Latest News and Comment from Education

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Schools' zero tolerance policies short on common sense | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Columnist James Ragland | Dallas-Fort Worth News


Schools' zero tolerance policies short on common sense News for Dallas, Texas Dallas Morning News Columnist James Ragland Dallas-Fort Worth News:

"I've never been a fan of so-called zero tolerance policies in our nation's schools.

In my book, the practical translation of these theoretically pure postulations often leads to a much more intolerable reality – zero thinking.

Examples are easy to find, such as the recent case of the Delaware first-grader who took his camping knife to school.

Little Zachary, at the ripe age of 6, soon learned a hard and bitter lesson from zero-thinking school officials who initially subjected him to 45 days in an alternative school for troublemakers.

Innocently enough, Zachary was going to use the combo spoon/fork/knife camping tool to eat his lunch. Can't you just imagine how excited the fresh-faced Cub Scout must've been to show it off?"