U.S. Education Secretary John King on Tuesday urged Tennessee and 21 other states to stop allowing corporal punishment in schools, a practice he called “harmful, ineffective, and often disproportionately applied to students of color and students with disabilities.”
The nation’s education chief instead advocated the use of disciplinary measures that create a positive school climate and promote nonviolent techniques for conflict resolution.
King outlined his concerns in a letter to the governors and education chiefs of states that allow disciplinary techniques such as paddling or spanking.
“… The very acts of corporal punishment that are permissible when applied to children in schools under some state laws would be prohibited as criminal assault or battery when applied to adults in the community in those very same states,” King wrote in his letter.
Corporal punishment is defined as intentionally inflicting pain to punish a child or in an attempt to change behavior. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that the practice does not violate constitutional rights. Tennessee is one of 15 states, most of which are in the South, that have policies allowing corporal punishment in public schools. Seven more indirectly allow it by not having a specific ban in place.
[For more of this story, written by Grace Tatter, go to http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts...ddling-its-students/]
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