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Given the international legal prohibition on corporal punishment, and the accelerating rate of bans on the practice in public schools in the US and abroad, corporal punishment should be abolished immediately in the US. Children like Tim L., the 10-year-old Texas boy who was beaten and bruised twice in the first two weeks of the fifth grade, suffer the consequences of this abusive practice on a daily basis. Corporal punishment can violate children’s rights to freedom from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, to education, and to freedom from physical violence. Furthermore, it contributes to a hostile school environment in which students struggle to learn. Tim and his peers deserve better: they deserve a school environment in which they can learn, grow, and reach their full potential.
Not only is corporal punishment abusive, it is ineffective. Students, teachers, and parents alike share the goal of orderly, disciplined classrooms in which students can learn. Yet corporal punishment fails to produce such an environment. By responding violently to misbehavior, by degrading and humiliating students, and by injuring them physically and psychologically, those administering corporal punishment damage the educational environment. Students may withdraw, fearful to express their ideas; they may react with aggression to their peers and to teachers; or they may disengage from school altogether and ultimately drop out.
Corporal punishment disproportionately affects minority students, making it harder for students of color to achieve their educational goals. The practice is also used disproportionately against special education students, the very students who are in need of special care and guidance in the public school system. When parents try to defend their children’s rights, whether those students are minority students, special education students, or any other students, they face serious opposition from school districts, police, the justice system, and their communities.
This discriminatory, abusive, and ineffective practice should be abolished in US schools. It is past time for Mississippi, Texas, and other US states to ban corporal punishment and provide adequate protection and a decent education for all students.
- Enact legislation explicitly banning the use of corporal punishment in public schools. Such legislation should clarify the fact that while teachers in many respects have the same authority as parents over students in their charge, this authority does not extend to any right to use corporal punishment. There must be no exceptions for “reasonable” force or corporal punishment “to maintain discipline.”
- Repeal or modify existing legislation that grants educators who use corporal punishment immunity from civil lawsuits or criminal prosecution. Any child who is punitively struck in school by an educator should be able to seek redress. Children must receive at least the same level of protection afforded by assault laws as adults.
- Until a complete ban is adopted, state legislatures, governors, and boards of education should require school districts to respect parents’ wishes not to have their children beaten by school officials, at a minimum by establishing an “opt-in” scheme requiring parents affirmatively to agree before their child could be subjected to this practice.
- Until a full ban is adopted, provide parents with the right to seek redress against school districts and educators who use corporal punishment in violation of their preferences. This redress could be facilitated by creation of an administrative ombudsman, charged with overseeing compliance with state and local regulations on corporal punishment. Redress should always include access to legal remedies.
- Enact legislation requiring school boards to incorporate positive behavior support (PBS) systems into individual school district discipline policies and codes of conduct. Require school boards to revise their discipline policies regularly, and to base those discipline policies on methodologically sound studies proving the efficacy of the disciplinary methods chosen.
- Increase funding for additional behavior analysts and counseling staff to ensure that special education students are treated appropriately, particularly on discipline issues.
- Propose and support the enactment of state legislation that ends the practice of corporal punishment in public schools. Issue clear directives to all educators that corporal punishment and all other forms of cruel or degrading punishment should not be used in public schools.
- Until such a ban is enacted, establish adequate complaint and redress procedures (accessible to parents and children) for children who are beaten severely or inappropriately (including consideration of their age or special education status), or who are beaten in violation of expressed parental preferences.
- Until a ban on corporal punishment is in place, enact clear standards for teachers, principals, and other professional educators that provide for sanctions, dismissal, or other disciplinary action if those working with children violate school district procedures for corporal punishment, or, once a ban has been passed, continue to paddle children.
- Until a ban is enacted, implement a statistical review system that tracks every instance of corporal punishment. Authorities should be required to record each instance, taking data on the race, gender, and special education status of the students and paddlers, and the type of infraction for which corporal punishment was administered.
- Ensure that state agencies charged with overseeing child welfare investigate school-based corporal punishment complaints as thoroughly as they investigate other child abuse complaints and take appropriate action to prevent child abuse in schools.
- Conduct comprehensive and sustained awareness-raising campaigns among parents, teachers, and others concerned with children’s education on the dangers of corporal punishment in schools.
- Conduct comprehensive and sustained awareness-raising campaigns among children of their rights not to be disciplined physically, including appropriate programs according to the age of the child.
- Treat corporal punishment complaints as any other assault complaint. Take statements from victims of corporal punishment without requiring those individuals first to appear before the school board or superintendent.
- Remove obstacles that prevent victims of corporal punishment from pursuing their cases in court. Once defenses, justifications, and authorizations of corporal punishment have been abolished by state legislation, assault laws must apply equally to children and to adults.
- Propose and urge Congress to enact legislation abolishing the use of corporal punishment in US schools.
- Submit the Convention on the Rights of the Child to the US Senate for its consent to ratification without reservation.
To the United States Congress
- Prohibit the use of corporal punishment against all students in US public schools.
- Until that point, immediately prohibit the use of corporal punishment against special education students in public schools (as defined by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and/or Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973).
- Until a full ban on corporal punishment is enacted, withhold discretionary educational funding from school districts that use corporal punishment.
- Support measures to improve school discipline through the implementation of positive behavior and restorative justice methods, such as those discussed in the Positive Behavior for Effective Schools Act (H.R. 3407, S. 2111).
- Increase funding to states and to school districts that choose to end the use of corporal punishment and use positive behavioral interventions instead, so that principals and teachers can be trained on effective methods of creating school discipline plans.
- Increase funding to states to fund additional behavior analysts and counseling staff to improve the delivery of appropriate discipline to special education students.
- (To the Senate): ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child without reservation.
To the US Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights
- Pursue sanctions, mediation, or other measures to end the discriminatory use of corporal punishment in public schools. If unsuccessful, refer the issue to the Department of Justice for litigation.
- Revise and expand the collection of school discipline data with a particular focus on corporal punishment. Data should be collected by incident as well as by pupil punished per year. Data should also be collected on the underlying infraction that leads to corporal punishment.
- Conduct comprehensive and sustained awareness-raising campaigns among school districts, administrators, and others concerned with children’s education on the dangers of corporal punishment in schools.
- Conduct comprehensive and sustained awareness-raising campaigns among children on their right not to be disciplined physically, including appropriate programs according to the age of the child.
- Revise discipline policies to prohibit corporal punishment in all schools and classes under their control.
- Institute alternative discipline systems such as positive behavior support (PBS) systems to deal with discipline problems in a non-violent, effective manner and construct a school environment in which students can thrive.
- Provide educators with extensive training on effective classroom management techniques and positive school discipline techniques. Provide new teachers with adequate resources for learning to manage classrooms, and appropriate support for helping to reach particularly disruptive students.
- Better utilize professionally conducted behavioral assessments for special education students so that they receive the disciplinary support they need before teachers resort to corporal punishment. Ensure that those assessments include classroom observation to determine why misbehavior is occurring, and what individualized, positive interventions should be incorporated into the student’s plan to provide effective incentives for appropriate conduct.
- Until a complete ban on corporal punishment has been instituted, provide adequate mechanisms for parents who do not want their children to be subjected to corporal punishment. Establish an “opt-in” scheme requiring parents affirmatively to agree before their child is subjected to this practice. Ensure that such mechanisms include practicable methods for parents to file complaints and seek redress should children be paddled in violation of the parents’ expressed preferences.
- Until a complete ban on corporal punishment has been instituted, establish an immediate moratorium on corporal punishment for special education students, in light of their particular vulnerability and the potential for serious physical or psychological injury.
- Until corporal punishment has been banned, institute a regular statistical review process to ensure that minorities do not receive corporal punishment at disproportionate rates.
- Conduct comprehensive and sustained awareness-raising campaigns among parents, teachers, and others concerned with children’s education on the dangers of corporal punishment in schools.
(including Teach for America)
- Provide new teachers with extensive training on appropriate discipline techniques, including positive behavior models. Include a component underscoring the fact that corporal punishment is prohibited by international law.
- If teachers will likely be placed in districts that use corporal punishment, give teachers extensive resources for managing particularly disruptive students, so that they do not have to send those students out of the classroom to receive corporal punishment.
(such as the National Education Association, the National Association for State Boards of Education, and the National Parent Teachers Association)
- Establish or strengthen policies that support the prohibition of corporal punishment, and conduct active advocacy campaigns to end the practice.
- Develop codes of conduct for members that refer to the legal prohibition of corporal punishment and promote positive, non-violent school discipline.
- Conduct comprehensive and sustained awareness-raising campaigns among parents, teachers, and others concerned with children’s education on the dangers of corporal punishment in schools.
- Promote positive, non-violent forms of school discipline by members and their constituencies.
- Make the prohibition of corporal punishment a condition for grants, awards, and other funding and support.
- Provide funding for additional academic research on the effects of school-based corporal punishment.
- Conduct comprehensive and sustained awareness-raising campaigns among parents, teachers, and others concerned with children’s education on the dangers of corporal punishment in schools.
- Conduct comprehensive and sustained awareness-raising campaigns among children on their right not to be disciplined physically, including appropriate programs according to the age of the child.
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