With the passing of the Gun Free School Act of 1994, the 1990s bore witness to the birth of zero-tolerance policies. During the remainder of that decade, several school shootings occurred that solidified zero-tolerance in schools across the United States. With the possibility of threats constantly increasing, school personnel having a thorough…

Growing concern about the quality of public education in the United States has driven numerous educational reform efforts across the last three decades. These reforms include increased accountability as exemplified by various requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the introduction of new curriculum and instructional methods in…

Violent and potentially violent incidents in schools in the United States continue to make the headlines, with school-related violent deaths in the United States in the first half of the 2003-04 school year exceeding the deaths for the entire 2002-03 academic year (Vail 2004). In this article, the authors look at the ultimate form of classroom…

This book is a compelling indictment of the use of high-stakes assessments with punitive consequences in public schools. The authors trace the history of the policy and document the inequities for children of poverty that undergird high-stakes testing practices. Lack of dental and medical care, environmental violence, insufficient school funding,…