Opinion of zero tolerance policies in schools

[nclib]

Absolutely horrible. It blows minor incidents (and non-incidents) out of proportion.

Also, the emphasis is usually on the wrong items. For example, zero tolerance for cursing, while hesitating to punish bullying. Not only is that standard morally wrong, but antithetical to the standards of the real world, i.e. not preparing kids for adulthood.

On a larger scale, I'm not against appropriate discipline of children, but I think our society is too focused on stopping misbehaving children, where we don't focus enough on having punishments proportional to the offense. The fact that we use corporal punishment for children, but not for criminals, is because of this.