In this article, we tackle the disadvantaging conditions of zero tolerance policies in school settings and advocate using an alternative approach--critical restorative justice through peacemaking circles--to nurture resilience and open opportunity at the school level. In the process, this article builds on theory and qualitative research and…

In the current climate of high stakes testing and tough love rhetoric, many educational stakeholders have become increasingly reliant on standardized test scores to determine whether or not individual students, teachers, and schools--and even entire districts and states--are successful. In contrast to the black and white picture that test-driven…

American public school education was founded, in large measure, on the ideals of Horace Mann's leadership of Massachusetts schools in the 1800s. Later in that same century, private schools began to emerge and serve those disaffected with Mann's "common schools," and tension between publicly funded and privately paid education arose. This…