Many people, even within the USA, think corporal punishment has long disappeared from American public schools. This is not so.
It is true that the incidence of CP has declined sharply in recent years, but only 29 states (plus D.C. and Puerto Rico) have actually abolished it, either de facto or de jure. CP is still lawful in the other 21 states, and it remains a common practice in four of them, all in the South: Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee.
It is also routine, but only in a minority of (often rural or small-town) schools, in four more southern states: Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas.
The latest states to abolish were Delaware, in 2003, after an eight-year gap in which no abolitions took place at state level, and Pennsylvania, in 2005. Levels of CP had already fallen to a very low level in both states, so this was of mainly symbolic significance.
On the other hand, attempts to ban school CP by legislation have failed in 2003 in Wyoming and repeatedly in Missouri, and now also in North Carolina in 2007.
Legislative attempts to reintroduce CP in California (1996), Montana (1997), Iowa (1998) and, more ambiguously, Oregon (1999) were fairly easily defeated. So too was a 2007 bill to make it easier to spank students in Kansas.
This map appeared in the New York Times on 30 September 2006 (read the whole article here). It shows Utah as still allowing CP, but with an incidence of zero. In fact it has been banned there not by legislation but by regulation.
Statistics. According to estimates from the federal Department of Education (Office of Civil Rights), there were about 272,000 paddlings of students in the 2004-05 school year -- down from 457,754 only eight years previously. This shows that the rapid decline of the 1980s and early 1990s, which had levelled off by the middle of the 1990s, has now resumed. Total paddlings were equivalent to only 0.6% of the total US school population. However, this might be an underestimate, since anecdotal evidence suggests that some, maybe many, punishments are not properly recorded.
In percentage terms the heaviest-paddling states in 2004-05 were still Mississippi (8.1 per cent of students paddled during the year) followed by Arkansas (7.3%), though both these states' figures are gradually trending downwards year on year. Alabama comes third with 4.9% -- also in slow decline, despite that state's 1995 explicit legislative encouragement to teachers to use the paddle. In absolute terms, however, Texas with its much greater population is the "world capital of paddling": 50,489 punishments recorded, but this is down from 118,701 only eight years previously, a remarkably sharp drop, completely discrediting various anecdotal suggestions that many Texas school districts have become more enthusiastic about spanking in recent years, rather than less. This Texas figure represents about one-fifth of the US total. At the other extreme, the number of officially recorded paddlings in Idaho was 332, in Kansas 106, in Ohio 80 (surprisingly low), and in Colorado and Wyoming just one each.
All these figures, however, should be treated as approximate: they are extrapolated from only a sample of the figures for each state, and therefore suffer from what statisticians call "spurious accuracy".
Modus operandi. Corporal punishment in US schools is almost invariably applied with a wooden paddle to the student's clothed posterior. A typical punishment consists of two or three strokes, typically referred to as "swats" or "licks" or "pops". In American English the procedure is often described as "spanking", even though an implement is used.
In the past it was the norm in some schools to require the culprit to present his bottom for punishment by standing clear of any furniture and bending down as low as possible, often with feet placed well apart for stability: "Grab your ankles" was a familiar command. This had the advantage of being safe, in that it made it fairly difficult for the paddle to land anywhere other than in the right place; but it now seems to be regarded in some quarters as unacceptably demeaning, perhaps because it obliges the student actively to assume a symbolically subservient posture, or perhaps just because it makes the protruding buttocks so prominent. Even the "hands on knees" position, rather less undignified, is perhaps less favored than it once was. Nowadays it is more usual for the offender to be asked to bend over a desk or chair (pictured right) or, maybe more often still, merely to put his hands on the desk, leaning forward only a few degrees from the vertical (pictured below). "Hands on the wall" is another possible method, as illustrated in this 1970s photograph.
Where and by whom. Until recent years, CP was often administered in the classroom, or in the hall just outside it. It was also an American tradition for sports coaches to do a lot of on-the-spot paddling. While all those things still happen in some places, it is more common now for the punishment to be delivered privately in an office, often by the principal or deputy principal or at least in his or her presence. It is less likely nowadays to be done on the spur of the moment, and more likely to require formal bureaucratic procedures and specific documentation. This affords greater legal certainty, and also helps guard against the danger of angry teachers resorting to random violence.
Who gets paddled. Female as well as male students may receive CP. In practice, however, statistics consistently suggest that around 75% to 85% of paddlings are of boys. There are no age restrictions: the recipient may be aged anything from 4 to 18. Twelfth-graders, who might have been driving automobiles for three or four years, or having legal sex for two years, can be and are spanked in some districts.
Rules and regulations. Many US school districts nowadays lay down more or less detailed rules for the administration of CP and publish them in their school handbooks. These often specify such things as the offenses for which a paddling may be meted out, the maximum number of strokes, the permissible dimensions of the paddle, the part of the body to be targeted, who can administer it and where and in whose presence, what "due process" is required (e.g. formally stating in the presence of the witness what the student is being punished for, and inviting the student to state his or her case), whether prior parental consent is necessary, and what happens if the student refuses to take the punishment.
A matter of choice. To a greater extent than in the past, paddling has become in many schools an option for either the student or the parent, or both. Older teens, especially, may be offered a choice between a paddling and, say, detention or ISS. Anecdotal evidence suggests that, in these circumstances, most students, and certainly most boys, opt to be spanked, preferring the "short sharp shock" of intense but brief pain to long, tedious hours of unhealthy incarceration.
Some schools explicitly state that no student will receive corporal punishment against his or her own wish. Many schools offer parents the opportunity to register in writing their desire that their student not be paddled, but they often stress that, in that case, the alternative will be suspension.
Results. The effects of paddling can vary a lot, depending on how forcefully it is applied and also, to a degree, on the student's physical resilience. Paddled students tend to say that it hurts like crazy at the time, but that the pain often does not last very long. There may be yelps and tears and red faces, as attested by numerous anecdotal eyewitness and first-person accounts. But even a hard paddling of four or five "swats" -- probably fairly rare nowadays, at any rate in public schools -- will, if administered accurately, only leave the buttocks sore and harmlessly bruised for several days; it does not cause injury or bleeding.
Private schools. Private schools are somewhat less constrained than public ones in matters of punishment. In many cases, part of their appeal to parents is that they can boast much better-behaved pupils than public schools because they are freer to impose strict discipline. This can involve some private schools in frequent applications of CP -- especially, but not only, some Christian schools, who are able to invoke biblical justifications for it. Some boarding schools, too, are noted for making extensive use of the paddle, particularly "historically black" ones or those with a military emphasis.
Note too that there are several states -- Alaska, California, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New York, Utah and Washington State -- where CP is allowed in private schools even though it is banned in public ones.
A Legal Analysis of Ingraham v. Wright [HISTORY]
Part of the paddled boys' testimony in the landmark 1977 Supreme Court case which upheld school corporal punishment as constitutional. (For more on this case, see "External Links" just below.)
Court: School official not abuser
Report (Oct 2006) of a case in Arkansas, in which the state Court of Appeals held that bruising alone cannot be used as a test for abuse. A boy's three-swat school paddling, in which his buttocks were bruised, did not constitute abuse; and the assistant principal who administered it should not have been put on the child abuse registry, the court found.
State Laws on school corporal punishment
Extracts from legislation in those states which still (in 2008) allow paddling in schools, and one or two of those that do not.
Past regulations of school districts - 1963 [HISTORY]
Paddling regulations from Oakland (California) and Broward County (Florida) in 1963.
Past regulations of school districts - 1981 [HISTORY]
Regulations from Los Angeles in 1981, and a copy of the corporal punishment report form to be filed by the school -- all splendidly bureaucratic!
See also: Current handbooks of schools where CP is used
See also: Video clips
See also: Pictures of paddles
See also: Paddling in US schools in Topics A to Z
EXTERNAL LINKS: (these will open in a new window) 
Legitimated Violence in Schools: The Power Behind the Paddle
This "academic" essay, written in sociological jargon and published in the "Advancing Women in Leadership Journal", attacks CP from a hardline feminist and "children's rights" ideological perspective. There is a lot about "hegemonic masculinity", wherein even Desmond Morris's ancient, overheated, pseudo-anthropological fantasies about the "bent-over submissive posture" and CP as a "form of ritual copulation" are trotted out once more.
Few readers of either sex will, I suspect, be inclined to take any of this stuff seriously, but the document does include a plausible vignette of a day at a southern elementary school, including eyewitness accounts of paddlings of a girl and a boy.
The paper is mistaken, incidentally, in stating that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child "calls for a worldwide ban on corporal punishment". The Convention does nothing of the sort. The words "corporal punishment" do not appear anywhere in it, and nor does it contain any references to paddling, spanking, or anything of the sort. What it does call for is the protection of children from "mental and physical violence". When countries signed up to the Convention (which, in any case, the USA has not done), they cannot reasonably have supposed that it prohibited ordinary, moderate spanking or paddling which causes no injury.
Another error is the assertion that "every industrialized nation in the world, except the U.S., has abolished corporal punishment in schools". Australia has not yet completely abolished it; more significantly, perhaps, Singapore and South Korea are certainly industrialized countries, to name but two where school CP is alive and well.
Center for Effective Discipline
This anti-CP organization sets out, for each state in which CP is banned, the legislation or ruling under which abolition took place and the year. It also gives the paddling statistics for each state where CP is still used (figures for the 2004-05 school year).
And, if you scroll down a bit further, it explains the rather convoluted procedure for accessing, from the relevant federal government website, the latest estimated paddling statistics for individual school districts. As far as I am aware, this is the first time this information has been available, at this level of detail, all in one place on the internet.
Trends in Discipline and the Decline in Use of Corporal Punishment [PDF]
Information note (2003) from the Florida Department of Education gives some useful statistics. Students receiving CP in Florida declined from 24,200 in 1991-92 to 10,690 in 2001-02. Figures for individual districts are given for 2001-02.
The document notes that smaller school district tend to administer CP more often than larger ones. It also points out that, as paddlings have gone down, suspensions have rather sharply risen.
Doe And Others v. Heck And Others [PDF]
This is the US Court of Appeals full ruling (2003) in the Greendale Baptist Academy case. It held that Wisconsin social workers, who had entered the school without a warrant and questioned students about CP, had violated the constitution. The court upheld the parents' rights and those of the paddling school. See also this April 2003 news item.
Senate Bill 354 [PDF]
This is the 1993 legislation which abolished CP in public schools in Nevada.
Duncan Ex Rel. v Chamblee and Leake County School District (Alternative link)
Mississippi case from 1999. A schoolboy claimed to have been "violently paddled" on two successive days. As far as I can understand it the State Supreme Court rules here, though with three judges dissenting, that his case against the school fails on a complex assortment of legal technicalities.
Sponsor Statement for HB14 [HISTORY]
Summary of a 1997 legislative attempt to reintroduce "corporal correction of students" in Alaska. The actual wording of the Bill can be read here [PDF].
A Shock to the Conscience: The Due Process Clause and Corporal Punishment
Article (2001) in American School Board Journal about whether the constitution places any limits on the severity of school CP.
Blascovich v. Shamokin Area School District
Report of a 1980 Pennsylvania case about a teacher who was sacked for cruelty, including paddling students against explicit instructions to the contrary.
Belasco v Pittsburgh Board of Public Education
Pittsburgh had already abolished CP in its schools at the time of this 1984 case about paddling at a school for retarded children.
Glaser v Marietta and Others
Yet another Pennsylvania case. This one is from 1972 and involves a complaint by a seventh-grade student whose paddling is described.
Sanctions for Breaches of Rules
Summary of various court cases relevant to school discipline.
Education Law: Historic Supreme Court Cases
Includes summaries of Goss v. Lopez (1975) and Ingraham v. Wright (1977).
Education Law in North Carolina, Chapter 18: Student conduct issues [PDF] (Alternative link)
See items 1813 to 1816 inclusive.
California Education Code 49000-49001
Text of legislation making corporal punishment illegal in public (but not private) schools in California.
Mississippi Senate Bill 2651
Would have required the state to adopt rules governing corporal punishment in schools. Died in committee (2000).
Ingraham et al v. Wright et al [HISTORY]
Legal argumentation in the famous Supreme Court case.
Ingraham v. Wright: The Return of Old Jack Seaver [HISTORY]
1978 article from "Inequality in Education" analyses this landmark case at length.
Ingraham v Wright dissenting judgment (Alternative link)
Long statement by the four judges who were in the minority. Among other things, they thought the Eighth Amendment should apply to schoolchildren as well as criminals.
Moyer v. Commonwealth [DOC]
1999 judgment in the Virginia Court of Appeals. Moyer, a teacher accused of the sexual abuse of minors, had (among other things) paddled some teenage cadets on their bare buttocks, raising the issue whether or not buttocks are "sexual parts"; the higher court held that they are not. In a dissenting judgment some of the paddlings are described. See also news item of 29 August 1997, Cadet testifies about nudity, secret rituals with teacher, in The Archive.
Lesson 5: Student/Youth Due Process Middle
Exercise for, presumably, student teachers to learn about the constitutional case law applying to school corporal punishment. Considers the Tinker, Goss and Ingraham cases.
Robert L. Daily v Board of Education (Alternative link)
Case in the Nebraska Supreme Court (February 1999) about a public school board's decision to suspend a teacher for using corporal punishment, contrary to that State's 1988 law. At issue was whether bopping a student on the head to get his attention, in the middle of a fracas, constituted corporal punishment; the lower court thought it didn't, but the higher court held that it did.
Saylor v Board of Education of Harlan County [HISTORY]
Report of case (July 1997) in US Court of Appeals. A paddled 5-foot-10-inch 14-year-old (5 licks for fighting; buttocks bruised) claimed his due process rights had been violated. The appeal court disagreed. Lots of interesting detail about the paddling (which took place in Kentucky in 1990) and the discipline situation in the school in question, and a great deal of legal analysis with references to other school paddling cases. Astute readers will find a witty joke buried in the text.
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v David Douglass [HISTORY]
1991 court case about a paddling in a fundamentalist Christian school.
Testimony of Shelly Gaspersohn, October 1984 [HISTORY]
Evidence to the US Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Justice by a young woman who had been paddled three years earlier at age 17 at Dunn High School, North Carolina. She had agreed to the punishment as an alternative to suspension but found it too severe for her taste. See also this October 1984 illustrated news item.
Reading the Law Monograph Series No 48 (Alternative link)
From the Education Law Association, an abstract of a book describing the constitutional situation and analysing the statutes in different States.
Michigan: Information on Nonpublic and Home Schools [PDF]
Makes clear that the ban on school corporal punishment in Michigan does not apply to private schools.
The Regulation of Private Schools in America: New Jersey
In New Jersey, on the other hand, state law prohibits even private schools from using corporal punishment.
Iowa Senate File 2062 [HISTORY]
Failed 1998 proposal for legislation to reintroduce corporal punishment to Iowa schools.
Corporal punishment in public schools: the legal and political battle continues (Alternative link)
Academic legal discussion (1994) of the state of the law re paddling in US schools.
Corporal Punishment in Private Schools
Rules from the Alaska Administrative Code for private schools using corporal punishment, including a requirement for parental consent.
Outlaw Corporal Punishment [HISTORY]
Doomed 1991 attempt in US congress to ban school corporal punishment at federal level.
Harris v Tate County School District (Alternative link)
A Mississippi court holds (April 1995) that a boy's school paddling did not violate his due process rights.
Orville Harris v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Secretary of Education
Report of a court case (not to be confused with the Mississippi corporal punishment case also called Harris). This Harris was a teacher who used corporal punishment in Philadelphia, contrary to that school district's rules.
Other external links for US/Schools
UNITED STATES: School CP