New York City attorney and Common Good organization founder Philip K. Howard has once again taken on our litigious society, this time devoting a chapter to what happens in schools when regulations replace shared values.

In a chapter from his new book, Life Without Lawyers, Howard asserts that school districts' preference for bureaucratic solutions has crushed educators' ability to create the strong cultures that help people solve problems as they arise.

Take disciplining disruptive students. Howard describes lots of classroom mayhem, including students whalloping teachers, that, he argues, cannot be controlled because of extensive due process rules. In school districts like New York City, where a 210-page booklet outlines procedures for student discipline, offenses just end up going unpunished because no one wants to deal with the paperwork. On the other hand, zero-tolerance policies result in the punishment of innocent students -- like the poor kid who brought a plastic knife to a school with a "no knives" rule -- because teachers are forced to follow the written law instead of their own common sense.

Howard contrasts many regular inner-city public schools with their charter and parochial counterparts, where disorder is not endemic. The difference, he says, is the authority of the schools to govern themselves and enforce their values instead of being bossed by an outside bureaucracy that is trying to juggle the conflicting interests of politicians, parents and unions.

The solution Howard seeks is a system where teachers are able to promptly discipline misbehaving students before disorder breeds disorder and valuable class time is lost. Like Al Shanker before him, he suggests removing perpetually troubled students from classrooms and finding a better situation for them. And if there's unfairness? He advocates the creation of a committee of school citizens with the power to investigate and overturn punishments.