Spanking in School
Nineteen US states still allow public school staff to strike students with wooden boards. These states are: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming. This happens even in schools with zero-tolerance policies for violence. Each year, at least 166,000 children are struck by public school faculty. This number increases when students attending private schools are considered.​
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For information on each state's laws on school corporal punishment, please click here.
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12 Things to Know About Corporal Punishment in U.S. Public Schools
1.Only 2 of the 24 major industrialized countries still allow school corporal punishment. The U.S. is one of them.
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2. Corporal punishment is still legal in public schools in 19 U.S. states.
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3. School corporal punishment is typically administered with a wooden paddle two feet long, four inches wide, and half an inch thick.
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4. In the 2011-2012 school year, a total of 163,333 children, from preschool through 12th grade, were subjected to corporal punishment in their public schools.
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5. Boys, Black students, and students with disabilities are disproportionately corporally punished.
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6. Ironically, the most common reasons for school corporal punishment are fighting, aggression, and disruptive behavior.
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7. The majority of Americans (77%) oppose school corporal punishment.
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8. Many professional organizations oppose school corporal punishment
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9. States that have banned school corporal punishment have not seen an increase in juvenile crime.
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10. Where school corporal punishment is legal, teachers are allowed to use a level of violence that would be considered physical abuse if done by a parent.
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11. There are many effective ways of teaching students of all ages without ever hitting them.
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12. Children are the only US citizens who can be legally hit.
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The Board Of Education. A Documentary About Corporal Punishment In US Public Schools:
Donald E. Greydanus, MD, Pediatrics Program Director at the Kalamazoo Center for Medical Studies, testifies at a hearing about Corporal Punishment in Schools and its Effect on Academic Success:
Well-informed Mississippi student activists petition their school board with intelligent and emotional words to end school paddling in their district: