The Missouri school district’s announcement to bring back paddling this week has caused a lot of attention and disappointment. But corporal punishment, which was suspended, perhaps because of the coronavirus pandemic in some places, has not gone away in many schools.
The practice remains legal in 19 states, mostly in the South, despite efforts to abolish it.
About 70,000 public school children were subject to corporal punishment in the 2017-18 school year, although this number has declined over the past decade. About 4,000 schools reported using corporal punishment during the grade.
Morgan Craven, national director of policy, advocacy, and community engagement for the Association for Intercultural Development Studies, which supports federal bans on corporal punishment in schools, said, It’s a really, really disturbing practice that continues.” .
The practice, defined as paddling, spanking, or any other form of physical discipline, burst into the news this week with the announcement that the school district of Cassville, a small city in southwestern Missouri, has revived paddling. According to the Springfield Newsreader.
Corporal punishment is to be used with parental permission and “only when all other means of disciplinary action have failed and with reasonable recommendation from the principal.” Superintendent Merlyn Johnson told News-Leader.
“We actually got people to thank us,” he told the newspaper. I would, but the majority of people I met were supportive.”
Dr Johnson did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.
The practice is still legal because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling more than 40 years ago.In 1977, the court ruled in Ingraham v. Wright that corporal punishment in public schools is constitutional. This meant that each state could set its own rules for corporal punishment of students.
Elizabeth T. Gershoff, a professor of human development and family sciences at the University of Texas at Austin, said it would be considered assault if an adult rowed another adult with a wooden plank.
“But when a teacher hits a little guy who happens to be a child, these states and these schools say it’s okay,” she said. It shows that we are not protecting people from violence.”
Groups such as the American Psychological Association, which has opposed corporal punishment in schools since 1975, have long argued that paddling can cause injury and trauma and is not effective in improving behavior.
On the contrary, according to the association, the more often children are subjected to corporal punishment, the more aggressive and destructive they become.
Critics also cite research showing that black students and students with disabilities are more likely than their peers to paddle in school.
Although they make up only 15% of students in U.S. public schools, black students make up 37% of those who are corporally punished in school, according to the association. Children with disabilities account for 21% of all cases of corporal punishment, despite being 17% of the student population.
In the last five years, four states—Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Tennessee—have banned schools from using corporal punishment on children with disabilities, but Oklahoma has banned corporal punishment only on students with severe disabilities. Professor Gershoff said,
Craven said it’s disturbing that some schools continue to use corporal punishment even as children struggle with more serious mental health problems, partly because of the pandemic. The Academy of Pediatrics declared child and adolescent mental health a “national emergency” in October.
“We know they need support, and we know they need specific types of support, such as counselors and teachers from a variety of backgrounds who are able to recognize trauma.” So re-traumatizing children in ways like corporal punishment is really disturbing and harmful.”
Professor Gershoff is disappointed that the Missouri area has resumed paddling, but hopes it will lead to a wider discussion of the practice.
“Most of the country thinks this was abolished a long time ago,” she said. “I am reminding many that this issue needs to be addressed. Do you think it is okay that the state is attacking our children in our name? You have to work hard.”