SOME FLEX IN ZERO TOLERANCE

Backers of rigid disciplinary policies scored a rhetorical coup some
years back by coining the phrase "zero tolerance." It connotes that,
if you oppose treating a kid with a penknife the same as a kid with a
pistol, then you must favor some tolerance - maybe 15% tolerance - of
weapons in schools.

Actually, schools should show zero tolerance for weapons, drugs and
other forms of misbehavior among students, but not in the way the
phrase is now commonly used. Right now, zero tolerance means that
administrators must suspend common sense and dole out uniformly harsh
punishment without distinguishing between second-graders and
12th-graders, between minor infractions and major ones, between
willful violations and accidental ones.

School districts should absolutely bar misbehavior and punish
infractions, but they also should let administrators exercise some
judgment as to the severity of the punishment. Principals should enjoy
the power, within limits, to peg the penalty to the gravity of the
offense, as determined by the circumstances.

Zero tolerance in the popular sense has understandably troubled some
members of the Milwaukee School Board. Right now, expulsion is
automatic if you're caught with drugs. Board member Jennifer Morales
proposes to give school officials the power to set the appropriate
penalty instead. The pros and cons of the change received an airing at
a committee hearing last week.

In the end, the committee referred the change to a citywide panel of
parents, students, teachers, administrators and community members and
asked the group to review the entire student disciplinary code. Fine,
so long as the panel keeps its focus on zero-tolerance policies.

It also should examine a related issue, the provision of educational
services to expelled students. Fortunately, the Milwaukee Public
Schools increasingly are providing such services.

The final outcome of the review, we hope, will be complete intolerance
for misbehavior but punishment better tailored to the offense.