Should we do away with 'zero tolerance' in schools and replace it with common sense?

[Clementine]

If the right wing doesn't want it and the liberals don't want it, then why do we still have it?

Because some control freaks won't let go of it. Once implemented, it's so difficult to stop something no matter how much it fails.

Sorry, but I think liberal teachers against gun control enjoy punishing children whose parents buy them toy guns.

Some teachers add their own rules to the list. Students get in trouble for wearing patriotic shirts, saying 'Bless you' when someone sneezes and other equally ridiculous things. Colleges are worse when it comes to controlling speech and behavior.

It's listed in the school handbooks. It's not arbitrary. It's usually not in control of the principal but the school board.

The school board would likely change it if enough teachers protested. Also, so many teachers have been called out for adding their own rules. When they take it upon themselves to expand the rules, I suspect they enjoy it.

The rules would change if enough teachers joined parents and confronted the school board.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Should we do away with 'zero tolerance' in schools and replace it with common sense?
.

I'm not sure how well that would work out since nobody employed by the public school system these days seems to have any

 

[Clementine]

Your proposal is very sound but it has one problem where are you going to find people with common sense? With each passing year the number who have this are becoming fewer and fewer.

True. Too many are either woefully ignorant or fully indoctrinated to the point where they no longer think on their own accord. They will have to be educated and/or de-programmed before any change can be successfully implemented.

 

[Disir]

If the right wing doesn't want it and the liberals don't want it, then why do we still have it?

Because some control freaks won't let go of it. Once implemented, it's so difficult to stop something no matter how much it fails.

Sorry, but I think liberal teachers against gun control enjoy punishing children whose parents buy them toy guns.

Some teachers add their own rules to the list. Students get in trouble for wearing patriotic shirts, saying 'Bless you' when someone sneezes and other equally ridiculous things. Colleges are worse when it comes to controlling speech and behavior.

It's listed in the school handbooks. It's not arbitrary. It's usually not in control of the principal but the school board.

The school board would likely change it if enough teachers protested. Also, so many teachers have been called out for adding their own rules. When they take it upon themselves to expand the rules, I suspect they enjoy it.

The rules would change if enough teachers joined parents and confronted the school board.

They do. But, what would really change it is making it an issue come school board election time and going to the meetings. You have to make it a community issue. Local. You have to kick it in to the local newspaper and you have to make it the liberal/conservative issue that it is. And possibly network across the nation with all of the other groups that are also up against it.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

"Should we do away with 'zero tolerance' in schools and replace it with common sense?"

'Zero tolerance' is failed conservative dogma, consistent with the right's authoritarianism and propensity toward punitive measures to compel conformity.

Common sense is anathema to conservative dogma.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

It's reasonable to expect that students shouldn't come to school packing guns, knives or any kind of illegal drugs, but to punish them for simply mentioning a weapon is stupid.

When I was a young boy, all boys carried pocketknives. From about the age of eight or nine, I've rarely left home without at least one pocketknife on my person. I've always seen it as an essential and indispensable tool that every boy, and every man, needed to have; and I cannot imagine trying to function without it.

How did we get to be so cowardly and pussified as a nation that there is now any question about allowing boys to carry pocketknives, and so many places now, where even as a grown man, I am not allowed to enter if I am carrying a knife of any kind? At whatever point we foolishly crossed that line, for whatever reason, we had already gone wrong. And, of course, as more recent stories demonstrate, we didn't stop there. Most recently, of course, the kid who got arrested for bringing a clock to school, but before that, there've been no deart of equally-idiotic stories about kids getting in trouble for drawing pictures of weapons, or chewing a pastry into a gun-like shape, or even a deaf kid who was told he had to change his name because the sign-language form of his name included a hand position that resembled the classic “gun gesture”.

Back when you were a child nobody used their pocket knife as a weapon. Now that people are, knives have to be restricted.

We have two parties in this country: one party believes they can legislate morality, and the other believes they can legislate mortality. The truth however is that neither can be legislated in a truly free country.

When somebody gets hurt, maimed, or even killed, a Democrat believes his or her duty is to come up with a solution so as to prevent death in the future.

So what happened to common sense? We removed common sense in our society and replaced it with lawsuits. Use common sense and you could be held liable for that decision.

 

[Seawytch]

Just to put the record straight...

"As much as the parents want this case to be about a 'gun,' it is, rather, a case about classroom disruption from a student who has had a long history of disruptive behavior," Nussbaum wrote in his opinion, which was dated June 26, the Washington Post reported. He asserted that the suspension came as a result of disciplinary problems the boy had, and not just because of what he did with the breakfast pastry.

"Had the student chewed his cereal bar into the shape of a cat and ran around the room, disrupting the classroom and making 'meow' cat sounds, the result would have been exactly the same," Nussbaum wrote, according to the Post.​

 

[mdk]

Zero tolerance is an easy policy as it requires zero thought. Case by case should the standard not this mindless nonsense schools pass off as policy.

 

[Clementine]

I can't help but wonder if the kid bringing that clock to school was an intentional move. Texas is outlawing sharia law. CAIR is always licking it's chops and hoping to go after them for something. CAIR had demanded that schools provide rooms for Muslims to pray in. They want sharia law practiced among the Muslims, even when it contradicts our laws. Obama was sure quick to jump on this one, as was CAIR.

The kid is smart. His parents are probably smart. They all know the strict rules of the school. Who encouraged this kid to take his "invention" to school? They had to know what it resembled. The kid didn't really create anything. He purchased the items and rearranged them slightly from the original. He could have chosen anything to put the clock parts in, but choose a case and a clock with a digital screen. He really didn't do anything other than take the clock 'guts' out of the original casing and place it in the case. It would have been far more impressive to build a wind up clock or at least actually put one together himself.

I suspect that maybe the parents are supporting CAIR and all the Muslim rights in Texas. Texas has been an irritant to CAIR and all those who want special treatment for Muslims. This stunt would serve a good purpose. Obama was at the ready to jump in and start bashing peoples' Islamaphobia. Maybe Texas schools will bend over to pressure and provide those praying rooms and start treating all Muslim students with kid gloves. This incident seems to be helping Muslims because the Obama administration and powerful Muslim groups got involved and screaming about the kid being targeted. Of course, they conveniently failed to mention the long list of white kids who were in trouble for less creepy things. They will demand changes and cite this as evidence that Americans treat Muslims unfairly. I see some type of affirmative action on the way. They will pressure people to bend over and give in to Muslim demands. If we object, we will be painted in a very bad light.

Too bad Obama isn't as quick to help everyone.

 

[Disir]

I can't help but wonder if the kid bringing that clock to school was an intentional move. Texas is outlawing sharia law. CAIR is always licking it's chops and hoping to go after them for something. CAIR had demanded that schools provide rooms for Muslims to pray in. They want sharia law practiced among the Muslims, even when it contradicts our laws. Obama was sure quick to jump on this one, as was CAIR.

The kid is smart. His parents are probably smart. They all know the strict rules of the school. Who encouraged this kid to take his "invention" to school? They had to know what it resembled. The kid didn't really create anything. He purchased the items and rearranged them slightly from the original. He could have chosen anything to put the clock parts in, but choose a case and a clock with a digital screen. He really didn't do anything other than take the clock 'guts' out of the original casing and place it in the case. It would have been far more impressive to build a wind up clock or at least actually put one together himself.

I suspect that maybe the parents are supporting CAIR and all the Muslim rights in Texas. Texas has been an irritant to CAIR and all those who want special treatment for Muslims. This stunt would serve a good purpose. Obama was at the ready to jump in and start bashing peoples' Islamaphobia. Maybe Texas schools will bend over to pressure and provide those praying rooms and start treating all Muslim students with kid gloves. This incident seems to be helping Muslims because the Obama administration and powerful Muslim groups got involved and screaming about the kid being targeted. Of course, they conveniently failed to mention the long list of white kids who were in trouble for less creepy things. They will demand changes and cite this as evidence that Americans treat Muslims unfairly. I see some type of affirmative action on the way. They will pressure people to bend over and give in to Muslim demands. If we object, we will be painted in a very bad light.

Too bad Obama isn't as quick to help everyone.

Wait........what?

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Of course this kid and family knew exactly what that contraption looked like. It was deliberate. White kids have been thrown out of school for much less. But because they were white kids, it was a half-day story and of course, no invitation to the White House.

Seems to me that the only way to get invited to the White House is if you or a family member are a trouble maker of some kind. I sure hope the Pope blesses that place while he's there. It needs it.

 

[Disir]

That's interesting. So, when you talk about common sense then you just mean common sense for your little group over here.

Who knew?

 

[Bob Blaylock]

Back when you were a child nobody used their pocket knife as a weapon. Now that people are, knives have to be restricted.

We have two parties in this country: one party believes they can legislate morality, and the other believes they can legislate mortality. The truth however is that neither can be legislated in a truly free country.

We used to think that we could “legislate morality”. Now, we think we cannot. And what is the result?

Back when we thought we could “legislate morality”, nobody questioned whether I, as a young schoolboy, should be allowed to carry a pocketknife with me. It would, in fact, have been considered rather odd if I didn't.

Now that we no longer think that we can “legislate morality”, schoolboys are no longer allowed to carry knives, because it happens too often that one will unjustifiably use his knife as a weapon; and so we think that the solution to the problem that some schoolboys are prone to violence is to deny all schoolboys the right to carry a useful and essential tool; rather than to do something about those few who show themselves prone to criminal misuse of that tool.

When somebody gets hurt, maimed, or even killed, a Democrat believes his or her duty is to come up with a solution so as to prevent death in the future.

So what happened to common sense? We removed common sense in our society and replaced it with lawsuits. Use common sense and you could be held liable for that decision.

I think you answered your own question. What happened to common sense is that Democrats took an approach of focusing on a tool that can be abused, rather than on the criminals who abuse that tool. After all, any action taken against the actual criminal would constitute “legislating morality”, and we cannot have any of that, now can we?

And in the end, the result is to make worse the problem that was supposed to be mitigated or solved.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

Just to put the record straight...

"As much as the parents want this case to be about a 'gun,' it is, rather, a case about classroom disruption from a student who has had a long history of disruptive behavior," Nussbaum wrote in his opinion, which was dated June 26, the Washington Post reported. He asserted that the suspension came as a result of disciplinary problems the boy had, and not just because of what he did with the breakfast pastry.

"Had the student chewed his cereal bar into the shape of a cat and ran around the room, disrupting the classroom and making 'meow' cat sounds, the result would have been exactly the same," Nussbaum wrote, according to the Post.​

May the great Laurence Tureaud have compassion on anyone stupid enough to buy that transparently-lame excuse.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Back when you were a child nobody used their pocket knife as a weapon. Now that people are, knives have to be restricted.

We have two parties in this country: one party believes they can legislate morality, and the other believes they can legislate mortality. The truth however is that neither can be legislated in a truly free country.

We used to think that we could “legislate morality”. Now, we think we cannot. And what is the result?

Back when we thought we could “legislate morality”, I, as a young schoolboy, nobody questioned whether I, as a young schoolboy, should be allowed to carry a pocketknife with me. It would, in fact, have been considered rather odd if I didn't.

Now that we no longer think that we can “legislate morality”, schoolboys are no longer allowed to carry knives, because it happens too often that one will unjustifiably use his knife as a weapon; and so we think that the solution to the problem that some schoolboys are prone to violence is to deny all schoolboys the right to carry a useful and essential tool; rather than to do something about those few who show themselves prone to criminal misuse of that tool.

When somebody gets hurt, maimed, or even killed, a Democrat believes his or her duty is to come up with a solution so as to prevent death in the future.

So what happened to common sense? We removed common sense in our society and replaced it with lawsuits. Use common sense and you could be held liable for that decision.

I think you answered your own question. What happened to common sense is that Democrats took an approach of focusing on a tool that can be abused, rather than on the criminals who abuse that tool. After all, any action taken against the actual criminal would constitute “legislating morality”, and we cannot have any of that, now can we?

And in the end, the result is to make worse the problem that was supposed to be mitigated or solved.

No, punishing criminals is different than legislating morality such as with abortions, family structure or even marriage. While I would like to see a country with no abortions, a typical American family and one man-one woman marriages, it isn't in the cards for people to try to force those issues on anybody else.

Democrats have made articles of transgressions the culprit because they get a lot of money from trial lawyers around election time. The more things you can sue for, the happier ambulance chasers are. Some have even tried to sue McDonald's because their kid was too fat. It's not that the attempt at the suit was successful, it's the injustice of being able to sue for something like that in the first place.

 

[Buzz Jenkins]

It depends on whose "common sense" is being applied.

 

[Clementine]

Just to put the record straight...

"As much as the parents want this case to be about a 'gun,' it is, rather, a case about classroom disruption from a student who has had a long history of disruptive behavior," Nussbaum wrote in his opinion, which was dated June 26, the Washington Post reported. He asserted that the suspension came as a result of disciplinary problems the boy had, and not just because of what he did with the breakfast pastry.

"Had the student chewed his cereal bar into the shape of a cat and ran around the room, disrupting the classroom and making 'meow' cat sounds, the result would have been exactly the same," Nussbaum wrote, according to the Post.​

Yet, he wasn't suspended until biting a fucking Pop Tart into the shape of a gun, as if that was the worst offense of all. And the dozens of other children were also suspended had to do with toy guns or talk about toy guns. It's no coincidence that some teachers hit the ceiling when the infraction has to do with guns.