Zero Tolerance Research Paper

Zero Tolerance policies were enacted for school safety; however, some people took them to different levels and practiced them in wrong ways. Some people support the policies, while others oppose it. This always happens whenever a new policy or law is passed. Arguing to make things better is a good thing. Every opinion is considered and there’s a possibility that an opinion can makes a huge difference. Although zero tolerance policies were enacted to prevent possible violations that might occur, zero tolerance restrict student’s right, discriminate low-income children, those with disabilities and African Americans, and decrease the improvement of students’ education.
Safety on school and campuses is the most concerned issue for both parents …show more content…
This was not the purpose of the policies to discriminate African American and the poor. According to the Office of Education Accountability, school must “apply the code uniformly and fairly” (16) to all students regardless of their races and statuses, meaning, students shall only expel if what they are doing is involving violent acts that might dangerous to others. However school took it to different level. They wanted their school to “look good” (Peterson 18). There are some connection going on between the article of Peterson Kavan’s “Schools Rethink Post-Columbine Discipline” and “Getting Tough on Kids: A look at Zero Tolerance,” by Office of Education Accountability. First schools expelled many African American (18) and later on, they wanted the school to “look good” (Peterson 18) so they kicked out students “who perform poorly on standardized tests” (Peterson 18). Explanation to this is that, school wanted to show that their school is good, therefore, they probably expelled African American by aiming to prove that without African American, the school is much more improved and less dangerous. To accomplish this, they only want smart students so school will represent good as it was expected. This is not what a school should be. Schools are built to teach and find better ways to improve students at …show more content…
Homepage of National School Safety and Security Service stated that, expelling “give students more breaks” (17) than they should get for vocation. The students are wasting time, roaming on streets when they are supposed to be in school learning. The more and frequent the students get expel, the less they are interested in school. Those who always want to ditch school are now find an easy way to ditch school. All they have to do is say something about violations and they will get expel right away. How cool it is for them? Another good point made by An Education Dept. is that “the loss of classroom time worsens a student’s academic.” To clarify this, here is the example. A Teacher cannot go back to the lesson that she taught yesterday to teach the lesson again on particular student who missed school. This is impossible. If the students get expelled or suspended for 3 days or a week, it is hard for him to catch up with missing assignments. This will leads students to stress and depression that will eventually make the students want to stop learning. Another example is that the student who always ditch school seems to do badly on tests so their grades are not impressive. In the same way, it applied to the student who always get suspended from school. His/her grade will drop dramatically even if he/she was straight “A”