Outlawing Children: Zero Tolerance in America's Schools
Non-fiction proposal
Outlawing Children will deliver a compelling tale of how Americans grew to fear their own children and forced our governments and schools to get tough and make schools safe. After almost two decades of ever increasing zero tolerance, Americans have now awoken to the fact that they criminalized the very essence of being children – the right to make mistakes.
And by the way, public schools aren’t any safer.
Imagine waiting for your son or daughter as the school bus pulls up and the sheer terror you would feel when the doors pull shut and your child is nowhere to be found. This is not the work of a child predator. Your child is sitting in jail. The crime? Dropping the F-bomb. Welcome to the Twilight Zone where every little mistake – or simple accusation – can lead your child down a nightmarish path of criminal records and automatic draconian punishment at the hands of overzealous school administrators.
With the recent Supreme Court case involving the strip search of a female student suspected of possessing an ibuprofen tablet, and the case of the Cyb Scout that brought a eating utinsil to school, America is finally waking to find that zero tolerance disciplinary policies are terrorizing students and families and not creating safer schools. Students expelled to a disciplinary alternative campus - or reform school - are five times more likely to drop out and end up in prison. Zero tolerance is doing more to harm our society than good.
The project should be no more than 70,000 words. I will defend my position with facts that this disciplinary approach has no effect on school safety and can actually produce the disturbed children who ultimately commit such atrocities as the Columbine incident – which is suggested by a study conducted by the FBI.
With seventeen years, thousands of interviews, and more than a hundred reports authored, I have the experience to complete this project in a professional and timely manner. As the Executive Director of Texas Zero Tolerance – a successful parental rights advocacy group – I have the knowledge and access to hundreds of sources to construct a compelling and highly marketable story.
This is an advocacy for child protection from overzealous school policies. It is to reafirm parental role in the educational process. It will alert parents to the dangers lurking in their child’s principal’s office, how they can protect their child, what to do if their child is ensnared in the system, and how they can be preemptive and change the system. This is a project with strong appeal to parents and their children, as well as educators, journalists, lawyers, and policy wonks. I am seeking your help and guidance in marketing this proposal.
Does your kid like GI Joe or is he or she the class clown? Beware, our public schools think their kind is dangerous. The children that will be in this book are good kids. They’re mainly A and B students who play football, cheerlead, play a flute, or are in the chess club but what they all have in common is that they were kids being kids in the wrong place at the wrong time.
During a normal school year, not a week goes by that a zero tolerance story doesn’t make its way to regional and/or national media attention. The stories are outrageous and scandalous and make compelling stories.
In at least 45 states, laws set mandatory expulsion and/or criminal prosecution for disciplinary violations. The goal is to reduce school violence by prohibiting weapons and drugs – something we all agree must be done – however schools are using these laws to hide behind so their officials don’t have to think. Here are a few of the typical cases that have been reported to me:
- Disruption of the peace and Class “C” Misdemeanors carrying fines up to $500 plus six-month probation for uttering a curse word (not to be confused with a child verbally abusing another student or teacher but rather a raunchy joke);
- Unknowing possession of pocketknives, box cutters, and mini-souvenir bats with no intent to harm resulting in prosecutions and sentences to JJAEP “boot camps”;
- Criminal prosecution as terroristic threats for having “hate lists” such as a child writing that they don’t like Michael Jackson;
- Innocent childhood pranks such as “mooning” or “pantsing” ending with sexual harassment charges and extended punishment in alternative education programs;
- Students defending against vicious attacks by other students charged with aggravated assault and extended punishments in alternative education programs;
- Students with over-the-counter medication being punished the same as a child possessing marijuana;
- Children possessing miniature toy guns – like a GI Joe accessory – being punished as a student caught with a real firearm.
These stories are outrageous and I have exclusive contact with parents and their children who have suffered through these abuses. I will support my advocacy with these stories. They are tear-jerking realities as the result of fifteen years of zero tolerance in our schools and will pull at everyone’s heart strings and motivate action toward the much needed reforms throughout the nation – even internationally (I was interviewed for Japanese television concerning their disciplinary policies).
There are mountains of academic studies detailing the ills of this absurd disciplinary system, however, none are targeted toward nor written from the parent’s point-of-view. This project will appeal primarily to the suburban parent with strong conservative, family values. The closest book I have found that would echo this type project is the recently released You're Teaching My Child What? by Miriam Grossman, M.D., published by Regnery Publishing.
I have been instrumental in changing Texas state law and am considered “the go-to-guy on all things zero tolerance.” (The Houston Press, 07/09/07). With little exposure, I have already been interviewed by NHK Japan Broadcasting Corporation, CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, ABC Good Morning America, The New York Times, The Washington Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, and People Magazine, as well as Houston and Texas media outlets. I have been mentioned in blogs from Florida to France with absolutely no sustained public relations. Once the project is sold, I am strongly committed to marketing the book.
Zero tolerance is a hot topic on radio talk shows and with each interview comes more exposure for this project. I have been interviewed recently by the Fort-Worth Star-Telegram and appeared live on 740 KTRH in Houston – again with no formal press release to attract attention. I believe this is a sustainable, steady seller that will result in the media seeking my expertise at the beginning of every school year and every time a school official does something stupid.
Latest media stories:
The Dallas Morning News - October 17, 2009
By JAMES RAGLAND
"Overall," said Fred Hink, a founder of the nonprofit Texas Zero Tolerance group pushing reform in school discipline, "school districts tend to use the police as their paddle, so to speak. That's when it crosses the line from simple discipline to zero tolerance."
Time Magazine - October 3, 2009
By Hilary Hylton
"There are a number of kids who need to be there — they do have problems and we need to focus on them," says Fred Hink, executive director of Texas Zero Tolerance. Hink, citing a Texas Senate research paper, says 10% of all the disciplined students are "completely innocent" and "conservatively, about 30,000 are over-punished." Critics of zero tolerance say the warehousing of students at DAEP schools is a major issue. Students removed from the classroom are twice as likely to drop out, according to the Texas Education Agency. (more)
The Dallas Morning News - September 27, 2009
By Matt Peterson
Fred Hink of Texas Zero Tolerance, a nonprofit group seeking reform in school discipline, said the law is a step in the right direction, but he expects it to have little impact.
"School districts don't want to have to deal with these disciplinary decisions," he said, "so either it's a one-size-fits-all punishment for everybody or, in a lot of cases, they'll call in the police and have them deal with it."
Hink said that until there's an appeal system in place and parents are part of the disciplinary process from the outset, the problems will remain. (more)
Fort Worth Star-Telegram - August 23, 2009
By Jessamy Brown
Fred Hink, executive director of Texas Zero Tolerance, a Houston-area parent group that supports overhauling Texas education disciplinary policies, said that the new mandate is a "good first step" but that it is unclear whether it will be effective in reducing improper student punishments.
The Washington Times - April 21, 2009
By Valerie Richardson
Pushing the legislation is Texas Zero Tolerance, a group formed specifically to combat the state's zero-tolerance laws. The organization is also backing another bill that would require the prompt notification of parents before disciplinary action is taken.
Fred Hink, the founder and co-director, said the organization started in response to a well-publicized 2003 case in the Houston area involving an honors student who brought a box cutter to school. It turned out her mother had given her the cutter to sharpen her pencils, which is a common practice in Korea.
Such reforms typically face opposition from teachers unions and school administrators. One concern, said Mr. Hink, is that school officials may opt to stick with the zero-tolerance policies even if the legislature gives them additional flexibility.
"The prevailing wind among school administrators is that 'We don't want to have to think about it. It's just not feasible to take these things into consideration,' " said Mr. Hink. "It's extremely frustrating." (more)
