The more television people watch, the more fearful they become. The news worsens fears even if the news story takes place far away. If it is in a familiar setting, and if it reverberates sufficiently, it has an effect in every locality. These exaggerated fears have led some administrators to take extreme, misguided steps, Ziedenberg said, such as zero-tolerance and mandatory expulsion policies. The report cited statistics from the federal Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights that showed an increase in suspensions from 1.7 million in 1974 to 3.1 million by 1997.
Few children reform themselves after getting kicked out of school, the report claims.
Citing statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the report says that youths out of school are more likely to get involved in physical fights and to carry weapons. Minority students affected most According to the Justice Policy Institute, these suspensions and expulsions have had a disproportionate impact on minority students. In Phoenix, school records cited by the institute showed that black students were suspended and expelled at 22 times the rates of whites. So, ironically, the solution to that seems to be having its greatest impact on minority kids. But the National School Boards Association defended the necessity of passing harsh rules.