Study finds corporal punishment meted out unevenly
According to the Associated Press, a joint study by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union, using U.S. Department of Education data, has found that while paddling of students has been declining, racial disparity persists where it still is used. Researchers also interviewed students, parents, and school personnel in Texas and Mississippi, states that account for 40% of the 223,190 kids who were paddled at least once in the 2006-07 school year. Parents generally can opt out of allowing their children to be paddled, but the many parents that opt-out forms are ignored, the study found. Widespread paddling can make it unlikely that forms will be checked. And even if schools make a mistake, they are unlikely to face lawsuits. In places where corporal punishment is allowed, teachers and principals generally have legal immunity from assault laws, the study said. “One of the things we've seen over and over again is that parents have difficulty getting redress, if a child is paddled and severely injured, or paddled in violation of parents' wishes,” said Alice Farmer, the study's author.
Twenty-nine states have outlawed it, but corporal punishment remains widespread across the South. Behind Texas and Mississippi were Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Florida, and Missouri. African American students are more than twice as likely to be paddled. The study found the disparity persists even in places with large black populations; that Native Americans were more than twice as likely to be paddled; that in states where paddling is most common, black girls were paddled more than twice as often as white girls; that boys are three times as likely to be paddled as girls; and that special education kids were more likely to be paddled.
There is scant research on whether paddling is effective in the classroom. But many studies have shown it doesn't work at home, said Elizabeth Gershoff, a University of Michigan assistant professor of social work. “The use of corporal punishment is associated almost overwhelmingly with negative effects, and that it increases children's problem behavior over time,” she said. While some education groups haven't taken a position on the issue, the national PTA believes paddling should be banned everywhere. “We teach our children that violence is wrong, yet corporal punishment teaches children that violence is a way to solve problems,” said Jan Harp Domene, the group's president. “It perpetuates a cycle of child abuse. It teaches children to hit someone smaller and weaker when angry.”
Source: Associated Press, 8/20/08, By Libby Quaid
[Editor’s Note: The report, entitled “A Violent Education: Corporal Punishment of Children in US Public Schools,” is below. In the article at the second link, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that African-American students made up less than one-third of the population at Georgia’s Gwinnett County Schools last school year but accounted for nearly half of those facing disciplinary panels for bad behavior. James Taylor, executive director of the district’s department of academic support, is quoted as telling school board members, “While the number of panels for this group has declined, there is still a disproportionate number of minority students going before a disciplinary panel.” Citing a 2007 Chicago Tribune analysis of federal data about states and discipline, also below, Mr. Taylor told the school board that Idaho is the only state that does not seem to be having problems with racially disproportionate discipline. The next link is to a 2006 presentation on this topic made to the NSBA Council of Urban Boards of Education (CUBE) by Russell Skiba of the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy at Indiana University. Finally, an NSBA resource on the school board’s role in special education includes an article by Professor Skiba that provides a step-by-step roadmap for a school district to evaluate and address disproprotionality in special education referrals; the same process could be applied to disciplinary actions.]
Human Rights Watch/ACLU report
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 8/14/08, By D. Aileen Dodd
Chicago Tribune, 8/21/08, By Howard Witt
Skiba presentation to CUBE
NSBA Leadership Insider on special education