Color me surprised to have read that we are apparently still using corporal punishment in U.S. schools.

From the article:

About 10.5 percent of DeSoto County public school students received corporal punishment during the last school year. The schools reported 3,140 students had corporal punishment, or paddlings, in 4,993 incidences.

DeSoto County’s percentage is similar to Mississippi’s overall average of about 10 percent which is the highest in the nation.

DeSoto County’s rate is 1.5 to 4 times higher than two other state school districts in similar growth and demographic areas, Rankin and Madison counties. The highest academic performing districts last year of Booneville and Pass Christian do not administer corporal punishment. About 50 of the 152 districts in the state don’t allow paddling.

How is this not considered child abuse? What are we teaching youth who are being “paddled” at school? We are teaching them that violence is acceptable to use.

At the beginning of the school year, DeSoto County schools allow parents to choose an alternative form of punishment in place of corporal punishment.

Beginning in seventh grade, students also may choose to decline corporal punishment.

The alternative punishment is in-school suspension, in which students spend one or more school days in a special classroom apart from their regular studies.

How many parents are reading the information that is being sent home from school with their children? I don’t understand what it means that parents can choose an “alternative” to corporal punishment. Do they have to proactively “opt-out” of the practice? How does this work?

So what types of infractions can lead to corporal punishment and who is most impacted by this practice?

According to the DeSoto County schools’ code of discipline, corporal punishment can consist of no more than three licks per incident on the buttocks with an appropriate instrument approved by the principal.

A federal lawsuit filed on behalf of a Tate County high school student in federal court in Greeneville recently asks for a ban on paddling in the state, claiming the punishment is unfairly applied based on gender and race.

The plaintiff student, a 16-year old male, was paddled last fall for looking at photographs on a camera during class. The female student who brought the camera to class was not paddled.

The suit requests a preliminary injunction or temporary restraining order halting the practice as well as a declaration that corporal punishment of students is unconstitutional.

The lawsuit claims that 75 percent of students paddled in Mississippi are male, creating “a serious, gender driven crisis,” and that black students are paddled at disproportionate rates.

In DeSoto County last year, black students at 53 percent of the total number of corporal punishment incidents, were the largest population involved, followed by white students at 39 percent. White students made up 65 percent of the district’s students with black students at 28 percent, according to a Children First Annual report.

White males received 33 percent of the in-school suspensions, and black males followed at 31 percent. Males make up 79 percent of the total corporal punishment incidents.

So we find out that corporal punishment is sexist and racist too. Why is this completely unsurprising. We are beating young black males in schools and then wonder why their rates of graduation are so low…