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Julia Steiny: ‘Zero Tolerance’ Doesn’t Work in Our Schools

Thursday, November 01, 2012


Julia Steiny, GoLocalWorcester Education Contributor

Just the phrase "zero tolerance" sounds un-American. At least I would hope so.

Originally, "zero tolerance" was the sound bite that get-tough politicians in the 1990s swore would be their response to the fall-out from the crack-cocaine epidemic. Drugs and crime were on the rise; the public was frightened.


Suddenly, and with great righteousness, school staff thought nothing of tossing troubled kids onto behavior garbage dumps. Since the 1990s numbers have soared in segregated "behavior-disordered" classrooms, school suspensions, expulsions and ultimately prisons.

The U.S. has 4.5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's prisoners. Our intolerance towards people who misbehave has created a lens through which we see a far higher proportion of bad people than do other countries. We deal with them harshly, even mercilessly, and at great expense.

At this point zero tolerance is like the water fish can't see. The attitude has become a deeply-rooted, bad habit among many adults. As one teacher barked in my face, "I teach the good kids. I don't give the bad kids the time of day. They shouldn't be here."


Except that there's no place where bad kids go and get better. Suspensions and locked facilities just make them worse.

And wherever they go, it's temporary. They come back. If ex-juvenile offenders return to their community too old for school, at least they won't burden the school staff. But these still-uncivilized people might well have unruly children of their own. They never did learn how to live appropriately in a community because they were removed from theirs. Nor did that community or their family get help learning how to deal with them.

With zero tolerance, nothing useful happens.

So I am thrilled to report that recently large numbers of school staff, officials and the public are starting to question the collateral damage of "zero tolerance."


My evidence comes from Education Week, education's industry trade magazine. Just recently, they published long cover stories on two philosophies that offer alternatives to zero intolerance. It's huge that these approaches are gaining traction and EdWeek's attention.


PBIS , developed in the 1980s, is endorsed by the U.S. Department of Education. All states have technical-support partners -- colleges or public agencies -- easily accessible through their website.

In brief, PBIS schools explicitly teach clear behavior expectations to the kids, partly by giving them pleasant experiences of having done things right. PBIS administrators work out an incentive system -- usually points that can be cashed in for healthy snacks or fun supplies at a school store, or privileges like getting a pass on a homework assignment. PBIS encourages teachers to "catch" problem kids in the act of doing something right, to reward that behavior.


Restorative practices use simple techniques borrowed mainly from ancient tribal circles. It focuses on the health of the community as a whole, giving every member a voice in what happens, kids and adults, offenders and victims. In small groups or circles, misbehaving kids explain what they were thinking when they did the dumb thing. Sometimes there's more to the story than the obvious, but often the group agrees on a restitution plan that will bring the offender back into the community's good graces. (Vermont has a restorative juvenile justice system, fyi.)




Like it or not, schools are the principal change-agents of troubled kids' lives. Schools can redirect the trajectory of unpromising lives.

Developing healthier attitudes towards misbehavior will take time. Still, let's hope the end of zero tolerance really is at hand. Where you see it, call it out. Help make it stop.


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