Word: zeros
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Paul Hoffman, president of Encyclopaedia Britannica, knows zero well, having received one in penmanship in second grade
...understandable that school officials are unsettled these days. Polls show that most Americans favor "zero tolerance" policies for campus violence, and many parents demand tough-minded, short-term solutions even as they wait for the results of more complex approaches like better mentoring and earlier intervention for troubled children. It may seem silly to go after a kid whose only crime is manicuring during school hours. But how do you know whom to treat sympathetically at a time when 11-year-olds commit murder? (Now 13, Nathaniel Abraham was convicted last month in Michigan of shooting a stranger...
...zero-tolerance approach ends the guesswork. In the early '90s, schools began adopting one-strike-and-you're-out policies for kids who secreted weapons or drugs on campus. The President gave zero tolerance a big push when he signed a 1994 law requiring one-year suspension for students who take guns to school. But by definition, zero tolerance erases distinctions among student offenses. Hence the national crackdown on Alka-Seltzer. Since 1996, schools in four states have suspended at least 20 children for possession of the fizzy medicine...
Administrators have also begun to show zero tolerance for things students merely say or write. Call it subzero tolerance. Last spring Antonius Brown, 18, wrote a story in his journal about a deranged student who goes on a rampage at Brown's high school, Therrell, in Atlanta. It's a sick story. Eventually officials heard about it and suspended him for 20 days. But Brown happened to return from that suspension on April 20, the day of the Columbine massacre. He was expelled two days later in the fearful atmosphere of the moment. Police charged him with making terrorist threats...
...constitute a threat, he also found that Brown had made threatening remarks, such as a promise to "mess with" the Class of '99. But if Brown needed help, he didn't exactly get it. Prosecutors are still weighing a case against him, and Brown has had to switch schools. Zero tolerance is "an easy way to get rid of troubled students," says John Whitehead, head of the Rutherford Institute, a civil-liberties group best known for representing Paula Jones and now helping the soap boys. "But we don't deal with their real problems...