ZERO TOLERANCE AND ZERO COMMON SENSE

Now's not the best time to bring up the excesses of zero tolerance policies
in our schools. Not after yet another school shooting, this one near San
Diego. The toll this time? Two dead. Thirteen wounded. Untold lives
disrupted. Another disturbed kid, this one named Charles Andrew Williams,
packs a gun into his school and the results are predictably deadly. When do
these sad, repetitious stories quit happening? We wish we could say: Soon.
We can't. The question always asked when these shootings break out is: Why?
The answers are never satisfying. So we go for the quick, easy--and often
wrong--solutions. Which can be summed up as: We've got to do something!
We've got mandatory sentencing for crimes. So why not mandatory discipline
for kids? Commit Crime X and get Sentence Y. It's become trendy to extend
the idea to schools: Break Rule Z and you're Outtahere! There's a certain
logic to automatic penalties for certain in-school offenses. Kick out the
kids who break the rules and you might be getting rid of the next shooter.
The law of averages says it's possible, maybe even likely. And nobody wants
to tolerate the presence of a potential killer.

But that's a tricky word: potential. There's no telling just who will cross
the line tomorrow. If we can't fathom the mysteries of our own souls, how
do we accurately predict the actions of others?

Answer: We don't. Instead, we fall back on statistical probability. We lump
the signs together just as we lump kids together. Stereotype 'em for the
greater good. We threaten them with cookie-cutter answers to individual
questions and circumstances. Besides, since every kid has a lawyer
nowadays, how get away with exercising individual, subjective judgment?
Legally, it's safer to treat everybody alike--mindlessly. We've all heard
the horror stories that make the rounds like pesky urban myths. Kids who
are kicked out of school for having unauthorized aspirins, or making
juvenile statements about "getting" somebody, or pointing a finger and
going Bang!

Yes, indications of drug use or evidence of violent inclinations need to be
taken seriously. But also with a good dose of common sense. Every kid with
an aspirin isn't a drug abuser. Every kid who gets mad at some classmates
or teachers isn't the next hallway shooter. Every kid who writes his
revenge fantasies in his notebook, or his e-mail, isn't a homicidal maniac.
The trick is to distinguish the kids who need help from the ones who are
just caught up in the usual world of adolescent hormones and angst. But how
can that be done when parents are hysterical, kids nervous, and lawyers are
everywhere?

Despite the troubling news stories about the latest shootings, lots of
people in education are keeping their heads. Here's a quote from Ron Jared,
an assistant superintendent in the Fayetteville schools: "If you have a
zero-tolerance policy, all you need is a computer to administer the
discipline. You punch in the offense and out comes the punishment. We
provide our principals with the discretion to hear each case and make the
determination."

Too bad some of those folks in California didn't take the warnings of
Charles Andrew Williams more seriously. If they had, the mayhem he carried
out at his school might have been avoided by something as simple as talking
to the kid about what was bothering him. Zero- tolerance can be a zero
answer, too. The work doesn't end with identifying kids who are potential
problems. That's only the start. It's just as Ron Jared said. We need to
leave room for that scarcest of all things in our abundant society: discretion.