Zero tolerance policies, those school policies that mandate predetermined consequences or punishments for specific offenses, have become a popular disciplinary choice. According to a recent government study, more than three-quarters of all schools reported having such policies (National Center for Education Statistics, 1998).
According to the National School Safety Center (2001), 9 of 10 principals who participated in a poll said that tough discipline policies, including zero tolerance, were absolutely essential for keeping schools safe, even though they resulted in an increase in student suspensions. Echelbarger and colleagues (1999) found that when school personnel fail to confront student misbehavior, students infer permission to continue inappropriate behavior. The researchers believe that a zero tolerance policy may serve to establish a standard of behavior for students. These findings suggest that, at least intuitively, zero tolerance policies are good for students and schools. But are these opinions supported by research?
Morris and Wells (2000) report that after the Baltimore (Maryland) school board adopted a zero tolerance policy, school-related arrests dropped 67 percent and school crime decreased 31 percent. These researchers could not conclude, however, that the implementation of the new policy was responsible for the decline in arrests and criminal incidents. They did conclude that not all school systems that have adopted zero tolerance policies achieve such results. Further, they assert that policies that rely solely on suspending and expelling students do not remedy student misbehavior.
Barton, Coley, and Wenglinsky (1998) found that schools with less strict discipline policies experienced higher levels of serious offenses. To reduce these levels, such schools needed to adopt stricter policies. Further, they found that the consequence of student disorder is not merely more disorder, but the erosion of an effective learning environment for all students, as indicated by lower student achievement gains. Thus, student achievement is closely tied to school order.
The researchers stopped short of advocating zero tolerance policies, however. Their findings failed to support the notion that such policies reduce school disorder and, consequently, improve student academic performance. Ironically, their research indicates that levels of student delinquency in schools with zero tolerance policies did not differ significantly from delinquency levels in schools without such policies. Moreover, in some schools with zero tolerance policies, evidence existed of higher levels of delinquency.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics (1998), schools with no reported crime were less likely to have a zero tolerance policy than schools that reported incidents of serious crime. This might not sound surprising because safe schools would presumably be less likely to resort to such drastic measures as a zero tolerance policy (Skiba & Peterson, 1999). The study found, however, that even after schools with zero tolerance policies had implemented them for more than four years, those schools were still less safe than schools without such policies (National Center for Education Statistics, 1998). Skiba and Peterson (1999) found virtually no data to suggest that zero tolerance policies reduce school violence. Instead, data indicated that, in many cases, such policies have a negative effect on students' emotional health and graduation rates (Hyman and Perone, 1998). Skiba and Peterson argue,zero tolerance strategies have begun to turn our schools into supplemental law enforcement agencies, but they have demonstrated little return despite a decade of hype. (p. 382)
Researchers Morrison and D'Incau (1997) found that zero tolerance policies often target the wrong behaviors and punish the wrong students. Their research indicates that only about 20 percent of the students disciplined as a result of a zero tolerance policy were actually the students that school leaders had intended the policy to address—students who posed a real threat to school safety. They also found that about 25 percent of the students recommended for expulsion in accordance with the policy had disabilities that would have qualified them for special education services—twice the number of special education students expected in the school-age population at large.
Research has also indicated that zero tolerance policies are more commonly found in school districts with large minority populations and that African American students—and especially African American male students—are more often and more severely disciplined in schools than white students (The Advancement Project and The Civil Rights Project, 2000; Applied Research Center, 1998; Chandler et al., 1999).
Analyzing the legal implications of zero tolerance policies, Zirkel (1999) states that although school leaders need to be sensitive to the community's intolerance for threats to school safety, school leaders should avoid going overboard in developing and enforcing expulsion policies. In recent years, courts have tended to give principals and other school officials rather broad—but not unlimited—latitude in such cases. Thus, rather than adhering blindly to a zero tolerance policy, school officials should carefully consider each student's case.
Polakow-Suransky (1999) supports Zirkel's cautionary note. Studying cases related to the mandatory zero tolerance policy implemented in Michigan, she found that although the goal of the policy is to protect staff members and students in school, it has, in fact, failed to curb the problem of youth violence. In addition, she argues that the mandatory expulsion law denies many students their fundamental right to an education.
If research indicates that zero tolerance policies are ineffective and have such negative consequences for students, why are they still in use? Curwin and Mendler (1999) posit that eliminating zero tolerance policies is a hard sell because the concept is simple to understand, sounds tough, and gives the impression of high standards for behavior. (p. 120)
Nevertheless, they suggest that these very characteristics of zero tolerance policies actually exacerbate the problem of student misbehavior: Any intervention for changing children's behavior that is simple is simple-minded, and those that substitute formulas for decisions made by people who understand the circumstances are dangerous. It's time for schools to develop legitimate high standards by refusing to fall for the lure of what is easy and sounds good and choosing instead what is truly best for children. (p. 120)
