Corporal punishment still used in US schools

Between 2016 and 2021, teachers or other school staff in New York State would push, slap, hit, pinch, spank, drag, choke or grab students.

The New York Education Department issued early October a memo to school administrators across the state cautioning corporal punishment is illegal, and they must report incidents to law enforcement.

The memo was issued because an analysis showed there were 1,600 corporal punishment incidents between 2016 and 2021 that were substantiated by school officials or investigators. The analysis was based on records examined by the Times Union, a daily newspaper that focuses on Albany.

The staff member involved was either terminated, allowed to resign, suspended, or issued a warning.

Throughout the world, 135 countries prohibit corporal punishment in schools, but the US Supreme Court ruled that school corporal punishment was constitutional in 1977 and left the matter up to the state and local government.

Currently New York and 30 other states prohibit corporal punishment in public schools, but such practice is legal in both public and private schools in 19 other states, primarily in the South, including Missouri.

Cassville School District, in Missouri, had abandoned corporal punishment 20 years ago. The district, with 2,000 students, decided to reinstitute it claiming the decision was made at the urging of parents.

Superintendent Merlyn Johnson told the Springfield News-Leader in August the decision to reinstate the practice started in early 2022 based from an anonymous survey conducted by parents, students, and school employees.

"We started generating ideas on what we could do, and corporal punishment was one of the ideas," Johnson said, adding that there was more interest than expected in this "old-fashioned disciplinary measure".

The school policy states that corporal punishment will be used only when other forms of discipline have failed and with the parents' and superintendent's permission, and the only corporal punishment allowed is "swatting the buttocks'' with a wooden paddle one or more times.

"When it becomes necessary to use corporal punishment, it shall be administered so that there can be no chance of bodily injury or harm," according to the policy. "Striking a student on the head or face is not permitted."

Johnson said corporal punishment is a good alternative to suspension served in or out of school.

Experts say when parents are faced with the options between corporal punishment and suspension, many of them would choose corporal punishment because they don't want their children to miss school and fall behind academically. It is an option under pressure.

Some parents supported Cassville district's decision. Tess Walters, 54, the guardian of her 8-year-old granddaughter, told The Associated Press that she had no qualms over corporal punishment and the possibility of being spanked is a deterrent for her granddaughter, who has attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

"I've read some people's responses on Facebook recently, and they're just going over the top like, 'Oh this is abuse, and oh you're just going to threaten them with, you know, violence.' And I'm like, 'What? The child is getting spanked once; it's not beatings.' People are just going crazy. They're just being ridiculous," Walters told AP.

Corporal punishment is widely used in Mississippi, according to an investigation by The Hechinger Report, a news outlet dedicated to education. About 150 schools in eight states used corporal punishment on 20 percent or more of their students in 2017-18, and 69 of those schools were in Mississippi.

Hechinger reported that in Covington County School District, Mississippi, support for paddling is common. While the district gives parents the control by allowing them to opt their children out of corporal punishment, it is often an illusion.

The analysis found that students who shouldn't be paddled are paddled anyway because the parent letters get lost, or school officials don't check their lists. Covington County Superintendent Babette Duty said those cases are just human error.

Elizabeth Gershoff, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, has analyzed parental use of corporal punishment at home and in schools.

Her study of data from 2011–2012 school year showed that Mississippi exercised corporal punishment on 7 percent of its students, the highest in the nation. Alaska and Arkansas followed with 4 percent, and Oklahoma 2 percent. The rest of the states were at less than 1 percent.

Her study also found that black children in Alabama and Mississippi are at least 51 percent more likely to be corporally punished than white children in over half of school districts, and in some district more than five times likely.

There was a huge difference in gender, with boys accounting for about three-fourth of total corporal punishment receivers. It also found out that students with disability were 35 to 67 percent more likely to receive corporal punishment in states from Arkansans, Georgia to Alabama and Mississippi.

Gershoff told Hechinger that risk of physical injury is only part of the problem with corporal punishment on top of the emotional component. For many children, being embarrassed or intimidated by adults who have power over them feeds anger and resentment or anxiety and fear, all of which can have lasting negative consequences.

Gershoff's study found that overall, 166,000 students received corporal punishment during the 2011-2012 school year.

The analysis by Hechinger showed that during the 2017-18 school year, more than 69,000 students received corporal punishment almost 97,000 times nationwide.

"Most schools are realizing, 'You know what, we can discipline children, we can guide their behavior without hitting them,'" Gershoff told AP.