Writing in The National Review, Stanley Kurtz raises some interesting questions about structurally hyperbolic “zero-tolerance” policies:

Maybe you missed the latest ‘zero tolerance’ horror story. It seems that seven fourth-grade boys were suspended from school for pointing their fingers like guns during a game of ‘army-and-aliens’ on the playground. What’s worse, the school brought these boys in for questioning to see if their parents owned guns-as if that should matter. This scary little instance of bullying (bullying by school administrators, that is) was reported in a long and thoughtful article on zero-tolerance policies in Monday’s Washington Times. The story was then picked up by the usual conservative suspects, at NRO’s Corner, and at James Taranto’s “Best of the Web.” Yet eye-opening as the Washington Times article may have been about the downside of zero tolerance, the problem is likely to be ignored by the powers that rule America’s school system. Why?

According to the Washington Times, ‘school officials defend zero tolerance as an unfortunate but necessary reaction to increased demands for school safety.’ But what if those demands are based upon an illusion? What if the dangerous trends that make parents tolerate the abuses inherent in zero-tolerance policies are nonexistent? What if school shootings are not on the rise? What if the bullying that supposedly contributes to these shootings is not pervasive? What if, in short, our zero-tolerance policies are based upon myth?

[…] For every million children who attend school, there is less than one violent school-related death per year. Only 1 percent of American school children killed by violence are hurt at school, despite the fact that they spend a large percentage of their day at school. So on a more than million to one chance that a child might be the victim of a school shooting, we are putting up with the far more widespread costs of zero-tolerance policies. Given the rate of death by car, maybe we ought to forget about suspending kids who point their fingers and say bang, and kick out children who play at driving instead.

Zero-tolerance policies are often paired with anti-bullying programs, many of which are based on statistics like one published in the April 25, 2001 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. That article, widely reported in the media, claimed that 30 percent of youths ‘reported moderate or frequent involvement in bullying.’ But [University of Delaware professor of sociology and criminal justice Joel] Best shows that this survey puffed up the figures by adopting a very broad definition of bullying, and by combining the numbers of kids who were defined as bullies with those who were classified as victims. A stricter and more plausible definition of bullying, and a counting only of victims, would result in an 8 percent rate of students subjected to bullying, not 30 percent […]

Kurtz goes on to suggest a connection between zero tolerance policies and a Christina Hoff-Summers-esque War Against Boys (a charge you may or may not agree with), before concluding:

[…] for those parents and administrators who have put up with the foolishness and injustice of zero-tolerance policies out of fear for their children’s lives, Joel Best’s article ought to matter. The supposed explosion of school violence and bullying at the base of our zero-tolerance policies is a lie […]

I’ve posted about the insanity of zero tolerance policies several times before — including this entry, about a girl suspended for brandishing an oak leaf threateningly!

So it should come as no surprise to me, then, that a 13-year old in California is facing 8 years in juvenille jail for an accidental spitball maiming, right?

And yet… Good grief! Spitballs?

‘Things just went too far,’ said the boys’ father. ‘Kids cannot be kids anymore.’

You said it, brother….

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