Position Statement - Recommendation on Corporal Punishment

Recognizing that acts of violence are repugnant wherever they occur, and that societal emphasis today calls for the protection of individual human rights, and that schools should provide an environment conducive to learning and to the development of self-discipline through the democratic process; the Education Commission moved that the National PTA embark upon a program of education and information relating to the issue of corporal punishment; its usage, effectiveness, and alternatives. This program should be conducted with the cooperation of an organization, such as the National Center for the Study of Corporal Punishment and Alternatives in the Schools at Temple University, so that curriculum and bibliography for parent study groups could be developed and disseminated.

Our state congresses should be encouraged to appoint task forces, to review present law, to survey individual school districts on implementing regulations, policies, and practices, to compile information concerning the administration of corporal punishment in public schools, to conduct parent education workshops on the subject, and to reach out wherever possible to legislators and the general public with a view to finding alternative methods to the utilization of corporal punishment as a technique of behavior modification within the educational environment.

National PTA will support efforts to abolish corporal punishment and efforts to develop alternative discipline programs to provide an orderly climate for learning.