Don't expect quick change in corporal punishment policy

MORGANTON --

Don't expect "a knee-jerk reaction" to a child advocacy group's report this week that Burke County Public Schools paddles more children than any other North Carolina public school system.
Superintendent Dr. Art Stellar said he's already aware of Burke County schools' use of corporal punishment and ordered a report about it about two months ago.
Stellar said research shows corporal punishment generally is not effective, but he added, "That doesn't mean it's never effective for any particular student. It can be.
"Our general approach is we need to be looking at this and alternatives. We need to be proactive; we don't need to do any knee-jerk reaction."
Action for Children North Carolina, a 25-year-old child advocacy organization based in Raleigh, surveyed 46 N.C. public school districts that permit corporal punishment.
The state has 115 public school districts. Action for Children said 69 have banned paddling and 20 more have policies that permit it, but did not apply corporal punishment in 2008-09.
Among the 26 remaining districts, schools applied corporal punishment as few as one or two times to as many as 93 in McDowell County, 167 in Robeson, 296 in Nash and 325 in Burke County. Those four school districts together account for nearly two-thirds of the approximately 1,400 instances of corporal punishment in 2008-09.
Adjusted by enrollment size, Burke County's rate of corporal punishment is second in the state to Graham County's.
Action for Children North Carolina wants corporal punishment banned statewide, just as the organization says has been done in 30 other states. Its press release states, "Decades of research have uncovered no evidence that hitting students is an effective form of discipline. Not only is educational performance not improved, but there are negative effects on social and psychological development, as well as the promotion of pro-violence attitudes in youth."
The group also said, "... Based on a review of data issued by the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, there is no discernable correlation between corporal punishment and short-term suspensions, long-term suspensions or drop-outs. The practice of corporal punishment does not appear to improve student behavior or keep students in school. In fact, Nash-Rocky Mount and Robeson, two primary proponents of corporal punishment, are among the districts with the highest dropout rates."
However, according to N.C. DPI's annual consolidated report on school crime, suspensions and dropouts — a report published just six days before Action For Children's announcement — Burke County Public Schools' dropout rate is among the lowest in North Carolina.
In fact, Burke County schools in 2008-09 had the seventh-lowest dropout rate among the 115 public school districts. Its high schools' rate of reportable crimes was eighth lowest among large school districts and 43rd among all districts. And Burke County's schools have the 26th lowest rate of short-term disciplinary suspensions.
In the ongoing debate over corporal punishment, neither the N.C. State Board of Education nor the N.C. General Assembly have imposed an outright ban on the practice, instead preferring to leave the choice up to local school boards and their communities.
Stellar — who described himself as "very much a stickler for good behavior and proper discipline" — said he's worked in other school systems that moved away from using corporal punishment. They did so with a plan of action to gradually replace corporal punishment with alternative methods of discipline as well as more positive reinforcement for good behavior. And, he said, those schools enlisted the community's support.
"We spent time educating the public and parents so, over a time period, you go from wherever you are to having no corporal punishment," Stellar explained. "If you look at other districts in North Carolina, it seems as if that's what they've done. Their policies may permit corporal punishment, they just haven't done it."
And, again, he noted that Burke County schools, without any change in policy, used corporal punishment about 25 percent less frequently than they did only three years ago.
"I first became aware of this about two months ago," Stellar said. "To me the numbers sounded high, and I asked for a report going back three years. The good news is, I suppose, that the numbers have gone down by about 100 over that time. Some of that is possibly due to changes in personnel. Some tend to use it more than others."
Stellar said the job of administering corporal punishment usually falls to Burke County's school principals.
"Although the state gives teachers the authority, here, from what I've been able to determine, the principal makes the decision and the principal is the one who administers the punishment," Stellar said.