"The original rules against drugs and knives soon swelled, with schools that once called parents now calling the police. Suddenly middle schoolers were being suspended for puddle stomping and Alka-Seltzer possession or referred to a drug-awareness program for accepting a breath mint. A 6-year-old in Delaware was suspended and threatened with reform school for taking to school a camping utensil that served as a fork, spoon and knife. A 9-year-old perp was questioned by police about a plan to launch a spitball with a rubber band; he had to undergo psychological counseling before he could go back to class. A 12-year-old New York City girl was led off in handcuffs for scribbling on her desk with an erasable marker. A high school sophomore was suspended for breaking the no-cell-phone rule when he took a call from his father ... who was serving in Iraq. A Florida honor student faced felony charges when a dinner knife — not a steak knife or a butcher knife — was found on the floor of her car, which she had parked at school. "A weapon is a weapon is a weapon," the principal said.

Except it's so obviously not. Sometimes a weapon is just a dinner knife. Making distinctions is part of learning. So is making mistakes. When authorities confuse intent and accident, when rules are seen as more sacred than sense, when a contrite first-time offender is treated no differently from a serial classroom menace, we teach children that authority is deaf and dumb, that there is no judgment in justice. It undermines respect for discipline at a stage when we want kids to internalize it."

-nancy gibbs. excerpt from "zero tolerance, zero sense"