About the Author

Richard Cochrane is trained in chemistry and metallurgy but is far more interested and practiced as a political and fund raising consultant, writer and amateur historian. He grew up in a Navy family and with his two younger brothers carried on its 500+ year tradition of naval service to Great Britain and the USA then enjoyed a career with one of the largest advertising and public relations agencies working with numerous Fortune 500 companies and many of America's premier educational institutions. He maintains friendships and acquaintanceships around the world. He lives in Santa Barbara, California.

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“Violent Education” Report Junk Science

August 28th, 2008 • Richard Cochrane

Statistical insignificant 175 Interviews not basis for national conclusions.

In the 125-page report, “A Violent Education: Corporal Punishment of Children in US Public Schools,” the ACLU and Human Rights Watch found that in Texas and Mississippi children ranging in age from 3 to 19 years old are routinely physically punished for infractions (minor to major)  typically paddling where the transgressor if swatted on the butt. Corporal punishment is legal in 21 states The report contends that, as a result of paddling, many children are left injured, degraded, and disengaged from school.

The report contends that in the 13 southern states where corporal punishment is most prevalent, African-American students are punished at 1.4 times the rate that would be expected given their numbers in the student population, and African-American girls are 2.1 times more likely to be paddled than might be expected. Critics say HRW and ACLU cooked the books to justify a political correct purpose.

According to HRC and ACLU the “Violent Education” report’s conclusion is based on just 175 subjective interviews in Texas and Mississippi during 2006 and 2007, and it includes sore of anecdotes. A University based statistician who I asked to review the report calls the sample “statistically insignificant, and easily prone to bias and abuse…(T)o call  this a study is a prostitution of the term.”

Human Rights Watch and the ACLU are calling upon the US government to prohibit corporal punishment in all public schools and urge state governments, school boards, superintendents, and administrators to eliminate physical punishment in their schools.

Even if the report had efficacy its questionable method raises too many problems to take it as serious science consigning it to the ash heap of junk science.

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