User:Mariavalderrama/sandbox

Improvement proposal: School corporal punishment in the United States

Our proposed structure is to organize this page around the following sections:

1. Introduction

2. History of CP in U.S. schools (New)

3. Current stance in public/private schools (minor changes in format - were done directly in the Wikipedia page)

4. Prevalence and Disparities of use of CP based on gender, race, etc. (Improved)

5. Discussion (Impacts, American opinion) (New)

In italic format are past Wikipedia users' contributions.

Prevalence and Disparities of use of Corporal Punishment in Schools

The prevalence of school corporal punishment shows a decreasing trend since the 1970s, declining from 4% of the total number of children in schools in 1978 to 0.5% in 2015, this reduction is explained by the increasing number of states banning corporal punishment from public schools between 1974 and 1994 .

During the 2011-2012 academic year, 19 states in the southeastern United States legally allowed school corporal punishment. Around 14 percent of the total schools in those 19 states reported the use of corporal punishment, and 1 in 8 students attended schools that use this practice. Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama reported the highest ratios, where half of its students are in schools that uses corporal punishment, whereas for 9 of the 19 states, less than 4% of its students attend to those schools. At a district level, 59 percent of the districts in these 19 states did not report the use of any corporal punishment in the 2011-2012 academic year. Notwithstanding, 7 percent of all students in Mississippi are corporeally punished (32,157 students), 4 percent in Alabama and Arkansas, and the remaining less than 1 percent of their students. In total, 1 in every 14 children (163,333 students) were subject of corporal punishment in the school year .

The use of corporal punishment in schools is not proportionally among students, it varies by race or ethnicity, gender and disability status. One study shows that children who are Black, boys or with disabilities have a greater tendency to being subject of corporal punishment in schools .

By race or ethnicity

Data of the 2011-2012 academic year showed that Black children in Alabama and Mississippi are over 5 times more likely to be discipline with corporal punishment than White children. On other southeastern states - Florida, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana and Tennessee- Black children are more than 3 times more likely to received corporal punishment than White children . According to the data, African-American students make up about 16% of all public school students but 35% of those receiving corporal punishment. According to the Washington Post, this has resulted in corporal punishment becoming a routine occurrence in some majority-Black school districts . Overall, a student is hit in a U.S. public school an average of once every 30 seconds .

This figures cannot being explained by a higher propensity of Black children attending schools that use corporal punishment nor by being a minority in those schools, since White children are more likely than Black children to attend to those schools and the rate of corporal punishment for Black children did not change between majority Black schools and majority non-Black schools.

Previous statistics showed that Black and Hispanic students were more likely to be paddled than White students; however, a study in Kentucky found that minority students were disproportionately targeted by discipline policies generally, not only corporal punishment . This disparities by race in the use of corporal punishment in schools goes in line with findings of other methods of discipline, where Black children are 2 to 3 times more likely than White children to be suspended or expelled of schools, however there is no evidence that can attribute this imbalance to socioeconomic status nor racial/ethnic differences in misbehavior.

One study found that African-American students were more likely than either White or Hispanic students to be physically punished, by 2.5 times and 6.5 times respectively .

By gender

Boys are more likely than girls from suffering corporal punishment in schools. In 1992, boys accounted for 81 percent of all incidents of physical discipline in schools . By 2012, the disparities persist, the majority of school districts within states that legally allow corporal punishment registered a ratio of 3:1 or higher, indicating that boys are 3 times more likely than girls of being subject of corporal punishment in schools. Differences in misbehavior can explain a fraction of this imbalance, but not all of the difference. Boys have been found to be two times as likely as girls to be discipline, but there are four times as likely to be corporally punished . When is considered race and gender, Black boys were 16 times as likely to be subject of corporal punishment as white girls . Among children with disabilities, black boys have the highest probability of being subject to corporal punishment, followed by White boys, Black girls and White girls. Black boys are 1.8 times as likely as White boys to be corporally punished, and Black girls are 3 times more likely than White girls .

By disability status

According to a report jointly authored by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union, the United States Department of Education's Civil Rights Data Collection for 2006 shows that students with disabilities are subjected to corporal punishment at disproportionately high rates for their share of the population . Representative Carolyn McCarthy remarked in a 2010 congressional hearing that students with disabilities are subjected to corporal punishment at "approximately twice the rate of the general student population in some States".

Children with disabilities are 50 percent more likely to experience school corporal punishment in more than 30% of the school districts in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. However, in some school districts among Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee children with disability status are 5 times more likely to be subject of corporal punishment than peers without disabilities.

Discussion

Effects of School Corporal Punishment on Children

The use of corporal punishment in schools has been shown to be associated with detrimental physical and psychological outcomes that can have long-lasting effects. Children exposed to school corporal punishment are more likely to have conduct disorder problems, to experience feelings of inadequacy and resentment, to be more aggressive and violent, and to perceived a reduction of problem-solving ability, social competence and academic achievement .

Researchers have found a negative correlation between legality of corporal punishment and test scores, students in states that allow disciplinary paddling are exceed by their un-spanked peers on the ACT test . In 2010, 75 percent of states that allow corporal punishment in schools scored below average on the ACT composite, while three-quarters of non-paddling states scored above the national average. Improvement trend among the years also differ, in the last 18 years 66 percent non-paddling states have above average rates of improvement, while 50 percent of spanking states were above the national trend of improvement.

Studies have suggested that corporal punishment in schools can deter children's cognitive development, children subject to corporal punishment in schools have a more restricted vocabulary, poorer school marks, and lower IQ scores .

Disparities in the use of corporal punishment among gender, race and disability status can be perceived by children as discrimination. This perceived discrimination has been related with lower self-esteem, lower positive mood, higher depression and anxiety, and also with low academic engagement and more negative school behaviors, which might exacerbate the existing gap in discipline policies .

American Opinion about Corporal Punishment in schools

Public-opinion research has found that most Americans are not in favor of school corporal punishment; in polls taken in 2002 and 2005, American adults were respectively 72% and 77% opposed to the use of corporal punishment by teachers . Moreover, a national survey conducted on teachers ranked corporal punishment as the lowest effective method to discipline offenders among the 8 possible techniques .

A bill to end the use of corporal punishment in schools was introduced into the United States House of Representatives in June 2010 during the 111th Congress. The bill, H.R. 5628, was referred to the United States House Committee on Education and Labor where it was not brought up for a vote. A previous bill "to deny funds to educational programs that allow corporal punishment" was introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives in 1991 by Representative Major Owens. That bill, H.R. 1522, did not become law. A new bill, the Ending Corporal Punishment in Schools Act of 2015 (HR 2268) would prohibit all corporal punishment, defined as “paddling, spanking, or other forms of physical punishment, however light, imposed upon a student”, the petition was closed. In 2017, Ending Corporal Punishment in Schools Act of 2017 was introduced, and was referred to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

The United States' National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) opposes the use of corporal punishment in schools, defined as the deliberate infliction of pain in response to students' unacceptable behavior and/or language. In articulating their opposition, they cite the disproportionate use of corporal punishment on Black students in the US: potential adverse effects on students' self-image and school achievement, correlation between school corporal punishment and increased truancy, drop-out rates, violence, and vandalism by youth, the potential for misuse and/or injury to students, and increased legal liability for schools. The NASSP notes that the use of corporal punishment in schools is inconsistent with laws regarding child abuse as well as policies toward "racial, economic, and gender equity", asserting that "Fear of pain or embarrassment has no place" in the process of education. The NASSP recommends a range of alternatives to corporal punishment, including "appropriate instruction", "behavioral contracts", "positive reinforcement", and "individual and group counseling" where necessary .