The U.S. government introduced zero-tolerance policies to tackle equity issues in disciplinary practices in U.S. schools. Olayinka Alege and his academic mentor, J. Howard Johnston, prepared a brief study concerning the reasons, facts, and results of these policy theories. They tried to examine major and minor details regarding the very concept in order to learn about the facts which you might not know about. The significant achievement of this work was to throw light on the racism being practiced in U.S. schools and academic facilities. You will learn about various racist practices and their sad consequences.
Starting with research done some 40 years ago, our two researchers discovered that dark-skinned students were not getting fair treatment in schools. Students with darker complexion were generally being underestimated and not treated well. School staff -- teachers and administration alike -- were caught being biased: They were clearly more lenient on white-skinned students and showed them more favoritism. The discriminatory character of academic staff towards black students wasn’t acceptable, and that is why zero-tolerance policies were introduced.
The primary purpose of zero-tolerance policies was to control the violence rate, drug use, and dangerous behavioral patterns – all of which drew students towards causing physical or mental harm. The first thing that wasn’t acceptable at all was the discriminatory behavior on the part of the academic staff. They used to punish dark-skinned students for the same misconduct which they tolerated when it came to white students. It was all about the ongoing racism which ran deep in many U.S. schools.
The writers tried to draw attention to the fact that racism in schools is damaging to students’ personalities and to their future. The researchers reported that the biggest factor that the school staff used to practice discriminatory policies was gender! Teachers used to punish or expel male students from school far more often than female students. The most shocking thing is that they would punish dark-skinned male and female students more than white students. How devastating this could be for targeteed students to grow up in an environment where they had to fear suspension every day because of the same mistake which, when made by a white schoolmate, would be tolerated.
We all can therefore expect equally harsh outcomes of these discriminatory practices. This belittling behavior often resulted in low student achievement and lasting devastating effects on students and, in turn, also in the community. The only positive way out of this troublesome predicament and its negative results is to shift the teachers’ deficit-based approach to a positively-oriented developmental & academic one.
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