"zero tolerance" in schools

[crs]

How come people successfully get all up in arms about ridiculous punishments for students in schools (month-long suspensions for having aspirin in a backpack, that sort of thing), when due process is denied for a teacher as in this story from The New Yorker piece on "rubber rooms"?

Steve Ostrin, who was assigned to a Brooklyn Rubber Room fifty-

Comments

[ocschwar]

Dude, if I kissed a co-worker in a just-joking-around manner and made her uncomfortable, I'd be out on my caboose within minutes.

And none of my co-workers are young enough to be my daughter.

Professional distance. Learn it. Love it.

[ghudson]

In the outrageous zero-tolerance cases, a student is typically accused of doing something totally innocuous. It's not an issue of due process or any kind of uncertainty about the facts; it's about being punished without doing anything wrong.

In this case, there's uncertainty about the facts. There's a legitimate issue of due process in the face of that uncertainty, but it's not totally clear what the right answer is. Note that in employment-at-will scenarios, you can be terminated on suspicion of wrongdoing without a criminal conviction.

[ringrose]

I wonder if there's a way to pair the good rubber-room teachers in with the bad tenured ones. Yes, you've two people in the classroom, but you are paying for them both anyway. The good teacher teaches, the bad one assures the PTA that neither teacher is abusing the kids.