No Zero Policy

Education is a long-term investment. We, as students, work hard to acquire knowledge and to hone our skills so that we may use them one day. The effort we put into a single assignment should be considered as both for that specific assignment and for our rounding as complete, educated individuals. And with this mindset, students should be motivated even more to put more effort and hard work into academics, with the goal of bettering themselves for the future and advancing their prospects as individuals. And with this hard work and effort will come progress, and this progress should be reflected in the grading—not necessarily on individual assignments, but on the student’s education as a

Alfie Kohn discussed multiple fabulous points in his article, “Degrading to De-Grading”. The author suggests more effective ways to assess students’ progress other than numerical or letter grades. Kohn goes into detail about why our current grading system is flawed. Grades can cause students to lose interest in learning which causes them to stop taking challenges. If students are not engaged and interested than they are not retaining the information they are being taught. The grading system can also cause students to develop unhealthy competition with one another for instance, “I got a better grade than you!”. Indeed, grades are a wonderful concept, but they tend to be more hurtful than helpful. In some cases, grades can have positive effects on students. For example, setting goals for various assignments, or receiving help where they are struggling. Though, there are alternatives that could make positive changes in the system.

Zero tolerance started as a way to keep guns out of schools until the staff at school started to use it as a way to report and punish non serious offences (Heitzeg, 2009).

In school zero-tolerance policies are intended to eliminate behaviors deemed as intolerable, such as violence, bullying, or having a weapon. But these policies are useless and unneeded because they cannot be used until after the damage has been done. Often times the intolerable behavior becomes more prevalent when the types of policies are put into place.

In all grades of education, from kindergarten to college, there is a form of discipline known as a zero tolerance policy. While the exact wording is different from school to school, basically a zero tolerance policy means that a student is immediately suspended, asked to attend an alternative school, or expelled if they are suspected or caught doing certain things. These policies are in place to hopefully deter students from doing drugs or being violent, but the ethics behind them are questionable. Some research has shown that these policies may not even work, and other forms of discipline would be better suited to help students. The three main activities that result in the zero tolerance policy are being caught with drugs or alcohol,

With the creation of the zero tolerance policy, it changed the way student are being disciplined. In the 1990’s, in fear of the increasing crime rate, The United States Congress created a law that allowed public schools to enforce strict disciplinary policies for misbehaving students (Mental Health America). The zero tolerance policy states: “[the policy] mandates predetermined consequences or punishments for specific offenses that are intended to be applied regardless of the seriousness of the behavior, mitigating circumstances, or situational context”

According to Black (2015), “Approximately three million students per year have been excluded from school and deprived of their statutory and constitutional rights to education.” (p.81). The zero-tolerance policy was made in efforts to protect all students' safety and to maintain an effective learning environment that is free from drug, weapons, violence, and school disruption. However, Black’s research indicated that, as implemented, zero tolerance policies are related to a number of negative consequences and are ineffective in the long run (2015). Besides students receiving harsh discipline for minor infractions in school, the crucial downfall of the policy is the increasing rates of school dropout and juvenile prison admissions. Where do

The definition of zero tolerance is “ . . . a policy of punishing any infraction of a rule, regardless of accidental mistakes, ignorance, or extenuating circumstances . . .” Although, the policy has been known to draw attention to many schools because of the severe punishments that some students are apprehending when they misbehave or break school policies. The policy has been known to be unreasonable is several cases across the nation.

Historically, letter grades have served as a tool to rate educational intelligence. By looking at the progression of a student’s grades over time, people are able to determine whether or not the students are developing skills in certain areas. Using a one letter grade to determine progress has received many critiques as a common system used in America’s education. Critics claim letter grades cause students motivation and creativity to decrease because grades shift students focus from learning the material to obtaining a good grade.

“Zero-Tolerance Policy” is the leading cause of most disobedient students, the reason why most students drop out of school and the cause of insubordination among students. The Zero-Tolerance Policy is a policy that, like the name states, has zero-tolerance for anything. Anything seen as a threat or anything that sends an inappropriate message towards the community is considered bad and the student could get arrested, suspended and/or expelled. The Zero-Tolerance policy applies to any student, regardless if a student has any health problems and falls to any student between the ages of 4-18. It could also apply to a student who could have the lowest amount of infractions possible. They say that removing students is necessary for learning, but, in doing that, they hurt the student as well. Some places don’t provide alternative places for students to learn at, really taking away their education. If it really ensures a safe and orderly environment for children, then there should be proof. There is no actual proof that it makes students feel safer (Wahl, "School Zero Tolerance Policies Do Harm" par. 1). It alienates the student and makes the student feel as if they are the “odd-one out”. Due to the injustices that this creates, the Zero-Tolerance Policy is ineffective, because it teaches students injustice, lowers students academic rates and minor offences are punished.

Each student would be evaluated based on their record, where and when the incident occurred, and what the circumstances were surrounding the incident. If a student was relatively good kid with no past disciplinary action history, the school management was much more likely to have a punishment that actually taught him or her something. But times changed and education environment in public schools also changed considerably in recent years. Zero tolerance policies are concerning issues that are thought to be extremely dangerous in today’s society. The three main focuses of these policies are incidences of violence, illegal drugs, and alcohol. Zero tolerance treats children as if they were adults and takes away the ‘innocence of a child’ philosophy. This strategy could be extremely safe to the lives of the good students and everything happens by treating all offenses dealing with the aforementioned issues as well as all students equally whether the student has had a flawless record or not.

Teachers have always used grades to measure the amount a student has learned. This practice is becoming ineffective. Many students have a wide range of grades, which show that grades may not show what a student really knows. Therefore, the standard grading system should be replaced. Some reasons why grades should be replaced are bad grades can hinder a child’s performance, grades define who a student is in the classroom, and grades are not an effective way to see if students have learned the material. The current grading system should be upgraded and every school should incorporate the plus/minus system in their method of grading.

The zero tolerance policy is one that doesn’t help kids, it hurts them to a certain degree. The policy states that if a student disobeys a school rule to a certain extent (the bar of that extent is low) then he or she will be suspended or even expelled. This policy is supposed to be put in effect no matter the severity or seriousness of the rule they are breaking. One downside to this policy is when a student

All of this could have been avoided if we did not have a grading system, school was oral, and the school days were shorter. After all three of these proposals have been applied, I guarantee students will have a better high school experience and all of the zeros will be

Zero tolerance puts teachers and school professionals in a position to create negative relationships with students. Students see teachers as authoritarian dictators when zero tolerance is enforced. There needs to be a better students discipline practice in place in order to address the needs of students who are acting