Congresswoman Proposes Ban on Corporal Punishment in U.S. Schools as Some Schools Move to Reinstate It

[candlegal]

(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday introduced a bill to end corporal punishment in all public and private schools that receive federal funding or services. But at least two school districts, one in Tennessee and one in Texas, want to reinstate corporal punishment on campuses described by one city councilman as “war zones.”

“Twenty states still permit corporal punishment in public schools and studies indicate that this type of discipline has a negative effect on students,” McCarthy said in a statement released at a Capitol Hill press conference.

“This legislation (the “Ending Corporal Punishment in Schools Act”) amends the General Education Provisions Act so that no funds for programs administered by the Department of Education shall be made available to any educational agency or institution that has a policy or practice which allows school personnel to inflict corporal punishment on a student.”
 
But in at least two states the legislation may not find support.
 
The city schools in Memphis, Tenn., banned corporal punishment five years ago. But School Board Commissioner Kenneth Whalum has introduced a resolution to bring the practice back.
 
“Teachers, for several years now, have been increasingly agitated by the lack of classroom discipline,” Whalum told Fox News last week. “It’s out of hand, man.”
 
The teachers, “they are being abused,” Whalum said. “Teachers have been hospitalized after getting attacked by middle schoolers. It’s a war zone.”
 
In Temple, Texas, where corporal punishment was banned in schools, the practice was brought back last May after parents demanded it and the school board voted unanimously to do so.
 
“There were no consequences for kids,” Steve Wright, who runs a construction business and is Temple’s school board president, was quoted as saying by The Washington Post on April 16.

Wright said only one student had been paddled so far, but that the city’s 14 schools have improved dramatically.
 
“The discipline problem is much better than it’s been in years,” Wright said.
 
Corporal punishment is still legal in 20 states, including Tennessee and Texas. Efforts to ban the practice have been ongoing, including campaigns organized by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
 
The ACLU spearheaded efforts in support of McCarthy’s legislation to ban corporal punishment, which the ACLU’s legislative counsel, Deborah Vagins, called an “arcane practice.”
 
“It is stunning to think children in some states receive greater protections against physical discipline in detention facilities than they do in classrooms,” Vagins said at Tuesday’s press conference.
 
McCarthy cited data she said was gathered by the U.S. Department of Education that shows that minority and disabled children are disproportionately punished.
 
A spokesman in the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education told CNSNews.com that the data are an estimate based on a survey of 6,000 schools for the 2005-2006 school year.
 
The numbers show that of the estimated 223,190 students who received corporal punishment, 53.47 percent, or 119,339 were caucasian students. An estimated 79,613 (or 35.67 percent) were black students, and 18,617 (or 8.34 percent) were Hispanic.
 
McCarthy’s bill would also establish a grant program for “school-wide positive behavior supports,” which “use an evidence-based approach to school discipline which allows schools to pro-actively target potentially problematic behavior and develop approaches that can improve school climate and academic outcomes by reducing school discipline referrals,” according to the ACLU.
 
Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) said at the press conference that corporal punishment is a civil rights issue.
 
“The fact that schools are applying school discipline policies in a discriminatory manner based on race, color, national origin, disability, or gender constitutes a civil rights violation and is wrong,” Scott said.

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=68734

[fnpdocgrrl]

Oh....I might get myself in a heap of shit with this one....but I think corporal punishment should be reinstated.

Not to be given out willy-nilly either....and the parents should be in approval of it also.

But...seriously....just talk to any teacher you know.....it might open your eyes.