Christopher Dunbar

Urban School Leaders and the Implementation of Zero-Tolerance Policies: An Examination of Its Implications

This article examines the responses of school principals from an urban school district to Michigans zero-tolerance policy. We specifically seek to understand how school leaders interpret and implement the policy and how their administrative discussions subsequently affect the educational experience of children in urban schools. Given that a disproportionately high number of African American and Latino students are negatively affected by this policy, how do school leaders in predominantly African American districts implement it? The findings in this study reveal that the disparate interpretation of the zero-tolerance policy among school leaders and its implementation negatively affects the educational experience of urban students.

What a Difference the Community Makes: Zero Tolerance Policy Interpretation and Implementation

The implementation of zero tolerance policies raises important questions. In this article we explore how zero tolerance policies are interpreted, implemented, and enforced differently in urban, rural, and suburban districts, and how this results in unequal numbers of expulsions and suspensions. Using a policy analysis framework, we explored how administrators from economically and culturally distinct communities developed an understanding of zero tolerance policy. In some cases, administrators modified the policy to meet the needs and culture of their districts, while in other situations, administrators adhered to the policy as written. The varying interpretations allowed some children to remain in school for particular offenses while other children were expelled immediately for similar infractions. Our data show that this policy adversely impacts a disproportionately higher number of students color in urban school districts.

In the Eyes of the Beholder: Urban Student Perceptions of Zero Tolerance Policy

Zero tolerance policy was created as a result of the Gun Free Schools Act of 1994. Varied views exist on zero tolerance policy that include its substantive impact, for whom it is intended, and its viability to address the problem of school violence. Parents, politicians, principals, and teachers have stated their views on the issues. However, there is a voice that is conspicuously absent in this dialogue—that is, students for whom the policy was created to protect. Therefore, in an effort to understand the impact of zero tolerance policy, this study examines urban student perceptions regarding their sense of safety in their schools.

Derrick Bell, CRT, and Educational Leadership 1995-Present.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) has become a centered conceptual framework to understand American education and reform (Ladson-Billings and Tate 1995; Solorzano and Yosso; 2001; Decuir and Dixon 2004). Indeed, educational leadership scholars have not been far behind in recognizing the explicative and powerful role of CRT studies in their work (Lopez 2003; Parker and Villalpando 2007). As we acknowledge the role of CRT, we cannot do so without reflecting on the life and works of the quintessential Critical Legal Studies (CLS) scholar Derrick Bell (1930–2011). In this article, we use Bell’s collective works to analyze current trends and research in educational leadership. We bring his works into conversation not only with conceptions of instructional and distributed leadership, but with the palpability that CRT has on the current state of educational reform. More specifically, we use Bell’s theories of interest convergence and conversations around ‘racial remedies’ to understand two recent trends in educational leadership: discourses of social justice leadership and the move toward data-driven leadership behaviors. We ask questions like: what has been the impact of research discourses social justice on the education of African American and Latino urban youth? And, how has the current social structures benefited from such discourses? We conclude with recommendations for educational leadership researchers and professors, and encourage them to consider race as an integral part of their works.

Three Short Stories

The following three short stories are part of a collection of stories written about the experiences of five African American male students enrolled in a Midwest alternative school. This alternative school was established to house students who have been described as incorrigible, disruptive, social misfits, and academically incompetent. The collective stories included in this text are about students who have lived difficult lives. This text reveals the “experiences of a sociologically constructed category of people in the context of larger social-cultural and historical forces.” 1 It is about students who have been forgotten; written off; and placed in foster care, detention centers, alternative schools, and, for some, juvenile prison. This approach provides insight into the lives of an increasing number of African American male students placed in alternative school environments.

From Alternative School to Incarceration

These collective stories are about a group of African American boys who have been mandated to an alternative school for students unwilling or unable to conform to the norms of traditional public school. The author begins the story with his experience as an alternative school teacher; it evolves into a dialogue with students that draws upon vernacular, folk, and popular cultural forms used by these boys. The text speaks to and represents the needs of this group of boys specifically; however, it also speaks to a larger community of students placed in this kind of alternative school environment. This representation of text resists traditional epistemologies and discourses that claim to be the only legitimate way to view the world. The stories chronicle the injustices these boys have faced and their struggle to find places of dignity and respect and illuminate epiphanal moments both in the lives of the boys and the author.

Culture, Race, and Zero Tolerance Policy: The Implications

ABSTRACT Litanies of issues have emerged because of state-mandated zero tolerance policies across the country. Issues such as suspensions and expulsions over toy guns, verbal assaults, and taking an overthe-counter drug have outraged parents, students, and educators. This paper discusses concerns raised by school administrators and their responsibility to implement zero tolerance policy in their buildings. Specifically, we summarize the array of interpretations of this policy among building principals that subsequently led to differences in the way it was implemented, and in the end, impacted students enrolled in both urban and rural school districts.

Discipline and punishment: How schools are building the school-to-prison pipeline

Abstract In this chapter, we argue that the growth of punitive school discipline in US schools has created an inequitable system of school punishment that is reflective of the development of the school-to-prison pipeline and the establishment of an educational “total institution.” Current school discipline practices negatively affect student academic growth in the classroom as a result of an increase in suspensions and expulsions. Data in this chapter exemplify the overreliance on punitive school discipline in one urban school to address behavioral issues and also further expand on the concept of school-to-prison pipeline using the “total institution” theory of command and control of a population proposed by Goffman (1961). We argue that there are more effective measures of school discipline and seek to provide alternate possibilities for school leaders to address the draconian treatment of Black and brown boys in today’s traditional public school environments.