Zero Tolerance Policies in Schools: Abject Failure
November 27, 2011 by Leslie E. Packer PhD
Filed under Advocacy, Research
As a follow-up to a blog entry on zero tolerance policies, I thought I would post the abstracts of some research and commentaries on the effectiveness (or lack thereof, to be more accurate) of such policies:
A Retrospective Study of School Safety Conditions in High Schools Using the Virginia Threat Assessment Guidelines Versus Alternative Approaches
Dewey Cornell, Peter Sheras, Anne Gregory, and Xitao Fan
School Psychology Quarterly 2009, Vol. 24, No. 2, 119–129
Threat assessment has been widely recommended as a violence prevention approach forschools, but there are few empirical studies of its use. This nonexperimental study of 280 Virginia public high schools compared 95 high schools using the Virginia threat assessment guidelines (Cornell & Sheras, 2006), 131 following other (i.e., locally developed) threatassessment procedures, and 54 not using a threat assessment approach. A survey of 9th grade students in each school obtained measures of student victimization, willingness to seek help for bullying and threats of violence, and perceptions of the school climate ascaring and supportive. Students in schools using the Virginia threat assessment guidelines reported less bullying, greater willingness to seek help, and more positive perceptions of the school climate than students in either of the other 2 groups of schools. In addition, schools using the Virginia guidelines had fewer long-term suspensions than schools using other threat assessment approaches. These group differences could not be attributed to school size, minority composition or socioeconomic status of the student body, neighborhood violent crime, or the extent of security measures in the schools. Implications for threat assessment practice and research are discussed.
In the Eyes of the Beholder: Urban Student Perceptions of Zero Tolerance Policy
Laura McNeal and Christopher Dunbar, Jr
Urban Education 2010; 45; 293
The law originally drafted by Congress focused on truly dangerous and criminal behavior by a student(s), such as gun possession, on school property. Whereas, zero tolerance policies are school district policies that require predetermined consequences for specific violations (Sughrue, 2003). The policies were designed to punish those who engaged in egregious acts that potentially put themselves and others at risk of harm or danger (Dunbar & Villarruel, 2002; Villaruel & Dunbar, 2006). However, many states, including Michigan, extended these laws to include weapons such as daggers, dirks, stilettos, knives with blades more than 3 inches, pocketknives opened by a mechanical device, iron bars, or brass knuckles (Advancement Project and Civil Rights Project, 2000; Dunbar & Villarruel, 2002). In addition, zero tolerance policies have been extended to include more types of punishable behavior that have ranged from possession of drugs that include Midol and Aspirin to possession of toy guns, insubordination, and disruption (Schwartz & Rieser, 2001). Although many of these items pose little or no threat to school safety, students throughout the country have been expelled for having one of these items in their possession (Dunbar & Villarruel, 2002, 2004; Henault, 2001; Sughrue, 2003; Villaruel & Dunbar, 2006).
[...]
Much has been written about children who have been adversely impacted by zero tolerance policy. Infractions ranging from possession of aspirin to possession of toy guns have led to school suspensions or expulsions of students (Dunbar & Villarruel, 2002, 2004; Henault, 2001; Sughrue, 2003; Villaruel & Dunbar, 2006). Yet there is paucity of literature on zero tolerance policy from the voices for whom the policy was designed to keep safe—that is, children who behave appropriately. A doctoral dissertation study titled “School-Wide Discipline in Urban High Schools” was conducted in an effort to provide insight on school staff and students’ perceptions of violence prevention strategies, including zero tolerance policies. In this study, the data revealed significant differences between security guards and urban students’ perceptions regarding zero tolerance policy in relation to fairness, impact on school safety, and overall utility (Thornburg, 2001). Hence, the findings in this study highlighted the need to conduct additional research on the impact and effectiveness of zero tolerance policy by soliciting the reactions and responses of urban school students. Therefore, the focus of this article is to provide a vehicle for the voices of inner-city students on their sense of safety in schools and the effectiveness of zero tolerance policy.
[...]
Zero tolerance policy was designed to promote students’ sense of safety, but as indicated by the findings in this study students still feel unsafe in their school environment more than 10 years after the policy’s initiation. Thus, it appears that in practice zero tolerance policy has not produced the substantive impact intended. The findings in this study illuminate the need for changes in the implementation of zero tolerance to transition it into a more robust policy that achieves its legislative intent.
Ten Years after Columbine: the tragedy of youth deepens
Henry A. Giroux
Policy Futures in Education
Volume 7 Number 3 2009
The city of Chicago, which has a large black student population, implemented a take-no-prisoners approach in its use of zero tolerance policies and the racially skewed consequences are visible in grim statistics which reveal that ‘every day, on average, more than 266 suspensions are doled out during the school year’. Moreover, the number of expulsions has ‘mushroomed from 32 in 1995 to 3000 in the school year 2003-2004’ [17], most affecting poor black youth.
Zero Tolerance Policies and the Public Schools: When Suspension Is No Longer Effective
Evenson, Amber; Justinger, Brooklyn; Pelischek, Elizabeth; Schulz, Sarah
Communique, v37 n5 p1, 6-7 Feb 2009
The emphasis in school discipline has shifted from a prevention and correction model to a reactive and punitive model in recent years. This major shift has occurred in response to fears among legislators and the public who are under the impression that school violence has increased. As a result, crisis response teams have been created and a zero tolerance approach to discipline has been adopted by many school districts. Zero tolerance can be defined as school-wide or district-wide policies that mandate typically harsh consequences or punishments such as suspensions and expulsions for a wide range of rule violations. The original intention of zero tolerance policies was to ensure appropriate consequences for serious and illegal behaviors. However, these policies have been implemented too broadly and too often for minor incidents, resulting in negative outcomes and demonstrating little benefit for students, schools, or the surrounding community. The current implementation practices of zero tolerance policies have led to indiscriminate suspensions for all infractions, which disproportionately affects minority students and those with disabilities. Therefore, school districts need to adopt a prevention/correction model to discipline instead of the current reactive/punitive model to remediate this troubling situation.
Denver Public Schools’ Restorative Justice Program: Suggested Changes for Enhancement and Expansion
Jenna Currin Whittington
University of Denver University College
Capstone Project
http://ectd.du.edu/source/uploads/21963248.pdf
A zero-tolerance discipline policy posits that removing the disruptive students from the classroom will improve the classroom environment and potentially discourage other students from such behavior (Skiba et al. 2008). Results show that the opposite is actually true in schools with zerotolerance policies. Those schools with higher suspension rates have a lower rating of acceptable school climate (Skiba et al. 2008). Many also have a less satisfactory school discipline structure and spend a large amount of time on disciplinary issues (Skiba et al. 2008). As Macready (2009) explains, an authority figure will enforce a punishment that is based on impersonal judgment of the action. Through this type of discipline system, students learn to be fearful of the consequences and no time is taken to create a learning experience or repair the harm done (Macready 2009; Suvall 2009).
While the zero-tolerance discipline policies are supposed to deter students from such misbehavior, studies show it increases the rate of future misbehavior among those students who have been suspended (Skiba et al. 2008).
Are zero tolerance policies effective in the schools? An evidentiary review and recommendations.
Skiba, Russell, Cecil R. Reynolds, Sandra Graham, Peter Sheras, Jane Close Conoley, and Enedina Garcia-Vazquez
American Psychologist 2008, 63, no. 9 (December): 852-862.
Article based on APA Task Force report from 2006 at http://www.jdaihelpdesk.org/Docs/Documents/1%20BINDER%20Tab%207%20Zero%20Tolerance.pdf
Since completion of my Dissertation: see “In the Eyes of the Beholder” above, I have worked as teaching administrator in the San Joaquin Valley region of CA throughout the past decade. My original quatitative study included Zero Tolerance as one of the constructs and it was found that students had a much lower opinion than adults: I recently completed follow-up research submitted for publication on “Searching for Social Justice in the San Joaquin Valley Region” of CA. My scaffolded qualitative study began with CA Dept. of Educ. consultant/leaders in Sacramento then moved to Administrators and Teachers between Fresno County and San Joaquin County. In this newest study (2011) where much of the dialog was about Zero Tolerance Policy, I found numerous examples of “in-justice” and a “School to Jail Pipeline” in a poor, rural, and ethnically diverse part of CA. Virtually all interviewees had a negative view of Zero Tolerance Policy in practice. Most importantly, I think, they revealed how the prison incarceration rate in the San Joaquin which is between 130% to 150% higher than the rest of CA negatively impacts student outcomes. Issues of immigration, race, poverty, drugs, gangs, aryan and anti-semetic hate groups and forced homelessness and foster care situtations, all play an important role in creating the complex situations and conditions that public alternative schools must deal with. It was also found that there is a link in the way discipline is tracked using computer driven systems, that rely on an “assertive discipline” model that tends to intensify student outcomes in negative ways. The tracking, where even trivial incidents are recorded, creates a record that too often leads students into “expensive” alternative eduation settings and sometimes toward incarceration.
Monty J. Thornburg, Ph.D.
Thank you so much for providing that update, Dr. Thornburg. I’m particularly intrigued by your last statements above and would like to know more about that. Please let us know when the study is published, or e-mail me a copy (admin@tourettesyndrome.net).