“No tolerance policy” is clearly a misnomer: what it appears to mean in practice is “self-designed trap to expose the incompetence and lack of basic fairness of school personnel. According to that definition, “no tolerance” polices are working extremely well.
For example, an Orchard, Texas third-grader at Brazos Elementary was given a week’s detention for first-degree possession a Jolly Rancher. The school’s principal and superintendent said they were simply complying with a state law that limits junk food in schools. The miscreant, Leighann Adair, 10, was eating lunch when a teacher saw the candy and confiscated it. Her punishment is that she must be separated from other students during lunch and recess for the rest of the week.
The superintendent for the Brazos Independent School District, Jack Ellis, explained that the school was only abiding by a state guideline that banned “minimal nutrition” foods. The Texas Department of Agriculture’s website, however, says specifically that the state’s nutrition policy does not restrict what foods or beverages parents may provide for their own children’s consumption. Still, while implying that he might actually recognize that to enforce the policy against a single Jolly Rancher fruit candy is, uh, logically questionable, Ellis said failing to adhere to the state’s guidelines could put the school’s federal funding in jeopardy. Can’t have that.
“Whether or not I agree with the guidelines, we have to follow the rules,” he said.
But the school doesn’t have to follow the rules like this. The state gives each school discretion over how to enforce the policy, as in “don’t enforce a policy against little kids on technical rather than real violations, because this undermines the policy’s legitimacy, makes parents justifiably angry, could make a little girl cry (she did, you know), proves that home schoolers have the right idea, shows that the competence of the public education profession is near rock bottom, and maybe worst of all, makes all those Tea Partiers who keep saying that the government is regulating too much of our lives look frighteningly correct.”
If the teacher and administrators at the school didn’t have their heads stuck so far up their rule book, they would have realized that making a little girl suffer because they don’t have the courage and integrity to ignore an absurd interpretation of a law is wrong in every way imaginable. Either they didn’t know that punishing a third grader for having a Jolly Rancher in her hand is cruel and pointless, or they knew it and did it anyway.
Either way, “No tolerance” worked again! We now have identified more school officials who cannot and must not be entrusted with children, because they either don’t know the difference between right and wrong, or don’t care enough to make the distinction.
Ethics Alarms 
Jack: I’m tempted to note that the rule book isn’t the only place these administrators have their heads stuck, but since you clearly didn’t want to go there, I should do no less.
That bit of unpleasantness out of the way, it should also be noted that you are correct: Our legislature here in Texas did indeed amend the state’s Zero Tolerance law to give administrators more latitude in determing infractions and their punishments (excuse me, consequences). Most of our administrators have looked at that latitude and…ignored it.
It’s so much easier under a Zero Tolerance/no exceptions policy, you see. No thought is required. You just cite the infraction, lay down the draconian penalties prescribed and, bingo!, another discipline case disposed of (no muss, no fuss, and no bother). If anyone protests (as often happens), they can (and do) say that, hey, our hands are tied: we’re just following the legislature’s guidelines, so blame them, if blame you must.
You have often spoken of Bizarro World ethics in other posts. It seems self-evident that Zero Tolerance policies are part and parcel of that world.