One Strike, You’re Out: Has zero tolerance gone too far? 

In his philosophical tract “Common Sense,” published in 1776, Thomas Paine never once mentions the phrase “zero tolerance.” On the other hand, bring up the topic of zero tolerance these days, at least in a school setting, and almost everybody mentions common sense.

Or the lack thereof.

Zero tolerance is an oxymoron, a seeming contradiction in terms. More than anything else, it’s a slogan, a phrase first coined by the U.S. Navy in 1983 when it reassigned 40 sailors for suspected drug use, then adopted a few years later by a U.S. attorney in San Diego to describe a policy of impounding sea craft used to transport illicit drugs.

After that it came to be applied to all manner of hard-nosed, anti-drug programs and, eventually, to line-in-the-sand policies adopted by educators and others in response to Columbine and other deadly school shootings in the 1990s and early 2000s.

At face value, zero tolerance is tough-sounding and commonsensical. Who, after all, would dispute the idea that guns, knives and weapons have absolutely no place at school? Or that violators, duly warned, should be punished without exception?

“Hypothetically and intuitively, it sounds good,” said Russ Skiba, director of the Institute for Child Study and an associate professor of psychology at Indiana University.

But reality has proven to be a different story. Or stories. Since their national imposition in the mid-1990s, zero tolerance policies in schools have generated an unending number of examples of apparent abuse, outrage and idiocy. To wit:

• A Wisconsin honors student in the sixth grade was suspended for bringing a kitchen knife to school to cut an onion for a classroom experiment. The principal had recommended expulsion.
• A high school senior in Minnesota was suspended after running a poll on his unofficial student Web site asking students to vote on whether a certain administrator most resembled Sesame Street’s Big Bird, a witch or a dead body. School officials said the poll constituted a death threat.
• A kindergarten student in Pennsylvania was suspended for bringing a toy ax to school. He was dressed as a firefighter for Halloween.
• An 8-year-old New Jersey boy found an L-shaped piece of paper at school, and pretended to use it as a gun during a recess game of “cops and robbers.” School officials pulled him off the playground, interrogated him and then turned him over to police for “threatening to kill other students.” The boy spent five hours in police custody and made two court appearances before the charges were dropped.
• A 5-year-old in California found a razor blade at his bus stop and brought it to school to show his teacher. He was expelled for violating the school’s weapons policy, and transferred to another campus.

“Zero tolerance has made some school districts look pretty stupid,” said Kenneth Dickson, board president of the Murrieta Valley Unified School District, a 20,460-student K-12 district located on the southwestern edge of Riverside County in Southern California. “But it’s a complicated issue and case-specific. On some issues everybody agrees, but I don’t think we, in education, have always defined the terms well enough.”

Reasonable beginnings

In 1994, Congress passed the Gun-Free Schools Act. The law required that states receiving federal funds expel for at least one calendar year any student who brings a firearm to school. It also required that the student be referred to the law enforcement system.

The idea was popular and well received. Surveys showed that significant percentages of teachers believed that student behavior was in decline and that administrators and school boards weren’t being tough enough with the worst offenders. Many teachers said they were afraid of their own students.

“Zero tolerance grew out of the strong fear of violence increasing in schools in the ’80s and ’90s,” said Skiba, who has long studied zero tolerance issues. “Violence was increasing and a forceful response was felt to be necessary. The rationale was that zero tolerance — with its standard punishments of suspension and expulsion — would rid schools of troublemakers, presumably leaving the remaining students in a better climate for learning. It was believed and argued that zero tolerance produced a deterrent effect: Punish all severely and send a message that this type of behavior will not be tolerated.”

The California Legislature quickly amended the Education Code to comply with the Gun-Free Schools mandate. Indeed, it went a bit further. While the federal law allowed the chief school administrator to modify the one-year expulsion requirement on a case-by-case basis, California law called for mandatory suspension and recommended expulsion for any student found in possession of a firearm, brandishing a knife, selling a controlled substance, committing or attempting to commit sexual assault or battery or possessing an explosive.

The state law then added other circumstances where a principal or superintendent could seek expulsion: Causing serious physical injury to another person, except in self-defense; possessing a knife or other dangerous object of no reasonable use to the student; unlawful possession of any controlled substance (excluding one ounce or less of marijuana); robbery or extortion; or assault or battery on any school employee after attempts to correct the student’s behavior have failed.

A hard line, perhaps, but “altogether appropriate in the continuing effort to protect students and staff,” said Gerald Terozzi, executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

Except for one problem, counter critics: zero tolerance hasn’t worked.

Aside from the litany of anecdotal abuse and clearly dubious decision-making, various studies have concluded that zero tolerance punishes unfairly without producing any direct or compelling evidence that it has directly reduced violence in schools.

For example, a 2000 study by the American Educational Research Association, a scholarly think tank based in Washington, D.C., found that while zero tolerance policies on paper presume school punishment to be “a rational act that follows disruptive student behavior in a logical sequence,” the reality was something else altogether.

The study found that punishment was meted out disproportionately upon minority and low-income students. A Harvard University study the next year put numbers to that assertion, noting that while blacks made up only 17 percent of all U.S. students, they accounted for roughly one-third of all suspensions and expulsions. Moreover, they were more likely to be punished for less serious offenses.

“There’s a cultural bias going on here,” said Skiba, who came to similar conclusions in his own 2000 study “Zero Tolerance, Zero Evidence.”

“White students get referred for expulsion for things like obscene language, vandalism, leaving school without permission,” he said. “Blacks are punished for disrespect, making threats, loitering. These are more subjective offenses, so something’s clearly going on here.”

Others go further, arguing that zero tolerance can actually make a good student bad and a bad student worse.

Testifying before the California State Assembly Select Committee on School Safety in 2001, RAND researcher Jaana Juvonen said: “Zero tolerance policies are presumed to send a message to potentially violent students and hence decrease school violence. Yet suspensions are relatively strong predictors of dropping out, which is, in turn, associated with delinquency.”

In other words, students suspended or expelled from school wind up on the street without supervision or structure, which increases the likelihood that they’ll get into further trouble.

Moreover, said Juvonen, “school transfers increase the risk for subsequent violence. Thus, in some cases, punishment tactics employed by schools with zero tolerance policies may in fact increase the risk of violence, both for individual youth and for society at large.”

Not everyone buys these arguments. Terozzi at the NASSP said the numbers do not convince him, that he has yet to see a statistically persuasive study proving that minority students are punished disproportionately by zero tolerance policies.

Ken Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, a consulting firm based in Cleveland, dismisses much criticism of zero tolerance as empty rhetoric that “has more meaning in the minds of academicians and politicians than it does in day-to-day practice by school administrators.

“If anything, my experience has shown that many educators tend to bend over backwards to give students more breaks than they will ever receive out on the streets of our society and in the workplace where we are supposed to be preparing them to function,” Trump said.

“I can count many, many more instances where I have seen far too lax discipline in our schools than I can count cases where the discipline administered was overly harsh and abusively punitive. In the end, those kids who receive less than firm, fair and consistent discipline end up being taught that there are no consequences for inappropriate — and sometimes illegal — behavior.” Nonetheless, the list of groups and organizations calling for an end to at least some zero tolerance policies in schools is getting longer and louder. It includes, among others, both the American Bar Association and the California State PTA.

Such groups cite apparent abuses of policy and a general expansion of zero tolerance to include offenses ranging from dress code violations to speech. But most of all, they say, zero tolerance has been applied in a blanket fashion that serves nobody well.

“The word ‘zero tolerance’ applied to human beings is not a good idea, especially young people,” said John Whitehead, founder and president of the Rutherford Institute, a conservative civil liberties organization based in Charlottesville, Va. “Any good rule has to have exceptions. You have to look at intent. Expelling a student for bringing a Nerf gun to school is a mistake, and it puts the whole policy in ridicule.”

Devil in the details

The problem with zero tolerance policies, said Murrieta’s Dickson, is that it breaks down in the details. Complexity confounds it. Ambiguity overwhelms it. “To some people, a little 2-inch penknife is a deadly weapon,” he said. “But a pen can be too. How do you write a rule that adequately covers both and everything else without exception?”

Critics would say you can’t. Even Terozzi at NASSP says a good zero tolerance policy must be “cautious and balanced.” It should include parents and community members in its development. It should be clearly explained to minimize misinterpretation and misuse. It should be administered fairly and consistently, with due process guarantees and punishments that are appropriate to age and offense. Offenders should receive alternative educational services and counseling. And the policy should be scrupulously analyzed and reviewed on a regular basis, with any necessary changes made.

More specifically, said Rosemary Papa (aka Papalewis) in the eJournal of Education Policy, zero tolerance policies should include flexibility and discretion. Principals, superintendents and board members should be able to consider any relevant special circumstances, such as the age of the offender, his or her ability to comprehend the policy, intent, the effect of the transgression on other students and any past disciplinary record.

Zero tolerance simply means that all misbehavior will have some sanction, said Papa, but it needn’t be the maximum penalty.

“Schools have to be aware that there are alternatives,” said Skiba. “I don’t think school administrators and boards expel kids because they love it. They just don’t know what else to do. But there are alternatives and they’re backed now with solid research, things schools can do to build a peaceful climate.

“It happens in three stages. First, improve the school climate for all kids through programs like conflict resolution. Second, focus on kids who are at-risk, who haven’t shown violence but might be coming from a poor situation or show precursors. Get them counseling and mentoring. Third, have a program in place to cope with disruption.”

Most advocates of reforming zero tolerance urge an established policy of progressive punishment appropriate to the offense. Whitehead at the Rutherford Institute thinks students ought to be involved in the process: “Let them decide if a kid should be thrown out of school.” Skiba talks about “probationary” or “suspended” expulsion.

“You go through with all of the paperwork, but the student isn’t actually expelled. He or she stays in school, getting the necessary help and direction. Research shows that 90 percent of such students make it through the expulsion period without screwing up again.”

“I would rather see a more active program,” agreed Charles Skaggs, the school board president in the Rialto Unified School District. “Put students in trouble in a different learning environment. Maybe it would be more restrictive. Maybe they couldn’t associate with other students. Maybe they would have to do community service. But don’t make the problem worse.”

To be sure, there’s no easy answer. Zero tolerance is primarily a political invention, advocated most strongly by non-educators not entirely convinced school officials have a grip on the situation. On two occasions the California Legislature attempted to give school boards greater case-by-case discretion in cases governed by mandatory expulsion laws. But both bills were vetoed – one by Davis and one by Wilson – on the grounds that they would send the wrong message.

“Everybody agrees you shouldn’t bring dangerous weapons to school, like a 4-inch knife. But a little pen knife in somebody’s pocket is a different category,” said Dickson, a former Air Force Judge Advocate. “Hard cases make bad law. I would hope that people could use common sense and judgment. You don’t want to be too lenient. You want an accountability standard. The problem has been that some people haven’t trusted educators to use common sense.”

But in most cases, they try, even if it’s not immediately apparent.

Take the case of Miguel Tanton, a senior at Cupertino High School in the Fremont Union High School District in Sunnyvale. Reportedly, Tanton was a good student and star on the school’s soccer team. There was talk of a college scholarship.

In November of last year, the story goes, he went to pick up a friend at a school dance. Nervous about walking through a nearby alley, he slipped a knife with a 3 ½-inch blade in his pocket. Tanton arrived at school and waited outside the gym for his friend.

A sheriff’s deputy spotted Tanton, who resembled the description of a suspect in a recent armed robbery. The deputy interviewed and frisked the Cupertino student, finding the knife. Tanton was cited for possession of a weapon and released to his father.

The next day, Cary Matsuoka, the principal of Cupertino High, suspended Tanton and recommended expulsion, as mandated by the district’s zero tolerance policy regarding weapons on campus. Tanton and his family opposed the suspension/expulsion decision, pushing the issue all the way to the school board.

Homer H.C. Tong, the school board president, remembers the case. The district, he said, only employs zero tolerance rules for three things: inflicting great bodily harm, selling drugs and bringing weapons to school.

“In the Tanton case, what I remember most is the student’s statement that he carried the knife for protection. That was the key,” said Tong. “Our thinking, and maybe it’s naïve, was that if there’s no weapon, there’s no chance it can be used, either by the person who brought the weapon or by someone else taking it away.

“Also, our policy says that carrying a weapon is an expellable offense. We make sure the students know the rules. They sign an agreement to abide by them. If we had made an exception here, then other students might have used it as an excuse to carry a knife. We had to look not only at the present case, but what it meant for the future.”

Tanton, though, wasn’t expelled. After a two-month suspension, he was allowed to return to school.

Ultimately, zero tolerance is about human beings making decisions about human beings, said Dickson. Zero tolerance has never been — and should not be — the ultimate remedy. It’s simply a tool, though in some cases, perhaps the only tool left in the box. Still, cautions Dickson, it should be wielded lightly and wisely.

“Discretion’s a good thing. So too is a little common sense.”

Thomas Paine couldn’t have said it better.

Scott LaFee is a contributing writer for California Schools.