The History of “Zero Tolerance” in American Public Schooling

190 Pages·2011·1.575 MB·English

by  Judith Kafka (auth.)

The History of “Zero Tolerance” in
American Public Schooling
Palgrave Studies in Urban Education
Series Editors: Alan R. Sadovnik and Susan F. Semel
Series Titles
Reforming Boston Schools, 1930–2006: Overcoming Corruption and Racial Segregation
By Joseph Marr Cronin (April 2008)
What Mothers Say about Special Education: From the 1960s to the Present
By Jan W. Valle (March 2009)
Charter Schools: From Reform Imagery to Reform Reality
By Jeanne M. Powers (June 2009)
Becoming an Engineer in Public Universities: Pathways for Women and Minorities
Edited by Kathryn M. Borman, Will Tyson, and Rhoda H. Halperin (May 2010)
The Multiracial Urban High School: Fearing Peers and Trusting Friends
Susan Rakosi Rosenbloom (October 2010)
Reforming Boston Schools, 1930 to the Present: Overcoming Corruption and Racial
Segregation (updated paperback edition of Reforming Boston Schools, 1930–2006 )
By Joseph Marr Cronin (August 2011)
The History of “Zero Tolerance” in American Public Schooling
By Judith Kafka (December 2011)
The History of “Zero Tolerance” in
American Public Schooling
Judith Kafka
THE HISTORY OF “ZERO TOLERANCE” IN AMERICAN PUBLIC sCHOOLING
Copyright © Judith Kafka, 2011.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-60368-4
All rights reserved.
First published in 2011 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-37170-9 ISBN 978-1-137-00196-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137001962
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kafka, Judith, 1973–
The history of “zero tolerance” in American public schooling /
Judith Kafka.
p. cm.—(Palgrave studies in urban education)
1. School discipline—California—Los Angeles—History.
2. Discrimination in education—California—Los Angeles—History.
I. Title.
LB3012.3.C2K35 2011
370.809794(cid:2)94—dc23 2011020464
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: December 2011
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Series Editors’ Foreword vii
Acknowledgments xi
One Zero Tolerance and the
Case of Los Angeles 1
Two Discipline Before Zero Tolerance,
1800–1950 17
Three Bureaucratizing Discipline in the
Blackboard Jungle 53
Four Struggle for Control in the 1960s 75
Five The Death of in Loco Parentis 97
Conclusion: Reclaiming School Discipline 119
Notes 127
Selected Bibliography 163
Index 175
Series Editors’ Foreword
Judith Kafka’s book is an important addition to research on school disci-
pline and zero tolerance policies. Based on a historical case study of the Los
Angeles City School District from the 1950s to the 1970s, Kafka provides
a rich description of the evolution of zero tolerance policies in the context
of urban educational problems and the larger sociological and historical
changes in American society and schooling. The book relates the case
of Los Angeles to current educational policy debates about urban youth
and violence and the role of schools in shaping and controlling adolescent
behavior.
K afka explores the intersection of race, politics, and the bureaucratic
organization of schooling and argues that control over discipline became
increasingly centralized in the second half of the twentieth century in
response to pressures exerted by teachers, parents, students, principals,
and local politicians–often at different historical moments, and for dif-
ferent purposes. Kafka demonstrates that the racial inequities produced
by today’s school discipline policies were not inevitable, nor are they
unchangeable.
Recently, the suspension of a high school senior and his ban from
attending the senior prom in suburban Connecticut received international
media attention. The student was suspended for hanging a large banner
on the school wall in which he asked a classmate to be his prom date. The
principal enforced the school’s rule that students suspended after April 1
would be banned from the prom. Following an international media frenzy
in which social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter became the venue
for mass protests demanding that the student be permitted to attend and
an interview on the Today show, the principal reversed her decision. When
compared to the events described by Kafka, this incident puts the differ-
ences between suburban and urban education in stark contrast. Although
school violence certainly occurs in affluent suburban districts, as they did
in the tragic Columbine shootings, Kafka underscores how fear of urban
youth, primarily youth of color, was at the core of zero tolerance policies.
viii / series editors’ foreword
Moreover, she argues that these policies were part of a larger transforma-
tion of urban schooling as cities became more racially and economically
segregated. Most importantly, she demonstrates how these policies have
disproportionately affected low-i ncome youth of color and were part of
the larger school processes that explain the perpetuation of educational
inequalities.
K afka details how the Los Angeles City School District evolved from a
national leader in Progressive Era educational reform to a national example
of racial and community conflict, school violence, and student control.
When her story concludes in the 1970s, the district employed hundreds
of security guards to maintain order in its schools, and had developed
what became termed as “zero tolerance” discipline policies. Thus, the Los
Angeles City School District represents an example of similar processes
and policies that developed concurrently in cities across the country in the
decades following World War II, and provides the basis for understanding
the history of school discipline during this era.
A s a skilled historian, Kafka writes a compelling story that captures the
ways in which sociological and economic forces in urban areas were played
in the school corridors and classrooms. In the tradition of solid social sci-
entific history, she relates this story to the ways in which schools function
in American society and how school discipline policies must be understood
in their larger sociological and geographic contexts. Kafka demonstrates
that school discipline policies are similar to their academic policies as they
both serve to sort and select students and mirror the larger social class,
race, ethnic, and gender inequalities in urban America.
W e are at a crossroads in educational reform, particularly in urban
districts. Race and social class–based achievement gaps that character-
ize urban schools and whose elimination has been an important goal of
urban educational policies for decades continue to be difficult to reduce.
In Newark, New Jersey, a state-o perated school district, long a poster child
for urban violence and decay, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg donated
$100 million dollars to transform public education. The mayor and gover-
nor, both champions of neoliberal reforms such as the expansion of charter
schools, tuition vouchers, the elimination of tenure and seniority- based
layoffs, and teacher evaluations based on student achievement, are using
the district as a laboratory for these types of reforms. As critics of these
reforms correctly point out, such reforms will be limited in the absence of
larger political and economic reforms. In addition, as Kafka points out,
policies aimed primarily at using standardized testing to raise academic
achievement ignore the social dimensions of schooling at their peril. This
book reminds us of the complexities of urban educational policy and that
series editors’ foreword / ix
school climate must be an important feature of educational reform. It is an
important addition to the Palgrave Series on Urban Education and the lit-
erature on the history of school discipline and zero tolerance in particular
and urban school reform in general.
Alan R. Sadovnik and Susan F. Semel
Acknowledgments
T his book would have never been completed had it not been for the sup-
port and guidance of so many people. I began this project many years ago
as a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, and I owe
a great deal to the excellent mentoring I received there from faculty and
fellow students. My adviser Daniel Perlstein was supportive of this project
from the very beginning, and always pushed me to think more deeply
about my work and read more broadly in areas that might inform it. Judith
Warren Little was like a second adviser to me, taking me under her wing
and enthusiastically supporting my research and studies. Ruthie Gilmore
and Bruce Fuller also offered valuable feedback, and provided me with
intellectual and career guidance.
I am grateful as well to the many individuals who went above and beyond
the call of duty to help me navigate archival collections, often offering me
research tips and leads along the way. Rachel Tucker and her associates at
the Los Angeles Unified School District Board Secretariat’s Office were
extremely helpful and generous with their time and resources; without
them I would never have been able to conduct this project. Librarians and
staff at the Young Research Library at UCLA, the Southern California
Library, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, and
the United Teachers of Los Angeles were also very accommodating with
their time and knowledge. The librarians and staff at UC Berkeley’s Ed/
Psych Library were especially fabulous in working with one of their most
regular borrowers, and the staff at Baruch College’s Newman library has
been more than accommodating to my near-c onstant requests for extended
renewals and other favors.
S ince moving to New York, I have been fortunate to find continuing
intellectual and moral support from a host of sources. Heather Lewis and
Bethany Rogers have been incredible colleagues and friends— our regu-
lar meetings have provided great comfort and have vastly improved the
quality of my work. My colleagues at Baruch College School of Public
Affairs gave me very useful feedback on article versions of several chap-
ters of this book, and helped me write for a broader audience. Jonathan
Zimmerman is a mentor to so many emerging historians of education in