject my daughter to the same environment.

ds9 13y ago

"Zero tolerance", by normal princicples of interpretation of English, implies "no exceptions to the rules". But that was never what it has meant in practice. The practical meaning, which has caused all the problems, is "stupidly over-broad rules, ignoring obvious relevant distinctions that should have been incorporated into the rules". If the rule for example is "no drugs", and the "zero tolerance" mantra promotes fearfully over-broad interpretation, then you have students being suspended or expelled or arrested or whatever for having an acetaminophen from a parent or nurse, for a headache. If that's not the intent, the rule needs some intelligent thought at the writing stage - then you could still have "zero tolerance" meaning "no exceptions", yet avoid the outcomes which defy common sense and fairness. The fact that all this has taken years to penetrate the minds of school officials makes me wonder whether we still have a lot of lead poisoning, or some flaw in the way people are selected or trained for these positions, or something else is badly wrong with the education system.

jerf 13y ago
I disagree; the idea that we can write a complete rule set for humans is something that has tempted humans for a long time, but there's no evidence we can pull it off. How does your rule set handle "Student A sneaks some aspirin into Student B's backpack"? A strict reading says that Student B has some aspirin. Obviously that is not what was meant, but we can't afford to specify all the "obviously"s, and it's probably just plain impossible.
- ds9 13y ago
  We don't have to have perfect rules, we just have to go from "crazy over-inclusive and treat all violations alike" to "reasonably targeted and allow for severity of the violation".
- DanBC 13y ago
  The basic concept of zero tolerance would handle this fine. B is a victim. A is a perpetrator. The type of drug sets the punishment. Drugs would normally mean recreational drugs. Aspirin is not recreational, so A doesn't need punishment for carrying this drug. But medical drugs, even aspirin, need cautious use and A should be told about the risks of handing out medication to other people, and about the stupidity of sneaking stuff into other people's bags. The zero tolerance policy has handled the situation appropriately. A not-zero-tolerance policy would have said "Bah, we've got better things to worry about than that" and not done anything to A. Unfortunately, what zero tolerance means in most implementations is that B gets no opportunity to explain that they're a victim, and thus B is expelled from that school. And if A is caught they're also expelled.
- kps 13y ago
  This is (arguably) the difference between civil law and common law systems — the former seeking to codify correct rules in advance, the latter to adapt rules correctly to new circumstances.
- Thrymr 13y ago
  Which is one of the advantages to a jury trial in criminal proceedings, so that a defendant's peers can evaluate the circumstances surrounding the alleged crime. Traditionally judges in the USA have considerable leeway in sentencing as well, though mandatory minimums and "three strikes" laws have eroded that. In schools, "zero tolerance" rules take away the leeway of administrators to make punishment proportional and humane. Going down the road of making better rules that can be perfectly enforced is exactly the wrong direction.
VLM 13y ago
My personal experience is no exceptions to the rules means massive petty corruption. He's a mostly good white kid; don't look at the contents of his "cigarette" too closely. I'm not going to look in your backpack because I don't particularly want to have to have you arrested, but god help you if I ever have to talk to you again about smelling beer on your breath... This is usually the hidden story behind draconian enforcement. The kid didn't get busted for having a tablet of tylenol, she got busted using tylenol as a weapon for disrespecting a teacher, being the wrong race (not necessarily black, in some schools white is the wrong race), etc. The real purpose is if everyone is inherently a criminal all the time, then everyone can be punished as much as any tin pot dictator desires at any time. That's the true purpose of the rule. Or the true educational lesson for the kids.
- TallGuyShort 13y ago
  Of course it's hard to tell if allowing arbitrary exceptions also allows the same kind of problem. "I'll give you a warning because [you're white and] you're normally a good kid and one mistake shouldn't ruin your education"
  - throwaway0094 13y ago
    Yeah. I landed on the privileged end of this. I think my white privilege saved my ass in highschool.
    - Crito 13y ago
      Being the sort of "exceptional" kid that people like @will_brown talks about helping saved my ass on numerous occasions. In the post-Columbine crackdowns in schools, I use to come and leave highschool as I pleased. The administration was terrified of doing anything to 'gifted' kids because a few years earlier the parents of a gifted kid got a lawyer and apparently gave them quite a scare. I probably spend less than 25% of my senior year actually in the classes I was suppose to be in, spending the rest of the time either playing quake under the pretense of "gifted seminar", or knocking around town under the pretense of taking college classes. Had I been a 'regular' kid, I would have surely been expelled. Getting declared "gifted" can give you massive amounts of privilege.
nimble 13y ago
Once when I was riding passenger with a friend, a cop pulled him over and told him that he was getting a ticket as part of their new "zero tolerance" policy: anyone caught exceeding the posted limit by more than 10 mph was going to be ticketed. I sometimes wonder if cops say stupid things just to identify the smart asses out there (I kept my mouth shut).
- DanBC 13y ago
  Why is that a stupid thing to say? Before the zero tolerance policy cops had discretion whether to ticket or not. After the policy they must issue a ticket to anyone going X over the limit.
  - VLM 13y ago
    Zero tolerance would be 65.0001 in a 65 zone means ticket, but the humorous psuedo-zero tolerance is +10 so 74.9999, although nearly 15% out of tolerance, is OK
    - Crito 13y ago
      Throw on some error bars to your speedometer and whatever it is the cop is using to track your speed (not a radar gun unless they are state police, in some states), and 10mph over is probably reasonably close to the lowest amount they can nail people for without significant false positives.
      - VLM 13y ago
        The philosophical point of "zero tolerance" is error bars and "reasonable" don't exist.
        Crito 13y ago
        Consider a draconian zero-tolerance drug policy in an office place, where they can demand a piss test at will. Does "zero tolerance" imply that they will disregard all standard laboratory procedures, disregard the margin of error on the tests, and fire you even if the lab tech points out that the test technically returned a negative since the result was below the margin of error? No, "zero tolerance" isn't, literally interpreted, a statement about how the test will be executed. It is a statement about what happens after the test returns a positive. Of course in practice "zero tolerance" means "we are going to do whatever the hell we want, and then wash our hands of responsibility". That is how "zero tolerance for guns" can turn into "nail this kid to the wall for eating a poptart".
peterwwillis 13y ago
The problem with the education system is similar to that of a corporation, or politics. Nobody who sees the need for changes has the authority to make those changes, and those in authority do the bare minimum needed to keep their jobs. I was expelled or "asked to leave" from several high schools (in Broward County) when I was growing up about 12 years ago. Ironically, it was never for drugs or misbehavior, but instead for being too smart for my own good. The offenses were always minor: a "dangerous" amount of "knowledge of school computer systems". Pushing a chair across the room "in a violent manner" (fast enough to make it clang into the wall). Strange electronics diagrams that they could not decipher (an FM transmitter project kit from RadioShack). Having a website with links to VisualBasic AOL proggies and punters that "could be slowing down the Mac network". What it took me years to figure out was that nobody wanted to deal with a special case. Nobody wanted to take the time to help you or understand you. They have thousands of kids to deal with. They're happy as long as everyone is towing the line and they'd much rather get rid of you (or pass you) than educate you. And I can sum up the motivation in one sentence: There is zero incentive for educators to help troubled kids.
- VLM 13y ago
  "There is zero incentive for educators to help troubled kids." Brevity is overrated; none the less strike out "troubled".
  - peterwwillis 13y ago
    Not so fast. There are incentives for teachers to help talented, excelling individuals who have no problems. It makes the teacher and the school look good, especially for local and national government programs that reward teachers/schools with good results. You could say this is much more relevant in universities where millions of dollars may hinge on the ability of a student to develop something the school can shop around. Actually, there is one incentive for teachers to help troubled kids: High school and college sports. The sports brings in the money, and so they need to make sure the kids don't completely fail out so they can keep bringing in the dough. Other than that, though...
jcromartie 13y ago
> If that's not the intent The cynic in me says that it is the intent. Public schools needed a blunt instrument to simply beat the notion of blind obedience to authority into thick adolescent skulls, and they got it through zero tolerance policies. Now it seems that it's unsustainable, so they'll need another way to subjugate the future generations. Again, just my cynical side... being the product of zero tolerance policies, myself.
- degeneratekids 13y ago
  > Public schools needed a blunt instrument to simply beat the notion of blind obedience to authority into thick adolescent skulls, and they got it through zero tolerance policies. Punishing teenagers for violating drug laws or damaging property is "beating the notion of blind obedience to authority into thick adolescent skulls"??? What do you think is going to happen to them when they turn 18?
  - epochwolf 13y ago
    > What do you think is going to happen to them when they turn 18? This is why we have jails.
  - superuser2 13y ago
    My high school administrators approached underage drinking like a secret police force. There were skilled interrogators, effective emotional manipulation, good-cop-bad-cop routines, physical intimidation, etc. There was an administrative employee built like a tank who would be sent to (very publicly) collect suspects from their classrooms for interrogation. They made plea bargains (which they sometimes didn't honor) for informing on others. They performed social engineering attacks to increase their signals intelligence capabilities - give us a look at your Facebook account (or just hand over your password), identify these (pseudonymous) Tumblr URLs, etc. and we won't destroy your future by calling your college and having your admission rescinded. They made deals and adjusted punishments based on whether or not you would identify photographs. When there were reports of drinking on one of the international class trips (to a country with a low drinking age) they rounded up and interrogated everyone from all of the foreign trips. A good portion of the senior class confessed and was suspended. Because some people ordered wine with dinner in France. If a party was busted by the village police, they'd brethalyze and ticket every single person, then notify the school - which would kick them out of their current extracurricular activity for the remainder of the season/play. I turned 18 and went to college. We were taught about responsible drinking - extensive lessons on consent, standard drink sizing, alcohol poisoning, etc. And we were told that administration and the university police are concerned only with safety and noise. RAs know about parties in the dorms (in fact, they have to be registered and neighbors are given a chance to veto if they have a test the next day or something) and do not care. The university police shut down apartment parties for noise complaints but make no inquiries as to the ages or intoxication of the partygoers. So, to answer your rhetorical question: that. That is going to happen to them when they turn 18. Authority will stop caring about bullshit.
Daniel_Newby 13y ago
"God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board." — Mark Twain

girvo 13y ago

Good. When I was in highschool, I consistently found security holes in our network. I even got naughty and abused some of them for pranks, and for installing Quake on every computer on the network (lunchtimes became far more interesting, had at least 40-50 people in the LAN!). I was caught multiple times (and turned myself in a few, with bug reports). My IT coordinator wanted me hung, drawn and quartered, but my vice principle made him give me admin access to our secondary servers running Suse Linux. If he'd followed the rules to the letter, I would've been expelled, "zero-tolerance" could have seen something even worse. I learned my lesson(s), and it started a lifelong fascination with Linux, and the schools network was more secure for it. A better outcome, I think.

angersock 13y ago
it started a lifelong fascination with Linux indeed, a far worse punishment... ;)
- girvo 13y ago
  Considering that that year I completely hosed my computer at least 5 times trying to get Slax running off a HDD in dual boot (back in 2005), and now I tinker with it daily... Yeah you'd be right ;)
- normloman 13y ago
  I hereby sentence you to virginity!
  - angersock 13y ago
    It's funny, you know, because the most attentive lovers I know of are all programmers. Probably the practice at being patient while debugging cranky and seemingly whimsical systems.
    - girvo 13y ago
      I treat my lover the way I treat my mission critical config files: carefully and with patience?

vampirechicken 13y ago

Special case treatment invites lawsuits by those who do not get special treatment. Lawsuits are bad (expensive) for public school districts already struggling to fund teaching programs. No special treatment, no lawsuits.

aidenn0 13y ago
Zero tolerance doesn't eliminate special treatment, it actually increases it. If someone breaks a rule, and you know that if you notice it, they will be expelled, you turn a blind eye more often than if you know that more appropriate action will be taken.

will_brown 13y ago

As a lawyer who has represented school children in Broward and Miami-Dade disciplinary and IEP proceedings, I have been involved in some outrageous cases. For example in one IEP matter the school refused to purchase a deaf student a ~$50 reading program violating her Constitutional right to free and appropriate education, only after retaining a lawyer did the school comply. Maybe of more interest to the HN crowd, I represented an exceptional (in the ESE definition) student, who had already been expelled for uploading a script to the school's computer network that shutdown the server on 10 minute intervals. Under the county code his conduct was labeled as hacking and subject to the same punishment as student's charged with hate crimes. The student actually volunteered his free time to work with the school's IT department, he brought the vulnerability to the attention of the IT department, and only did what he did after bringing it to the attention of the IT department and they failed to take action. After 6 months, the student was finally reinstated, only through a technicality that he too was being denied a free and appropriate education. In his case he was 17 in his Sr year, in an IB program where he normally split his time between high school and college classes and was on track to graduate high school with 2 years of college credit, but as a result of his expulsion he was placed in an alternative school where he could no longer take IB classes or his college classes so it was determined he was not receiving an appropriate education. Personally I was detained in school by the secret service for counterfeiting when I was 14, I received no school related disciplinary action, and as a direct result I am a lawyer who gives back to children in similar circumstances - how many have lost a similar opportunity to learn from their mistakes and allow their mistakes to have a positive impact of their future?

throwaway0094 13y ago
I was suspended multiple times in middle school ("hacking" -- nothing had restricted permissions back in those days) and high school for being stupid and mouthing off to a teacher who wasn't going as fast as I wanted. I took all of the math available at my local community college ("advanced" calculus, differential equations) in sophomore and junior years of highschool, took AP CS AB senior year, got a 5 on a number of AP exams (CS AB, Chemistry, ...), graduated HS with a 3.9 (of 4.0). I am really lucky to have had a principal who was able to see past my immature behavior and strike the suspensions from my record for college applications. As a result I was directly admitted into the CS program at the U of Washington (semi-uncommon), finished undergrad in 2⅓ years, and graduated cum laude with a ~3.85 (of 4.0). Now I work at an amazing software company hacking on a really cool operating system. I can't imagine I would be in the same place making the same kind of $$$ if a zero-tolerance policy had applied at any point during my K-12 education.

mattgrice 13y ago

I have a theory about zero tolerance or other types of blanket policies such as mandatory minimum sentencing. They are a way for the management class to divest liability or responsibility for decisions. If there is no room for discretion, there is no real decision to make, and no way to be wrong. You see this sort of thing in large organizations of all types but government is the one everyone has experience with.

ScottWhigham 13y ago
I don't really know that that's a "theory". That's just how you scale, isn't it? "Common sense" works for a company of 25 people when the founder is directly involved with hiring and training of every person. It fails though when you employ 50,000 and the CEO turns over four times in a decade. Putting in "policies" and requiring adherence to these policies is a way to keep the train moving even when the CEO is fired/arrested/etc. "Just follow the SOP and you'll be fine."
adekok 13y ago
> They are a way for the management class to divest liability or responsibility for decisions I'd also say they are a way for bureaucrats to blame the victim. Someone's complaining that they were attacked? Kick them out of school for being in a fight. That will shut up the people who want to fix things.

danso 13y ago

Even if zero-tolerance were good in principle, we really need to consider the burden it places not only on the accused, but on the system. We barely have time and resources to prosecute and incarcerate law-breaking adults. And this sounds really banal, but the paperwork and bureaucracy for all those involved is a real pain in the ass. I was recently involved in a drawn out legal process as a victim...and even though the only thing I had to do was show up and testify, it was such a pain in the ass to coordinate my schedule with the court's, who also had to schedule it around the other parties' schedule...which, when you're an adult, basically means missing work, appointments, etc., to wait for hours in the court halls. I imagine it's just as much a burden on the accused, even if they aren't incarcerated...and if the accused in this situation is already having a tenuous time attending classes and staying focused, well, going through the judicial system process -- and even being exonerated -- is not going to help things at all. The legal system is slow...and that's a good thing. However, it means we need to be cognizant of that reality before readily throwing people (and children) into that grinder.

at-fates-hands 13y ago

While I whole heartedly agree with schools taking the approach of helping kids instead of simply handing them over to the cops to deal with, the problems are much deeper. We have allowed socio-economic and cultural factors go untreated for too long, thus placing more of burden on the school system with having to deal with these kids and their issues - most of which should not have anything to do with schools. I firmly believe if these issues were treated at the root source, instead of burdening school districts, I bet the kids would have less issues in school and would be more successful academically. We just have to let teachers focus on what they do best - educate our children.

betterunix 13y ago
Sure, we have deep-rooted social problems, but right now we are reinforcing those problems via our school system. We will never solve those social problems if we are starting kids off in life with criminal records.

degeneratekids 13y ago

What about the students who aren't smoking weed and spraying graffiti? Why should they be grouped with students who need more than an education and fed a curriculum geared towards the lowest common denominators (students who aren't even prepared to function in a school environment)? Arbitrary tolerance will fail for the same reason zero tolerance fails. Schools are being asked not just to educate but to parent. In many places they are falling short with the former so why do people believe they can do the latter? School administrators need to be honest with themselves and with the people they answer to. If parents raise children who lack the basic skills required to function in civil society the burden can't and shouldn't fall on schools.

sukuriant 13y ago
Great, so what do we do with them? > Schools are being asked not just to educate but to parent. I agree a hundred fold that schools are being asked to educate and parent. Latch-key kids do happen and are probably pretty common. > If parents raise children who lack the basic skills required to function in civil society the burden can't and shouldn't fall on schools. (emphasis mine) Yeah, but it will. Now what? Parents aren't going to step up. Or are they? How do they? With all that parents, both very rich and business-focused; and poor and very busy to make end's meet, that aren't able to properly care or don't want to care for their children, what do we do next? People aren't going to stop having kids for a LOT of reasons, and I don't think they should. So, what's the next step. We can't just say "this sucks" and not provide some sort of next step. Maybe the first solution isn't sufficient, but what about the second? Third? Four hundred and thirty-second? An amalgamation of several? Unique per student per class? It sucks, but we have to say more than "this is wrong" in these situations. [edit: changed school per class to student per class]
dragonwriter 13y ago
> If parents raise children who lack the basic skills required to function in civil society the burden can't and shouldn't fall on schools. It manifestly can and does, whether or not it should. And if we build a society which demands, in practice, that even in two-parent families, both parents work outside of the home full-time to provide the necessities of life, we probably shouldn't be surprised that suboptimal parenting often occurs.

johngalt 13y ago

The goals of Zero-Tolerance policies have nothing to do with student outcomes and everything to do with legal outcomes. If you expel Johnny, but only suspend Jane for the same infraction; Johnny's parents are going to sue. Conversely if if you don't expel Johnny for drawing that picture of a gun, you'll be sued if he ever becomes violent. The most insidious thing about Zero-Tolerance is how it sharply outlines the differences for 'connected' students. A direct contradiction of it's goals. Before policies like these, a school board member's kid might get a preferential slap on the wrist in lieu of expulsion. Now that lower punishment isn't an option, anything they do wrong is invisible entirely.

ctdonath 13y ago

One under-discussed problem with "zero tolerance" is the application of the (misguided) principle to that which doesn't even constitute a relevant offense. Suspending a kid for pointing a finger and saying "bang!" under "zero tolerance weapons policies", or for having mundane analgesic for menstrual pain under "zero tolerance drug policies", or for wearing a religious-themed T-shirt under "zero tolerance hate speech policies", etc. is not equal reprimand for violations, it's arbitrary abuse born of sociopolitical bigotry doled out by people suffering a tenuous grasp on reality - demonstrating exactly why they should not be empowered as in loco parentis. Alas, most parents defer to "the severity of the charges" and alleged authority, rather than retorting "you're NUTS" and press child abuse charges.

MattGrommes 13y ago

I'd love for there to be less "by the book" and more communication in general, not just in schools. It's insane how much corporate america relies on "it's in the company handbook" rather than just communicating with people. I worked at a place where a male employee was caught spending literally hours a day on the Victoria's Secret website. Instead of talking to him about it they waited until the next year's handbook was issued with a new directive about computer use so his manager could say "it's not personal, it's in the handbook".