Data Raise Troubling Questions about Corporal Punishment in North Carolina Public Schools, Home in Henderson

February 2012

Post Author

(Raleigh, N.C.)-A report examining the Department of Public Instruction’s inaugural release of corporal punishment data highlights some uncomfortable truths about who gets hit in North Carolina’s public schools.

While local school districts have long since been required to keep records on their use of corporal punishment, recent legislative changes now require school districts to submit those data to the Department of Public Instruction for release in an annual consolidated report to the General Assembly.  The result is a first-ever detailed look at the use of corporal punishment in North Carolina.

“These data confirm that corporal punishment is administered disproportionately by  race, disability status, gender and age”, said Tom Vitaglione, Senior Fellow at the statewide child well-being research and advocacy group, Action for Children North Carolina, and the report’s author. “While the data themselves are not proof of bias, they certainly beg for more study to be done. After all, we are talking about public employees hitting children.”

During the 2010-2011 school year, American Indian students, who account for less than two percent of the student population statewide, received more than one-third of all corporal punishment in North Carolina public schools.  Virtually all of that disparity was driven by the disproportionate use of corporal punishment in just one school district, Robeson County, where American Indian students comprise 48 percent of the student enrollment, but receive 81 percent of the corporal punishment.

Just one year after parents of students with disabilities received the opportunity to opt their children out of the use of corporal punishment, the data show more than one in every five uses of corporal punishment in North Carolina was applied to a student with disabilities.  While it is unclear whether districts failed to inform parents of their op-out privileges, or if parents simply chose not to exercise them, these data are a clear cause for concern. “These are perhaps our most vulnerable children”, said Vitaglione. “They deserve comfort and understanding, rather than violence.”

The use of corporal punishment in schools has been eliminated as an acceptable form of school discipline in every developed country except the United States. While every other segment of our civil society has banned the practice, including our nation’s military, jails and prisons, 19 states continue to allow corporal punishment in their public schools.

“If there is any good news it is that corporal punishment is being used less and less in our public schools,” said Vitaglione.  The report shows that only 20 of the 115 local school districts currently allow corporal punishment, and just 10 used it during the 2010-2011 school year.  Eighty-seven percent of the corporal punishment was administered in just three local districts – Robeson, Columbus and McDowell.

“Based on research and experience, more and more local districts are rejecting the use of ineffective strategies like corporal punishment as an acceptable form of school discipline in favor of effective techniques, like the Positive Behavioral Support system favored by most educators,” said Vitaglione.  “The goal now should be to extend those effective strategies to all students in our public schools.”

To date, neither the Department of Public Instruction nor the State Board of Education has taken a formal stance on the use of corporal punishment in public schools. “We have been waiting a long time for their leadership on this issue,’” said Vitaglione. “Perhaps the new data will convince them that it is finally time to act.”

Corporal Punishment in Public Schools: Some Surprises, Continuing Shame is available on the Action for Children website at:
http://www.ncchild.org/sites/default/files/2012_Corporal%20Punishment%20Update–Action%20for%20Children%20North%20Carolina.pdf.