Miranda Cahoon

Professor Thomas

English Composition II

1 April 2019

Works Cited

Alnaim, Mariam. “The Impact of Zero Tolerance Policy on Children with Disabilities.” World

Journal of Education, vol. 8, no. 1, Apr. 2018, doi:10.5430/wje.v8n1p1.

In the article “The Impact of Zero Tolerance Policy on Children with

Disabilities”, published in April 2018 in World Journal of Education, Miriam Alnaim discusses

the effects that zero-tolerance policies implemented in schools have on students with disabilities,

whether mental or physical. Alnaim’s goal is to persuade the audience that zero tolerance

policies unequally punish students with children when compared to their neurotypical and able-

bodied peers. This article was published less than a year ago, and was published in a professional

archive, which leads one to believe that the information found within it is more trustworthy than

information found elsewhere. Information found through this article could be very useful when

discussing the unequal treatment mentally- or physically-disabled students face under zero

tolerance policies.

Alvarez, Lizette. “Seeing the Toll, Schools Revise Zero Tolerance.” The New York Times, The

New York Times, 3 Dec. 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/12/03/education/seeing-

the-toll-schools-revisit-zero-tolerance.html?module=inline.
 The article “Seeing the Toll, Schools Revise Zero Tolerance”, written by

Lizette Alvarez and published on December 3, 2013 as part of The New York

Times, discusses how several school systems have revised their zero tolerance

policies after they produced few positive outcomes. Alvarez is a reporter for one

of the most renowned and most trustworthy news sources in the world, which,

paired with its fairly recent publication, makes this article a valuable resource.

Alvarez’s purpose in writing this article was to inform readers of The New York

Times that schools were reforming their forms of discipline, which greatly limits

the potential personal biases that could be portrayed if the essay were to be

written in order to persuade the audience of something. The information found

through this source could be useful in showing the development of zero tolerance

policies in recent years.

Boccanfuso, Christopher, and Megan Kuhfeld. “Multiple Responses, Promising Results:

Evidence-Based, Nonpunitive Alternatives to Zero Tolerance.” NEA, NEA, Mar.

2011, www.nea.org/assets/docs/alternatives-to-zero-tolerance.pdf.

Christopher Boccanfuso and Megan Kuhfeld’s research brief, “Multiple

Responses, Promising Results: Evidence-Based, Nonpunitive Alternatives to Zero

Tolerance”, published on the NEA website in March of 2011, presents several

alternatives to zero tolerance policies. Both authors of this article have degrees in

fields of higher education, and researched in depth alternative methods of school

policies that could be potentially more effective than zero tolerance policies.
 Boccanfuso and Kuhfeld published this article in order to inform school

administrators that effective alternatives for zero tolerance policies exist. That this

article was published less than ten years ago aids its credibility in that it is not old

enough for it to be outdated or replaced by newer research. This source could be

particularly useful when resourcing alternative policies that schools could

implement in the place of zero tolerance policies that could potential be more

effective.

Curran, F. Chris. “Estimating the Effect of State Zero Tolerance Laws on Exclusionary

Discipline, Racial Discipline Gaps, and Student Behavior.” Educational

Evaluation and Policy Analysis, vol. 38, no. 4, Dec. 2016, pp. 647–668.,

doi:10.3102/0162373716652728.

Chris F. Curran’s “Estimating the Effect of State Zero Tolerance Laws on Exclusionary

Discipline, Racial Discipline Gaps, and Student Behavior”, part of the

Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, explains some of the disproportional

effect of zero tolerance policies on social minority groups. Curran believes that

zero tolerance policies are not as objective as they appear, and allow for harsh

punishments to be inflicted upon members of social minorities, while not

significantly improving student behavior. This source could be used in order to

provide support for the idea that zero tolerance policies do not live up to their

perceived standard of objective punishments.

Gjelten, E. A. “What Are Zero Tolerance Policies in Schools?” Lawyers.com,

www.lawyers.com/legal-info/research/education-law/whats-a-zero-tolerance-

policy.html.

In the article “What Are Zero Tolerance Policies in Schools?”, author A.

Gjelten explains to their audience what zero tolerance policies are, as well as their

common effects on American students. There are no persuasive tactics used

throughout this article. Its sole purpose is to educate the public about what is

involved in zero tolerance policies and how they are implemented in schools. This

article was written by a lawyer, who is more likely to have personal experience

with zero tolerance policies than most Americans. The information found through

this source could be used to help describe what defines a zero tolerance policy, as

well as how they are commonly implemented.

Maxime, Farnel. “Zero-Tolerance Policies and the School to Prison Pipeline.” Shared Justice,

Center for Public Justice, 18 Jan. 2018,

www.sharedjustice.org/domesticjustice/2017/12/21/zero-tolerance-policies-and-

the-school-to-prison-pipeline.

Farnel Maxime’s article for Shared Justice, entitled “Zero-Tolerance

Policies and the School to Prison Pipeline”, was published on January 18, 2018,

and discussed how zero tolerance policies have created a phenomenon known as

the “school to prison pipeline”. Maxime makes the argument that by harshly

punishing students for offenses of varying severity, and taking them away from
 educational opportunities in the process, schools are feeding into a system that

conditions school rebels to become criminals in their young adult lives. This

article was written to persuade the audience that the school to prison pipeline

exists. It was published barely more than a year ago, which insures that all of the

data referenced in it is fairly recent. This source could be useful as a way to show

how zero tolerance policies could be linked to an increased chance of student

incarceration.

“Racial Disparities in School Discipline.” American Institutes for Research, 29 Jan. 2014,

www.air.org/resource/disparities-school-discipline-race.

The American Institutes for Research article, “Racial Disparities in School

Discipline”, published on January 29, 2014 on the website of the American

Institutes for Research, discusses the ways in which zero tolerance policies affect

students belonging to minority groups to varying degrees. The author of this

article claims that punishments are not administered equally to students of

different races, which renders zero tolerance policies pointless and insignificant.

The recency of this article, as well as it being published on the website of the

American Institutes for Research, makes it seem very credible. Information found

through this source could be used to support the existence of racial disparities in

regards to student punishment under zero tolerance policies.