As reported in the Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/corporal-punishment_us_58337528e4b030997bc0efad) , an open letter targeting corporal punishment in schools was recently sent to local and state educational agencies and policymakers by the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC). The organization, along with a host of other organizations and individuals, urged local, state, and federal policymakers "to address the damaging use of corporal punishment against our nation’s schoolchildren." The letter further made the claim that "it [was] important to eliminate the use of corporal punishment in both public schools and private schools, which serve students receiving federal services, as well as assist in creating a safer learning environment for every child."
This letter, following a November 2016 effort by the Obama administration to end corporal punishment, is no doubt the opening round of yet another attempt to deconstruct a traditional institution using federal law as a bludgeon.
Schools exercise their authority based on the power that is given by local school boards and state and federal legislative bodies, as well as the authority provided by parents. Nineteen states, including North Carolina, have provided express legislative approval for corporal punishment in schools. Even where the legislature has specifically authorized a school to administer corporal punishment, a number of school administrators ultimately give parents the opportunity to "opt out" of in-school corporal punishment by submitting a letter or signing a form to that effect, an option not always exercised by parents. Despite this authority, the use of corporal punishment in schools has declined nationally with 109,000 students being subjected to corporal punishment in public schools in the 2013-14 school year, a 67% decrease from 2011-2012. —down from 163,333 in the 2011-12 school year.
So what accounts for the sudden interest in banning corporal punishment when it seems that in a few short years, the practice might be eliminated through disuse on its own? The answer can be found in the NWLC letter where corporal punishment is singled out as allegedly affecting "minor offenders" who disproportionately tend to be "[b]lack children" and the "disabled". The significance of both of these identifications is notable where no mention is made of the number of Caucasian students, or students of any particularized ethnicity who are affected by corporal punishment. This suggests strongly that the National Women's Law Center and the Obama Administration are attempting to develop a class of affected persons who are the subject of discrimination in violation of the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Once such a class is developed, litigation and possible criminalization suddenly become a real possibility.
To draw such a conclusion is hardly an exercise in fear mongering. To the contrary, the evidence for such motives is poorly disguised when the language used in the NWLC letter makes corporal punishment analogous to animal cruelty. Moreover, the NWLC goes to lengths to discredit corporal punishment, stating that "h]arsh physical punishments do not improve students’ in-school behavior or academic performance" and citing one unnamed study which allegedly found that ". . .schools in states where corporal punishment is used perform worse on national academic assessments than schools in states that prohibit corporal punishment." Rather than engage in a mere academic debate, the evidence is clear that neither the President of the United States nor the National Women's Law Center are open to the idea that corporal punishment should be allowed in schools under any circumstance and that both are prepared to take whatever measures are available to bring about corporal punishment's demise.
If corporal punishment should not be allowed in schools under any circumstances, if it becomes the source of litigation and criminalization, how long will it be before corporal punishment in the home itself becomes litigated and eventually criminalized? According to the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment, 51 sovereign states have already banned the practice. http://www.endcorporalpunishment.org/progress/prohibiting-states/). Noteworthy is the fact that the ban doesn't just stop with corporal punishment in schools but extends to the home as well. While the momentum for such total bans on corporal punishment has waned in recent years, even in 2016 there were three new sovereign states who banned the practice entirely. The possibility for forward momentum in the United States is not altogether out of the question.
But why not ban corporal punishment, at least in schools? After all, corporal punishment has been soundly indicted by such luminaries of the ancient world as Martial, Quintillian and Plutarch, who railed against the trauma such practices inflict upon children. The 16th Century political philosopher John Locke also condemned the practice in education where it held a central role in English society. Moreover, as the NWLC letter states, there are a host of pediatric, mental health and human rights organizations that also view the practice as barbaric and contrary to children's rights. Surely such authority should carry some weight, shouldn't it?
One of the best answers is to be found in the fact that schools, like other social institutions, are effective only to the extent that discipline, as a form of social justice, can be maintained and the overriding mission of the institution can be accomplished. Without discipline enforced through the potential or practice of corporal punishment, the mission of the school to effectively educate all students is seriously compromised. The importance of discipline begins with Plato who in his Republic defines justice as it exists in the polis as that where each part has and does that which is assigned to it and where each person gives "every man his due.” Justice in the classroom is no different: the teacher must discharge his responsibility in a manner which respects and appreciates the roles of the student which in turn requires them to respect and appreciate the role of the teacher. Corporal punishment, when administered in the spirit of justice, with all the moderation that Plato would require, aids in the maintenance of justice in the classroom which enhances the potential for education to be received by the group as a whole.
The condemnation of Quintillian, of Plutarch, of Locke, though critical of the effectiveness of corporal punishment as a tool to maintain discipline, nevertheless did not question the very idea that discipline was an essential requirement of an educational setting. Rather, their criticism was aimed at irradicating injustice--excessive cruelty and shame that was commonly inflicted upon students in violation of the teacher's proper roll. But as Grotius or Hobbes would remind us, the use of force is a necessary tool in a world where others would transgress justice for their own advantage.
Maintaining discipline in an academic setting is far from easy, as any teacher of children will tell you. Moreover, polite persuasion, whatever its many virtues, at times remains ineffective against the recalcitrant student whose parents often overlook or excuse misbehavior as either not being their problem or the fault of the teacher. With such a child, even the threat of suspension is of no consequence, since in large part it gives the recalcitrant student exactly what he wants-to be free of the school setting for a time if not once and for all. Where compulsory education makes suspension at best an ineffective tool against the misbehavior and misadventures of a recalcitrant student, stronger measures are required which can only be realized through corporal punishment. Without the availability of corporal punishment as a last-resort-tool for the educator (among a number of other tools that should be deployed first) the minority of students, who are misbehaving and disrupting the classroom, act as a tyrant over the majority, depriving the majority of a disciplined classroom and the educational opportunity that comes with it. For this reason, corporal punishment, in a form that respects and appreciates the student and works toward the ultimate goal of justice, must be preserved no matter what the individual consequences that might accrue to the disciplined individual. The good of the whole more than adequately trumps the right of the individual when the individual comes to the table of justice with unclean hands. Forceful but appropriate correction of a child will not cause the child to die but may very well deliver the child and his classmates from a Hobbesian educational hell that proper public policy could have prevented.
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