Gov. Ted Strickland hopes to end the practice of physically punishing students in Ohio public schools with a new ban.
The measure is included in his comprehensive educational reform plan, announced with the state budget Feb. 2.
Amanda Wurst, spokesperson for the governor, said the governor feels physically punishing students is not a good way to prepare them for being members of society.
"The governor wants Ohio students to be able to compete in a 21st century global economy," Wurst said. "He does not believe that corporal punishment has a place in the 21st century classroom."
Physical punishment has already been abandoned by nearly all of Ohio's 613 school districts. According to Scott Blake, spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Education, only nine school districts and three community schools reported using corporal punishment during the 2007-08 school year.
The Western Local school district in Latham, Ohio still practices physical punishment. Nine students were paddled a total of 11 times in the district last year-all in the high school, all by the high school principal Brock Brewster. Western Elementary School principal, Beth Alexander, who worked in the district as a teacher for 14 years, refuses to paddle her students.
Western Superintendent Terry Leeth could not say exactly what the paddlings in her district entailed, because she says she has never actually gone to watch one being carried out.
Nevertheless, Leeth defends the practice. She said she was paddled as a youngster and doesn't see paddling as harmful to students. Leeth believes that schools have turned against paddling because of social stigmas.
"Nobody wants to be the one hanging onto it when there is a stigma against it that society has put there," Leeth said.
Talawanda Superintendent Phil Cagwin sees things differently.
"I don't believe that in public education we should use the message that physical force is an appropriate way to shape behavior," Cagwin said. "We must provide logical consequences for our students' actions without physical violence being a veiled or even an overt threat."
According to Cagwin, physical punishment ended at Talawanda years before he started working there.
According to Thomas Southern, Miami university professor of educational psychology, research has overwhelmingly shown physical punishment to be an ineffective way to manage behavior.
"Education has come to the conclusion that there are better technologies for managing behavior ... physical punishment doesn't seem to work," Southern said.
Southern said that physical punishment can have long-lasting, negative effects on students subjected to it.
"You change the relationship between the student and the school when you use physical punishment, and I'm not sure that's something we had ought to do," Southern said. "School isn't the place for physical punishment."
According to Nadine Block, executive director of the Columbus-based Center for Effective Discipline, physical punishment is used harmfully and disproportionately on poor, minority and disabled students. She explains attitudes such as Leeth's as generational.
"Older people who lived through it seem to excuse it more than young people," Block said.
Block said that students have a right not to be hit.
"You can't hit your neighbor or employees, the dean can't pull you into his office and whack you with a paddle," Block said. "Don't children deserve that right?"
