Are Zero Tolerance Policies Effective in the Schools?

1 Are zero Tolerance Policies Effective in the Schools? An Evidentiary Review and RecommendationsAmerican Psychological Association zero Tolerance Task ForceAlthough there can be no dispute that schools must do allthat can be done to ensure the safety of learning environ-ments, controversy has arisen about the use of zero toler-ance Policies and procedures to achieve those aims. Inresponse to that controversy, and to assess the extent towhich current practice benefits students and schools, theAmerican Psychological Association convened a task forceto evaluate the evidence and to make appropriate recom-mendations regarding zero Tolerance Policies and prac-tices. An extensive review of the literature found that,despite a 20-year history of implementation, there aresurprisingly few data that could directly test the assump-tions of a zero Tolerance approach to school discipline, andthe data that are available tend to contradict those assump-tions.

2 Moreover, zero Tolerance Policies may negativelyaffect the relationship of education with juvenile justiceand appear to conflict to some degree with current bestknowledge concerning adolescent development. To addressthe needs of schools for discipline that can maintain schoolsafety while maximizing student opportunity to learn, thereport offers recommendations for both reforming zerotolerance where its implementation is necessary and foralternative practice to replace zero Tolerance where a moreappropriate approach is : zero Tolerance , school discipline, school vio-lence, school safety, evidence-based practiceThere can be no doubt that schools have a duty to useall Effective means needed to maintain a safe anddisciplined learning environment. Beyond the sim-ple responsibility to keep children safe, teachers cannotteach and students cannot learn in a climate marked bychaos and disruption.

3 About this there is no have arisen, however, over the meth-ods used to achieve that aim. Since the early 1990s, thenational discourse on school discipline has been dominatedby the philosophy ofzero Tolerance . Originally developedas an approach to drug enforcement (Skiba & Rausch,2006), the term became widely adopted in schools in theearly 1990s as a philosophy or policy that mandates theapplication of predetermined consequences, most often se-vere and punitive in nature, that are intended to be appliedregardless of the gravity of behavior, mitigating circum-stances, or situational context. Such Policies appear to berelatively widespread in America s schools, although thelack of a single definition of zero Tolerance makes it diffi-cult to estimate how prevalent such Policies may be.

4 Zerotolerance Policies assume that removing students who en-gage in disruptive behavior will deter others from disrup-tion (Ewing, 2000) and create an improved climate forthose students who remain (Public Agenda, 2004).Yet abundant controversy has been created in schoolsand communities throughout the nation in the actual im-plementation of zero Tolerance Policies and practices. Forexample, as reported in theSt. Petersburg Times( Educa-tional Intolerance, 2001), a 10-year-old girl found a smallknife in her lunchbox placed there by the mother for cuttingan apple. Although she immediately handed over the knifeto her teacher, she was expelled from school for possessinga weapon. In another case, an adolescent was expelled forviolating school rules by talking to his mother on a cellphone while at school his mother was on deployment asa soldier in Iraq and he had not spoken with her in 30 days(Torpy, 2005).

5 Such cases rankle students, their parents,and the public but are often rationalized as necessary sac-rifices if zero Tolerance Policies are to be applied fairly andare to be Effective in creating a deterrent article is a summary of a larger report commissioned by and com-pleted for the American Psychological Association (APA) by the APAZero Tolerance Task Force. The Task Force members were Cecil (chair; Texas A&M University), Russell J. Skiba (IndianaUniversity), Sandra Graham (University of California, Los Angeles),Peter Sheras (University of Virginia), Jane Close Conoley (University ofCalifornia, Santa Barbara), and Enedina Garcia-Vazquez (New MexicoState University). In recognition of the possible problems with currentpolicies and the need to bring a data-based exploration into considerationof such issues, the APA Board of Directors recommended, and the APAC ouncil of Representatives approved in June 2005, a request from theAPA Division of School Psychology to appoint and fund a task force onthe impact of elementary and secondary school zero Tolerance full report was submitted to the Council of Representatives in Feb-ruary 2006 and was approved by the Board of Directors in May 2006 andby the Council of Representatives in August 2006.

6 The full report,including appendices, citations, and tables removed from this version forreasons of space, can be accessed online at gratefully acknowledge APA staff Rena Subotnik, Ron Palo-mares, Heidi Sickler, and Ashley Edmiston whose assistance to the taskforce proved invaluable in completing this report. The zero ToleranceTask Force is also grateful to M. Karega Rausch, graduate researchassistant at the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy at IndianaUniversity, and Leigh Kupersmith, Publications Coordinator at the Centerfor Evaluation and Education Policy, for their assistance in the preparationof the concerning this article should be addressed to Rus-sell J. Skiba, Center for Evaluation and Education Policy, Indiana Uni-versity, 1900 East 10th Street, Bloomington, IN 47405.

7 2008 American PsychologistCopyright 2008 by the American Psychological Association 0003-066X/08/$ 63, No. 9, 852 862 DOI: an era of educational policy defined by account-ability, it is appropriate and important to examine theextent to which any widely implemented philosophy, prac-tice, or policy has been shown on the basis of soundresearch to contribute to important educational goals. Thusthe American Psychological Association (APA), as part ofits mission to advance health, education, and human wel-fare, commissioned the zero Tolerance Task Force to ex-amine the evidence concerning the academic and behav-ioral effects of zero Tolerance Policies . The task forceexamined the assumptions that underlie zero Tolerance pol-icies and all data relevant to testing those assumptions inpractice, and it synthesized the evidence regarding thespecific effects of exclusionary discipline on students ofcolor and students with disabilities.

8 Finally, the zero Tol-erance Task Force examined research pertaining to theeffects of zero Tolerance Policies with respect to childdevelopment, the relationship between education and thejuvenile justice system, and students, families, and com-munities. The task force s report concluded with recom-mendations both for reforming zero Tolerance Policies andfor implementing alternatives in practice, policy, and of the Task ForceIt should be noted that, although research and policy haveadopted increasingly more stringent standards for judgingthe quality of evidence supporting the efficacy of newinterventions, it remains rare that such standards are ap-plied in order to examine preexisting educational , policy prescriptions regarding zero Tolerance have faroutrun the state of knowledge concerning its actual impactin practice.

9 Nevertheless, the zero Tolerance Task Forceargues that it is no less important to critically evaluate theevidence basis for existing policy and practice in order toensure that current practices in school violence preventionare in fact reducing the likelihood of violence and disrup-tion and improving the climate of schools. The task forceapplied that standard in an extensive review of the literatureon zero Tolerance ; the following are the key findings of zero Tolerance Policies made schools saferand more Effective in handling disciplinary issues?We examined the data concerning the following fivekey assumptions of zero Tolerance Policies . In general, datatended to contradict the presumptions made in applying azero Tolerance approach to maintaining school disciplineand order.

10 School violence is at a crisis level and increasing,thus necessitating forceful, no-nonsense strate-gies for violence any level ofviolence and disruption is unacceptable in schoolsand must be continually addressed in education, theevidence does not support an assumption that vio-lence in schools is out of control or of critical and deadly violence remain arelatively small proportion of school disruptions(Heaviside, Rowand, Williams, & Farris, 1998), andthe data have consistently indicated that school vi-olence and disruption have remained stable, or evendecreased somewhat, since approximately 1985(DeVoe et al., 2004; National Center for EducationStatistics, 2006; see Figure 1). Through the provision of mandated punishmentfor certain offenses, zero Tolerance increases theconsistency of school discipline and thereby theclarity of the disciplinary message to 1 Percentage of Students in Grades 9 12 Who Reported Having Been in a Physical Fight During the Previous 12 Months on School Property: 1993 to 200301020304050199319951997199920012003 School fromIndicators of school crime and safety: 2004( Departments of Education and Justice, NCES 2005 002/NCJ 205290, p.)