Blog

In addition to the problems listed on the national report card it received in 2012, Ohio’s education system must face the consequences of zero tolerance policies: discrimination and higher incarceration rates.  Zero tolerance came about in 1998, when all boards of education were required to adopt “a policy of zero tolerance for violent, disruptive, or inappropriate behavior.”

The broad mandate of zero tolerance and the failure of some administrators to employ critical thinking in applying it have resulted in some absurd results. According to Elaine Fink of the Ohio Legal Aid Society, a middle school honor student with no disciplinary record was expelled for 80 days because he mistakenly left his Swiss Army knife in his backpack after a weekend Boy Scout camping trip.  But for Fink’s intervention, a 6-year old girl would have been expelled for bringing to school her mother’s nail clipper. The school had deemed the tiny file within the clipper to be a “dangerous weapon.”

Researchers Daniel J. Losen of UCLA and Russell J. Skiba of Indiana University found a growing disparity nationally between how white and black students are treated. In the pre-zero tolerance days of the 1970s, black students had a suspension rate of about 6 percent, while whites had a suspension rate of about 3 percent. In 2006, those rates increased to 15 percent and 5 percent, respectively. White students were more often disciplined for objectively defined offenses (e.g., smoking, vandalism), while blacks were disciplined more often for subjectively defined offenses (e.g., disrespect, excessive noise). In a 2008 study, the American Psychological Association concluded that a disproportionate number of black students are suspended and expelled, though there was no evidence that blacks exhibited higher rates of disruption or violence.

The association also found that students with disabilities appear to be suspended or expelled at a disproportionate rate.

Sarah Biehl of the Ohio Poverty Law Center contends that Ohio suffers from the same discrimination problems. Some districts have alternative schools for troubled students, but Biehl has found that students are often inappropriately sent to them, and the schools don’t address the discrimination problem. Worse yet, students become ostracized.

As suspensions and expulsions increase, the opportunity for education declines and the likelihood of incarceration increases. Losen and Skiba cited a 2003 study by Robert Balfanz of Johns Hopkins University, who found that the typical ninth grader who was incarcerated had attended school only 58 percent of the time, had failed at least one quarter of his classes and read at a sixth grade level when in eighth grade.

According to Biehl, kids who do not finish high school are 3.5 times more likely to be arrested as adults and that approximately 82 percent of the adult prison population consists of high school drop outs. Biehl stated, “Children who do not finish school are essentially doomed to a life sentence of crime and unemployment.”

Ironically, the courts remind us that kids are prone to get into trouble and that there is little hope for advancement without an education. In Roper v. Potosi Correctional Institute, the U.S. Supreme Court wrote, “lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility” in juveniles results in “impetuous and ill-considered actions and decision.” In Brown v. Board of Education, the court held, “it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.”

Losen and Skiba tout alternative programs in Denver and Clayton County, GA. Denver implemented techniques for de-escalating and resolving conflicts and strengthening bonds between students and teachers, and suspensions decreased by 40 percent. Clayton County developed a school offense protocol, which provides alternatives to court referrals and resulted in a graduation rate increase of 20 percent.

Skiba and Indiana University researchers M. Karega Rausch and Shana Ritter have found that proactive intervention, building connections with students, and creating better options for more serious infractions are the common foundations among successful schools.

Suspension and expulsion are expedient solutions that provide some immediate gratification for school administrators, but the related benefits appear to be outweighed by the overall costs to society. The less attention we pay to the troubled students in school, the more resources we have to pour into other systems, like prisons.