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Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Rethinking ZERO TOLERANCE at last (and after a lot of damage has been done) | Bill Ayers

Rethinking ZERO TOLERANCE at last (and after a lot of damage has been done) | Bill Ayers:

Rethinking ZERO TOLERANCE at last (and after a lot of damage has been done)




The New York Times finally wrote this week about the wreckage left in the wake of zero tolerance school policy. If they’d been paying attention, someone on the editorial board might have benefited from reading the book below (published in 2001).

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/opinion/zero-tolerance-reconsidered.html?action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&region=Footer&module=Recommendation&src=recg&pgtype=article

ZERO TOLERANCE: Resisting the Drive for Punishment (2001) edited by William Ayers, Rick Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn

A handbook for parents, students, educators, and citizens: a clear-eyed collection that takes aim at the replacement of teaching with punishment in America’s schools. “Zero tolerance” began as a prohibition against guns, but it has quickly expanded into a frenzy of punishment and tougher disciplinary measures in American schools. Ironically, as this timely collection makes clear, recent research indicates that as schools adopt more zero tolerance policies they in fact become less safe, in part because the first casualties of these