Two University of Florida researchers say
that allows schools to spank or paddle misbehaving students. Twenty-six of the state's 67 districts allow corporal punishment.
UF education professors Joseph Gagnon and Brianna Kennedy-Lewis culled discipline data, interviewed school leaders who use corporal punishment and surveyed administrators at high-poverty schools about what they do to discipline students.
Data shows paddlings aren鈥檛 doled out evenly. And research says corporal punishment doesn鈥檛 change student behavior.
But Gagnon says schools can鈥檛 eliminate corporal punishment in order to use other punishments that keep students out of class.
"We can鈥檛 just say, 'Let鈥檚 get rid of corporal punishment and replace it,'" he says, "and start suspending these kids even more because that鈥檚 not effective either."
Two in five Florida school districts paddled students during the 2010-2011 school year. Males are more likely to be paddled than females. Black and Hispanic students were more likely to be disciplined but were not more likely to be paddled than their classmates.
The report was sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which opposes corporal punishment. Gagnon says he opposed corporal punishment before beginning the study, but that the data also supports his position.
