Child Beatings in Early Ed Classrooms

A recent report from Human Rights Watch documents the extent to which corporal punishment is still employed in America's classrooms. According to the report, twenty-one states, many in the South, still allow corporal punishment -- especially paddling -- in schools. The report identified more than 223,000 reported cases of corporal punishment across the United States in the 2006-07 school year and estimates that thousands more did not go reported. Boys and African American students were most likely to receive corporal punishment.

What is really shocking to us at Early Ed Watch is that many of the children interviewed by Human Rights Watch--some as young as nine years old--reported the use of corporal punishment beginning in pre-kindergarten. Regardless of one's views on the use of corporal punishment in the home, there are serious problems with the use of corporal punishment in schools, and it is unconscionable that some schools allow paddling of children as young as three or four.

The corporal punishment documented in the HRW report can inflict not only significant and sometimes permanent physical injury, it can also have a negative psychological and academic effects. Corporal punishment strains trust and encouragement in student-teacher relationships, which are of particular importance during the early years. Even for students who do not receive such punishment, it intentionally creates a climate of fear and distraction. Corporal punishment also forces young children to make decisions they should never have to make, such as should I take a beating or forfeit my recess? (Many choose a beating).

This report should be a wake-up call to those who think that school violence can only be perpetrated by students. It also underscores two important issues in early education:

Teacher Certification - Many teachers in organized childcare or preschool programs do not have a college degree or training in early childhood education. Reports of child neglect, injury and death are more likely to occur in low-quality programs that do not have fully qualified teachers. Qualified early childhood educators should have a strong understanding of child safety and child development, which would presumably enable them to understand why it's not a good idea to hit a child with a stick.

Continuous Assessment - Most existing measures of quality in early childhood programs include structural indicators: class size, teacher degree, and safety of facilities and equipment. These are all important but as we have mentioned before, procedural measures of quality, namely student-teacher interactions, need attention too. Validated observational models can also provide teachers feedback and support to improve their classroom practice and classroom management skills, giving them better alternatives than violence to deal with challenging pupils.

Policymakers need to be very attentive to reports such as this one and remain constantly vigilant that K-12 and early education regulations are doing everything they can to make classrooms safe and nurturing environments for young students.