Comments on: Zero tolerance: pocket knife bad, tire iron just fine

By: lolleypop

lolleypop — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:49:26 +0000

Tolerant policies can allow for mismanagement and biased outcomes but only if the people involved in making the decisions are there with that inappropriate intent.

Zero Tolerance Policies are made to protect weak leaders from having to make difficult decisions and if they can’t make those decisions, then they aren’t really considered leaders at all.

By: pauldow

pauldow — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:51:15 +0000

Once “zero tolerance” rules are in place, the person making the decisions should be fired. There’s no need to pay for the highly trained decision-making skills of a Superintendent of Schools when the job can now be performed by a clerical position.

By: Dimsdale

Dimsdale — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 21:35:31 +0000

This is more SOS’s expertise, but I have two questions: 1) why were they searching his car, particularly as he seems to be an exemplary student. What happened to his presumption of innocence?; and 2) does a student’s car become the property of the school when a student parks there? Will I have to worry about the school rifling through my trunk if I park in their lot while voting? It is one thing to search a student’s locker, which is actually the property of the school, but his locked vehicle? As the article states, a tire iron is quite effective on human skulls. What about screwdrivers? Stanley knives? Maybe he has a black belt in karate!

I bet, as a good Scout, he could McGuyver a rocket launcher out of his muffler….

By: phil

phil — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:46:50 +0000

Why do we allow ‘zero tolerance’, a device whereby our educators are mandated to use ‘zero intelligence’, to deny our children their basic Constitutional rights?