Idiot of the Day

[Luther Lansfeld]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/education/12discipline.html?no_interstitial

Another case of a child suffering from a stupid stupid zero tolerance policy.

[superaielman]

"God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board. - Mark Twain

[NotMiki]

The law was introduced after a third-grade girl was expelled for a year because her grandmother had sent a birthday cake to school, along with a knife to cut it. The teacher called the principal — but not before using the knife to cut and serve the cake.

Holy shit.

Charles P. Ewing, a professor of law and psychology at the University at Buffalo Law School who has written about school safety issues, said he favored a strict zero-tolerance approach.

“There are still serious threats every day in schools,” Dr. Ewing said, adding that giving school officials discretion holds the potential for discrimination and requires the kind of threat assessments that only law enforcement is equipped to make.

Ok, fuck you, Charles P. Ewing.  You think the specter of discrimination is a good reason for a zero tolerance policy?  There's a group of people, some of them are innocent and some of them are guilty, and you think we should just punish ALL of them without trying to figure out which is which...because telling the difference is hard?  I guess if you think people need special police training to know what a knife for cutting cake is for, maybe.   Asshole probably thinks Harrison Bergeron is an uplifting story about the victory of the ideal society.

EDIT: speaking of kids and mindless suffering, breastfeeding 4-month-old baby denied health care coverage because of his preexisting condition: obseity.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/12/alex-lange-denied-health_n_317337.html

[Magetastic]

It's stories like these that make me glad to be alive...

[Taishyr]

Same, Magetastic. Every time I -think- I'm having a good day, all I have to do is visit this topic, and everything is all better.

[Cotigo]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/12/health.care/index.html

Heh.  So, new report put out by a health insurance industry trade group today.  Can you guess what it says?

I gotta hand it to them, it's pretty ballsy to lie so baldfacedly instead of getting lobbyists to get congressmen to do it for them.

[Cmdr_King]

Personally stories like that just tell me the world is beyond saving and, barring Godlike powers with which to kill the wicked, we're doomed.

[Cotigo]

Holy shit I didn't even read Miki's link.  I... Ar... ugh....

I mean, holy crap.  What the hell does Pre-Existing Condition even fucking MEAN when it's a god damn BABY?!

Incidentally, this may be a good time to start only using thin babies in advertising so the babies have a positive body-image to aspire to and get anorexia for.

[NotMiki]

Charles P. Ewing.  Asshole.

Paul Krugman had a good take on what's wrong with people like Charles P. Ewing.

What I objected to in the mag article was the tendency to identify good math with good work. CAPM is a beautiful model; that doesn’t mean it’s right. The math of real business cycle models is much more elegant than that of New Keynesian models, let alone the kind of models that make room for crises like the one we’re in; that makes RBC models seductive, but it doesn’t make them any less silly.

This analysis is doubly true for zero tolerance enthusiasts.  They're convinced that there's a right answer, a single solution that can solve a vexing problem.  They love the simplicity, that they have a policy that makes discrimination impossible.  Well, congratulations, Charles P. Ewing, the operation was a success, but the patient died.

[Shale]

Charles P. Ewing.  Asshole.

Paul Krugman had a good take on what's wrong with people like Charles P. Ewing.

Not that Krugman doesn't have a point, but you were more succinct about it.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Ok, fuck you, Charles P. Ewing.  You think the specter of discrimination is a good reason for a zero tolerance policy?  There's a group of people, some of them are innocent and some of them are guilty, and you think we should just punish ALL of them without trying to figure out which is which...because telling the difference is hard?  I guess if you think people need special police training to know what a knife for cutting cake is for, maybe.   Asshole probably thinks Harrison Bergeron is an uplifting story about the victory of the ideal society.

First of all, I'm not saying that zero tolerance is the answer with this. However, when you consider the amount of potential for 'abuse of power' that is suddenly thrust into the hands of the school board, who may or may not use their discretion judiciously (imagine if this were to happen to a black kid in Alabama), you have to wonder if leaving it up personal judgment is always the best idea.

This is especially vexing because while the child is young, his parents either allowed or were unaware that he was bringing a knife to school. This is NOT esoteric knowledge that knives of any sort are not allowed in schools. Schools go crazy over kids bringing things like Screwdrivers or even Particularly Sharp Mechanical Pencils to school... and these people think it's okay to let him bring a pocket knife to school?

Really, the rules are pretty clear, and while I agree he shouldn't be expelled, the idea of him getting off without some kind of punishment doesn't send a good message here.

It would be nice if there were room for discretion, but I can definitely understand the strict policy on something like this... And honestly, the kid is getting 3 months out of school in 2nd grade at worst. Imagine if he were the aforementioned black kid in Alabama. That's exercising discretion right there.

[Cmdr_King]

First of all, I'm not saying that zero tolerance is the answer with this. However, when you consider the amount of potential for 'abuse of power' that is suddenly thrust into the hands of the school board, who may or may not use their discretion judiciously (imagine if this were to happen to a black kid in Alabama), you have to wonder if leaving it up personal judgment is always the best idea.

While a wise thing to question in most circumstances, in this case it's silly; we're taking out the potential for abuse of power by... automatically inflicing the strictest punishment possible (well, second I guess... as I read it it was 'mandatory three months and transfer to prison-school with serious consideration of expulsion'.  I suppose technically they might otherwise automatically expel students they don't like!  Except something of that nature could be appealed pretty easily...)

The rest I'm not confident enough to get into in depth (I don't really want to drag up relevant pyschological research), but to my mind such overreactions to everything with the slightest potential for harm treads dangerously close to "treating students like prisoners, but with less rights" territory.

[NotMiki]

I brought in a decorative knife when I was in kindergarten, and I was punished for it.  The principal called me to his office and called my mother and made sure I didn't bring it in again.  I was devastated.  Left quite an impression on me because, you see, I was 5.  Do you think I knew there was a rule against bringing in knives?  of course not!  I was 5!  I didn't read the fucking rulebook, because I could barely read!  And you think that suspending a kid for 45 days for something like that could ever be just?  Why?  because his fucking parents didn't know the rules?  You want to punish a five year old kid for his parents making a technical mistake when nothing bad even came of it?  Gimme a fucking break!

[Dhyerwolf]

This is of course assuming that the parents were fully aware he was bringing it anyways. I'm assuming that he was just liked the item and so decided to bring to school on his own.

I certainly understand that the system could be abused if there could be case by case exceptions, but that would be obviously better when it is an obvious case where it was harmless and if someone can claim racial discrimination, that's actually a bonus since then you can possibly uncover an administrator's racist tendencies, which can certainly affect a lot of other things where they do actually have some jurisprudence.

[Dark Holy Elf]

First of all, I'm not saying that zero tolerance is the answer with this. However, when you consider the amount of potential for 'abuse of power' that is suddenly thrust into the hands of the school board, who may or may not use their discretion judiciously (imagine if this were to happen to a black kid in Alabama), you have to wonder if leaving it up personal judgment is always the best idea.

Hilariously, it's been shown that zero tolerance punishments are handed out unfairly often to minorities, specifically blacks. In theory they might be blind, but in practice they aren't implemented that way. Also, in practice, all they do is keep kids out of school, which, incidentally, leads to them going down the wrong path that suspension is supposed to prevent.

Anyway, I agree with Djinn that yes, the kid broke a rule and there should be consequences. To me, however, the logical consequences are pretty much exactly along the lines of what happened to NotMiki (as he notes, at age 5, a chat with the principal is punishment enough!). Suspension would go too far. Expulsion deserves nothing but derision. Unnecessarily harsh penalties accomplish nothing good in terms of discipline or building a positive school culture.

[Dunefar]

First of all, I'm not saying that zero tolerance is the answer with this. However, when you consider the amount of potential for 'abuse of power' that is suddenly thrust into the hands of the school board, who may or may not use their discretion judiciously (imagine if this were to happen to a black kid in Alabama), you have to wonder if leaving it up personal judgment is always the best idea.

Hilariously, it's been shown that zero tolerance punishments are handed out unfairly often to minorities, specifically blacks. In theory they might be blind, but in practice they aren't implemented that way. Also, in practice, all they do is keep kids out of school, which, incidentally, leads to them going down the wrong path that suspension is supposed to prevent.

Anyway, I agree with Djinn that yes, the kid broke a rule and there should be consequences. To me, however, the logical consequences are pretty much exactly along the lines of what happened to NotMiki (as he notes, at age 5, a chat with the principal is punishment enough!). Suspension would go too far. Expulsion deserves nothing but derision. Unnecessarily harsh penalties accomplish nothing good in terms of discipline or building a positive school culture.

In a stunning turn of events, I agree with everything Elfboy said here. Zero tolerance=zero thought. They're the worst trend in education in the past 20 years.

[DjinnAndTonic]

I brought in a decorative knife when I was in kindergarten, and I was punished for it.  The principal called me to his office and called my mother and made sure I didn't bring it in again.  I was devastated.  Left quite an impression on me because, you see, I was 5.  Do you think I knew there was a rule against bringing in knives?  of course not!  I was 5!  I didn't read the fucking rulebook, because I could barely read!  And you think that suspending a kid for 45 days for something like that could ever be just?  Why?  because his fucking parents didn't know the rules?  You want to punish a five year old kid for his parents making a technical mistake when nothing bad even came of it?  Gimme a fucking break!

Oh cry me a river. I work with 5-year-olds all day. As adorable and innocent as they are, they are more aware of the rules than you're admitting. And they -know- when they're doing something wrong, and more often than not, they can figure out if something's questionable, even if by their 5-year-old logic, they eventually decide it's okay.

The fact that he got this utensil knife from the boyscouts is pretty telling to me. I'd be shocked if they didn't hand them out along with a warning to specifically NOT bring them to school. Especially since something like that is often given out as a badge of responsibility...

The kid is young and not malicious from what I can tell, but he's more culpable than you're implying.

Personally, I would have just confiscated the item and called his parents. Depending on what they said, I'd have suspended him for, at most, a week.

But indeed, I'm still of the opinion that some kind of punishment was necessary, though the degree of the punishment is where I think discretion could have come into play. Preferably by more than one individual to ensure 'fairness'. And that would solve all my problems with the issue.

Still, there seems to be some dissonance in this topic in particular on whether or not to trust people with this kind of power. It's been shown pretty clearly that people abuse discretion when it's given to them, but when someone tries to equalize things, then suddenly there's an uproar of 'but common discretion should prevail!'.

Can we have it both ways? ...It'd be nice, but I'm not sure I trust people enough for that.

[Cmdr_King]

*shrug* As noted, it's not the automated punishment per se, it's the severity.  For someone that age, a three month suspension is pretty much irreperable damage to their schoolastic career if their parents don't have the means to hire private tutors.

[NotMiki]

Djinn, we can have it both ways, but as CK said, this is just too much of a punishment.  I strenuously object to a zero tolerance policy for what I'd term a procedural offense.  Keeping knives out of the hands of kids is a deterrence measure, and people who support a mandatory, severe punishment for it are mistaking the means of deterrence for the thing they want to deter.  We keep knives out of the hands of kids not to prevent kids from having knives but to prevent kids from injuring one another.  I refuse to accept any rule that exists not to prevent some injury or injustice but merely to prevent rule-breaking.

The idea of getting rid of discrimination by getting rid of discretion is misguided at best.  It's the height of injustice to punish someone for something for fear that giving them a lighter sentence would appear discriminatory, and that's exactly what a zero tolerance policy does (unless you truly believe that the policy deters exactly what it punishes, like a zero tolerance policy for murder, for example).

[Dhyerwolf]

I didn't do Cub Scouts (can't imagine that he's old enough for boyscouts), but they may not have had any particular warning. I'm assuming that if someone responsible gave a 5 year old a knife, it's probably quite dull. And certainly, it's conjecture either way, as nowhere in the article does it assume that he was or wasn't told. If he wasn't, it's really not a leap at all that he would assume it was okay for school.

It's telling that you say that if you were in the position of authority there, you would have done something completely different than what the school did anyways!

[Veryslightlymad]

I'm reading the Harrison Bergeron summary on Wikipedia, and I got to this part:

"Harrison Bergeron, the protagonist of the story, has exceptional intelligence, strength, and beauty, and thus has to bear enormous handicaps."

And I think, "That sucks. I mean, the guy's fucking name is Harrison Bergeron. That's handicap enough."

EDIT
And Scout knives are BADASS. They're sharper than all fuck. I was in cub scouts for a few years, and after I had to leave, the knife I'd had for it was used as my dad's primary pocket knife for YEARS afterward. Thing was swiss army. Highest quality of conventional knife.

EDIT 2
Even weirder, we were definitely allowed to have them with us in school, because we had to have all of our stuff ready for scouts BEFOREHAND. Every day the scouts met up, we all had on our gear, and we had all of our things like our handbooks and our knives and whatever with us or we'd get in trouble for it. The world's changed a lot in just a few short years.

[DjinnAndTonic]

It's telling that you say that if you were in the position of authority there, you would have done something completely different than what the school did anyways!

Well, yeah, because I don't agree with zero tolerance. But because I don't have faith in administrative discretion to catch dangerous cases, I lean towards stricter punishments for this sort of thing. It's more because I have faith in the intelligence of children to know not to break certain rules than any sort of real fear of six-year-old assassins. Now, 10-year-old assassins, those are seriously worrisome. I wish I was joking.

I think the problem in this case lies in the lack of flexibility in the rule itself. The rule should take into account the kind of knife and how (if at all) the object was used while in its owner's possession. And yeah, intent should matter, too, so it'd be nice if the student got something along the lines of a character assessment. But by and large, there really has to be some sort of set punishment for possession of potential weapons at school. Considering how it's possible to kill someone with the aforementioned particularly sharp mechanical pencils, the schools really do have a hard enough time just keeping less questionably weapon-shaped objects (like knives of any sort) out of schools.

I don't think immediate expulsion is this punishment. Three months suspension is also pretty harsh, depending on the age of the child and type of 'weapon'. Personally, I think the punishment in general could be lowered across the board, but allow for increasing it depending on the child's age, the type of weapon, and what actions were taken with the weapon.

This still gives some room for discretion. And whether it helps or hinders discrimination would probably depend on how closely a case was looked at, and by how many people, since there's more stages to the process where abuse can be noted.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I'm almost ready to be scavenging for stimpaks and 5.56mm NATO rounds at this point. Then we won't have this shit. If you have a problem, you'll solve it in the Thunderdome.

[Grefter]

Stuff

Seriously man, you think three months in grade 2 is a little excessive?  I would say 3 months out of school for ANY kid is fucking excessive if you want this kid to succeed properly at school.  3 months may not sound like much, but 3 months in an education system is a whole term we are talking here in the PRIME point of education for a kid.  This kid is likely going to miss out on some incredibly important fundamentals in this time.  Grade 2 there he is probably just going to be starting to touch on Multiplication or Division which leads on to important shit like Fractions and whatnot.  Excessive is way to fucking small a word for this shit.  That is JUST the Math portion

This makes the Developmental Psychologist in me fucking furious far more than it does my normal disgust with this shit.  3 months at 7 years old is fucking huge!  The kid is going to be having to catch up for more than 3 months to be up to scratch with the rest of the class.

Zero Tolerance is retarded shit for retards who don't want to be authority figures and want to white wash everything with "Law" and "Justice" and "Anal Fisting".  It is simple stupid bullshit that doesn't do much other than fuck everyone over and lets people pretend to be good people because they were following procedure.  I think we all know what happened last time we had a big movement of just doing what you were told.  That is right, everyone got in line and gave me a blow job.

Edit - http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=929343&topic=51718432

This isn't nearly the level of stupid of other stuff, but it still makes me want to invent a time machine and punch everyone's mother in the uterus.

[Luther Lansfeld]

I'm going to second VSM in the "that kind of stuff would have been fine at my school" thing. I may have brought an Army Swiss knife to school before. I thought they were badass, and I didn't really think of the consequences. I just thought it was cool.

Zero tolerance policy is a giant joke. I think that 3 months of forcing any student, child or adolescent, out of school is really harmful to them and any school who chooses to do this is ridiculous. Yay structure.