Article: The Problem with 'Zero': On tolerance and common sense in the schools.

You know the stories. They have been cropping up in everyday conversation among all classes and conditions of Americans for four or five years now.

--A Pittsburgh kindergartner was disciplined in 1998 because his Halloween firefighter costume included a plastic axe.

--A ten-year-old girl at McElwain Elementary in Thornton, Colo., repeatedly asked a certain boy on the playground if he liked her. The boy complained to a teacher. School administrators threatened to suspend the girl, citing the school's "zero tolerance" guidelines for sexual harassment.

--In Cobb County, Ga., a sixth-grader was suspended last year because the ten-inch key chain on ...

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