Thursday, September 06, 2007

A bad, bad case of zero tolerance - the sequel

Once again a school in Arizona will suspend a student three days for drawing a picture of a gun:

"An eighth-grader at a Florence school is the second Arizona student to be suspended for sketching a gun at school."

I remember hearing a joke that seventy years ago a school teacher in Texas announced that he would be conducting a lesson in drawing the following day, and three students showed up with hand guns. The students thought they would be learning the fast draw of their guns.

It makes sense to have rules against children bring guns to school. But I don't see the logic is outlawing pictures of guns.

Larry Cline, a spokesman for Florence Unified School District said it was OK to suspend the boy because "because it is the intent of the district to provide a safe environment in which to learn."

How does a drawing of a gun make the school environment unsafe? There is no sense.

In public schools too often zero tolerance translates into Zero Intelligence. It is actions like these that drives many parents to homeschooling.

I wonder how soon every boy in public schools will start drawing pictures of guns. It would be an interesting experiment in civil disobedience.

(Hat tip: OpinionJournal)


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