Fast Facts on Zero Tolerance
Although Miami-Dade County shares many of the same education deficiencies as other urban schools it has the dubious distinction of rating as one of the lowest performing districts in the country and also as one of the poorest. Miami-Dade is the largest school district in Florida, the fourth largest in the nation, and the second largest minority school system in the country. Of Miami-Dade’s 48 high schools, 20 received a performance grade of D or F for 2006-07. Less than one-fourth received an A or B and most of those are academies or charter schools (School Performance Grades, August 2007).
Within this school district is the African-American community of Overtown, in downtown Miami. According to the public website for the district, the two high schools in this area are failing schools, fluctuating between a D and an F grade over the last five academic years (ibid.). This means that students in these schools are unable to meet basic proficiencies in reading and math. In the two schools where Power U works, only 35 and 26% of seniors took the SAT in 2006. In both schools, the average scores were about one-third lower than the national averages; too low for most universities. One-half of the students are failing or almost failing their classes, and 30-40% of the students were absent 20 days or more in the 05-06 school year (www.fldoe.org).
In analyzing why so few students graduate and show little progress in learning, one root cause became glaringly obvious. When we look at Black youth in the state of Florida (the majority reside in Miami-Dade County) we see them in the juvenile system at every level: detention centers, boot camps, adult prisons, and alternative education programs. The state of Florida has put more youth in prison than any other state. The education provided to young people in these systems is less than the standard education and often full of interruptions. If we want to give these young people a quality education we believe our first goal is to keep them in school.
Miami-Dade suspends its students at alarming rates. In the 2004-05 school year, Miami-Dade doled out 50,989 out-of-school suspensions, which is a 4% increase from 2002, even though the student population decreased by 2.5% during that time period. In the two high schools where Power U works, an average of 39% of the students receive in-school suspensions and 23% out-of-school suspensions. This is almost ten times the average in similar sized Grade A or B schools in the county. According to information from the Booker T. Washington school board, suspensions in the first half of the 2007-08 school year increased over the same period from the previous school year (549 from 527).
This is the beginning of what the Advancement Project calls the “Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track”. After the Supreme Court struck down the 1990 Gun-Free School Zone Act in 1995, Congress passed the Gun-Free Schools Act that required states to adopt a zero-tolerance policy towards weapons in schools or forego federal funding. In Florida, school districts are allowed to define the boundaries of zero tolerance resulting in variations from district to district. It has also resulted in schools defining acts punishable under zero-tolerance very broadly to include absenteeism, tardiness, insubordination and disrespect- all previously handled by school administrators. Juvenile judges in Florida were quoted in several reports as stating that the vast majority of cases they receive should have been handled by the principal. In 2006-07, 16% of all referrals to the Florida Department of Justice came from schools, but only 20% of those involved drugs and/or weapons- the original intent of the policy (“Getting Smart About Juvenile Justice in Florida”, Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, January 2008).
What are the consequences for these youth who are shuffled back and forth between the education and the justice systems? 30% of youth reported being at the same grade as they were during the last school year. 60% of the youth at one detention facility reported spending two hours or less in school per day. Based on Florida Department of Education standards, youth are required to receive 300 minutes of education daily. Of those youth who were 16 and older, 14% reported availability of GED preparation while only 6% actually participated in GED testing. Most will not return to school, will remain unskilled and uneducated, and are 3.5 times more likely to be arrested than peers who graduate (“Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track”, Advancement Project, 2003). In the state of Florida, juvenile records can be used as a consideration for sentencing as an adult. Adults who have been convicted of a felony lose their right to vote indefinitely, thus disenfranchising a disproportionate number of Blacks and Latinos. Criminalization of youth leaves emotional scars, causes embarrassment (students are often arrested in classrooms and forced to wear monitoring devices), attaches labels as a student with a disability, and results in a rigid and unforgiving probation period, most often ending in a return to court (“Education on Lockdown: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track”, Advancement Project, 2005). Ultimately, these students become adults, and struggle to survive economically and to participate and contribute fully as citizens.
At the moment, because students are so frequently and harshly punished in schools, they are literally not in school enough to succeed, and are therefore being pushed out of the education system. While some argue that this has made schools safer (which is debatable in and of itself), there is no evidence that this policy improves the quality of learning. Indeed, there is an undeniable correlation between a school's high suspension and arrest rates and low academic performance; rising suspension rates have not resulted in improved educational results. Power U's position is that Miami-Dade's broad interpretation and application of the zero-tolerance for violence policy have directly resulted in the violation of internationally accepted rights to equal access to education, acceptable standards of education, and education that is adapted to the needs of students in diverse social and economic backgrounds. Power U supports the School Board's goal of providing a safe school environment, but is challenging the administration to implement an alternative means of dealing with school safety that will simultaneously lead to improved access to and quality of education for all students. We seek to address violations of the right of all students to have access to education that adequately prepares them to be productive adults.