Tag Archives: NPR

National, Research

NPR: Fed Up With Zero Tolerance In Schools, Advocates Push For Change

Story by Laura Isensee

Photo Credit: KUHF

stephen-f-austin-middle-In 2010, De’angelo Rollins got into a fight with a bully at his new middle school in Bryan, Texas. His mother, Marjorie Rollins Holman, says her shy son reported the bullying, but the teacher didn’t stop it.

Then it came to blows.

“The boy ended up hitting my son in the face first,” Holman says. “My son hit him back, and they got in a little scuffle.”

That scuffle landed her then-12-year-old son in the principal’s office — and in adult criminal court after the school police officer wrote the sixth-grader a ticket.

“We end up paying for everything for our son and made sure he did everything the judge had passed down to him. But we were outraged,” Holman says. “We couldn’t believe that this was happening.”

Since the mid-1990s, schools have increasingly disciplined students with harsh tactics like suspensions and, in some cases, the criminal courts. Now, the pendulum is swinging in the other direction — even in Texas, one of the most aggressive states in criminalizing students’ misbehavior.

National, Research

Can Tyra Banks Get Kids To School? Seattle Says Yes

First aired on November 9, 2011 from KPLU
For All Things Considered broadcast.

Last month, Tyra Banks and the national Get Schooled Foundation visited 400 students in the Bronx in New York City. Banks is one of several celebrities who record messages encouraging kids to go to school. Seattle is one of the latest cities to try it out — Mayor Mike McGinn’s office is spending nearly $50,000 to coordinate and implement the effort. To hear more about this story go to: Seattle Says Yes.