SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — This school year, Illinois will become just the fifth state in the nation to prohibit corporal punishment in all schools. Legislation that Gov.
JB Pritzker signed into law this month bans physical punishment in private schools while reiterating a prohibition on the practice in public schools implemented 30 years ago. When the ban takes effect in January, Illinois will join New Jersey, Iowa, Maryland and New York in prohibiting paddling, spanking or hitting in every school. State Rep.
Margaret Croke, a Chicago Democrat, was inspired to take up the issue after an updated call by the American Association of Pediatrics to end the practice, which it says can increase behavioral or mental health problems and impair cognitive development. The association also found it's disproportionately administered to Black males and students with disabilities. People are also reading.
.. Statesville woman arrested at Davie Avenue motel on drug charges Players from Statesville, West Iredell among 5 Iredell County receivers to watch in 2024 2 Statesville hospitals, 1 owner: Iredell Health System to buy Davis Regional Two from Lake Norman, including North Iredell transfer, among 5 Iredell County running backs to watch this season Police: Hammer-wielding suspect robbed Statesville jewelry store Mooresville's Norman, North Iredell's Sales among Iredell quarterbacks to watch Hickory has nighttime 5k, toy show and concerts this weekend Former NASCAR driver Kurt Busch faces DWI charge in Iredell County Mooresville, West Iredell got it covered, lead 5 Iredell County defensive backs to watch this season Mooresville set to scrimmage against nation’s top-ranked junior Faizon Brandon, Grimsley Statesville man facing drug charges; Iredell sheriff's office raided Gay Street house Loss of her mom, unresolved grief, led woman found dead on picnic table to make dangerous choices, grandmother says 10 Iredell-Statesville schools at or above student capacity limits Iredell Health System welcomes Jonathan Garrett to orthopedic center Statesville man arrested on child porn charges How to get your kids ready to go back to school without stress − 5 tips from an experienced school counselor Shannon Pickett, Purdue University "I don't want a child, whether they are in private school or public school, to have a situation in which corporal punishment is being used," Croke said.
She also was disturbed by the Cassville School District in southwest Missouri. After dropping corporal punishment in 2001, it reinstated it two years ago as an opt-in for parents. Croke wanted to send a clear message that "it never was going to be OK to inflict harm or pain on a child.
" Much of the world agrees. The World Health Organization decreed the practice "a violation of children's rights to respect for physical integrity and human dignity." In 1990, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child established an obligation to "prohibit all corporal punishment of children.
" Public school buses are parked Jan. 7, 2015, in Springfield, Ill. The U.
S. was the convention's lone holdout. Americans seemingly take a pragmatic view of the practice, said Sarah A.
Font, associate professor of sociology and public policy at Penn State University. "Even though research pretty consistently shows that corporal punishment doesn't improve kids' behavior in the long run — and it might have some negative consequences — people don't want to believe that," Font said. "People kind of rely on their own experience of, 'Well, I experienced corporal punishment.
I turned out fine.' They disregard the larger body of evidence." U.
S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, last year introduced legislation, co-sponsored by Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, to ban corporal punishment in any school receiving federal funds.
It was assigned to a Senate committee for a public hearing in May 2023 but saw no further action. Empathy is on the rise in young people. Here’s how to build yours By Riane Lumer, CNN The U.
S. Supreme Court also rejected constitutional claims against the practice. When junior high pupils in Dade County, Florida, filed a lawsuit challenging physical discipline, the court ruled in 1977 that Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment was reserved for people convicted of crimes; it did not apply to classroom discipline.
Today, 17 states technically allow corporal punishment in all schools, though four prohibit its use on students with disabilities. North Carolina state law doesn't preclude it but every school district in the state blocked its use in 2018. Illinois lawmakers in 1994 stopped the practice in public schools.
Among states that completely outlawed it, New Jersey took the unusual step of barring corporal punishment in all schools in 1867. Iowa eliminated it in private schools in 1989. Maryland and New York stopped private school use in 2023.
Asian folktales offer moral lessons that help reduce racial prejudice in children Minjeong Kim, UMass Lowell and Allyssa McCabe, UMass Lowell Private school advocates, who vehemently oppose state intervention, did not oppose the new law. Schools in the Catholic Conference of Illinois do not use corporal punishment, executive director Bob Gilligan said. "It's an anachronistic practice," he said.
Ralph Rivera, who represents the Illinois Coalition of Nonpublic Schools, said he's unaware of any member school that uses the practice. While the group usually opposes state meddling in its classrooms, Rivera said, objecting to a corporal punishment ban on principle is a tough sell. "Even if they don't do it, they told us to stay out of it, because it doesn't look good when you say, 'No, we want to be able to spank children,'" Rivera said.
The law does not apply to home-schooled students. Shut out of school by the Taliban, Afghan girls and women are finding new ways to learn By Hilary Whiteman, CNN For student athletes, discipline or correction on the football field or the volleyball court would have to go beyond the pale to qualify as corporal punishment, Croke explained during floor debate on the measure last spring. "We talked in committee about a situation in which maybe a coach said, 'Run laps,'" Croke said.
"I do not believe this would apply by any means because when we tell a kid to run laps, the goal is not necessarily to inflict pain." Legislative debate nonetheless included Republican concern that imposing the requirement on private schools could facilitate rules affecting, for instance, curriculum or religious teachings. Croke, whose school-age child attends a Catholic school, said her intent was not to open the door to state regulation of private education but rather to "keep kids out of harm's way.
" "There's a red line there," she said, "that hitting kids should never be allowed." Does the American education system really lag behind other countries? Does the American education system really lag behind other countries? Headlines often paint a grim picture of the American education system compared to peer nations. However, broad strokes about underperforming American students don't capture key details of the story.
The U.S. education system and student achievement are varied and complex.
To be sure, American education has room for improvement. Standardized reading and math exam scores remained relatively unchanged since the 1970s before falling slightly between 2020 and 2022. Although COVID-19 pandemic-related lockdowns are in the rearview mirror, their lasting impact is apparent in high student disengagement rates and chronic absenteeism.
In 2023, the average state-level rate of students missing at least 10% of classes was 26%, a significant increase from 16% in 2019, according to data from FutureEd. Globally, the primary tool for measuring the effectiveness of education systems is the Programme for International Student Assessment test. Administered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development every three years, PISA measures a 15-year-old's mathematics, science, and reading proficiency.
Numerade analyzed data from the OECD to see how the U.S. compares with the rest of the world in its academic performance.
On the most recent PISA test in 2022, the U.S. ranked 20th out of 81 countries and territories, which comprise 90% of the world's economies.
Rankings were based on average scores across all three main PISA subjects. Because America is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, there's an expectation that it should rank higher among countries like Japan, South Korea, and Finland, ranked third, fifth, and 12th, respectively, known for their outstanding education systems. However, a closer look at the data reveals a more nuanced story.
While the U.S. does lag behind other developed nations, and some studies show a correlation between economic growth and academic achievement, the exact relationship between economic resources and test scores is complex.
And that's especially true in a country as expansive and diverse as America. For one thing, the U.S.
had the largest population out of any country the OECD tracked in 2022. It also has a decentralized education system, where what students learn varies tremendously depending on their state or even their county. Many other countries have only a single national curriculum.
As one of the most diverse OECD nations, America's cultural and ethnic makeup also plays a role. American educators must adapt to students from a wide range of cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. Critics of the PISA in the U.
S. also note that the higher percentage of disadvantaged students compared to other OECD countries impacts the nation's overall test performance. Factors such as these make it hard to draw lessons about the country's education system as a whole.
Wealth and education Plotting countries' average scores on the PISA exam against gross domestic product per capita tells a compelling story. The latter measure, which represents the total economic output of a country divided by its population, is often used as a measure of economic prosperity. GDP is, in theory, indicative of citizens' economic well-being and the nation's resources to spend on education.
Wealthier nations tend to have better educational outcomes, perhaps because they invest more in their school systems. The U.S.
has an average PISA test score in line with nations that have a similar per capita GDP. America's scores are just below peer countries such as Denmark and the United Kingdom, but are slightly above those of Germany and France. However, using GDP per capita as a guide for student performance has its limitations.
Take Ireland, for example, which ranked ninth on the PISA. Its GDP figures are inflated due to its status as a tax haven for multinational corporations, making its economic output seem disproportionately high compared to actual living standards. Similarly, oil-rich Gulf nations like Saudi Arabia may have high GDP per capita numbers that don't accurately reflect the median household's resources or living standards.
Economists blame this on the "resource curse," where countries that rely heavily on exporting commodities tend to have worse public services than countries with similar income levels but more balanced economies. Students from Saudi Arabia and Ireland score below expectations based on GDP per capita. This discrepancy is less because their education systems are faring exceptionally poorly and more because the typical resident is not doing as well as the economic measure suggests.
In other words, a country's aggregate economic numbers can sometimes be an unreliable measure of its overall development. Lessons from high-performing nations Several countries that ranked high on the PISA are worth studying. Despite coming from one of the world's poorest countries, Vietnamese students perform well on the PISA exam.
A 2021 study by researchers at the World Bank and the University of Minnesota found that even after controlling for many observable factors, such as parents' education, teachers' qualifications, and access to books and computers, Vietnam still outperformed many other developing countries. Unable to find a definitive answer to why the Southeast Asian country's students score so highly, they speculated that Vietnam's education system is more efficient. Singapore offers another interesting case study.
Singaporean ranked first on the 2022 test. Singapore is extremely rich as a global financial center; few nations match its wealth. According to the IMF, after adjusting for purchasing power, Singapore had a GDP per capita of $129,000 in 2022, compared to the United States' $77,000.
But, the country also has a notoriously rigorous education system, and it is common for parents to hire private tutors for their children. The country is also a city-state, making its government highly centralized. Estonia, another high-performing country, provides clues about how to improve education systems.
The Baltic country is not exceptionally wealthy, but it beat out every other non-Asian country on the PISA exam. It has a highly egalitarian education system, where all children start kindergarten at age 3. School lunches and transportation are free for all students.
Estonian teachers have high amounts of autonomy, allowing them to tailor their teaching methods to individual students' needs. All parents enjoy one-and-a-half years of parental leave, which means they can spend more time with their children when they are still young—a critical period for brain development. And the country, which bills itself as a "digital republic," has been keen on embracing technology in education , gathering data about how students learn.
It's worth noting that the COVID-19 pandemic caused a massive disruption in schooling worldwide. Average scores on the PISA exam fell across the world. In OECD countries, average math scores dropped by around 15 points compared with 2018.
That works out to be roughly three-quarters of a school year. Reading scores fell by 10 points, while science scores did not change. Although not all of the drop can be attributed to the pandemic, this fall in test scores was the largest on record.
Countries that want to improve their education systems may have to find clever solutions. Investing more in education, experimenting with new approaches to schooling, valuing teachers, and giving parents more flexibility, as the Estonian government has done, could make a meaningful difference. Story editing by Alizah Salario.
Additional editing by Kelly Glass. Copy editing by Kristen Wegrzyn. This story originally appeared on Numerade and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.
The impact of early childhood education is widespread, so why doesn't every city offer it? The impact of early childhood education is widespread, so why doesn't every city offer it? "What serves my children best is play-based learning that allows kids the space to learn in the place where they learn best. Play is the language of students, it's where they're the experts and it's where they're able to have a lot of fun and have a lot of joy, but also develop the critical executive functioning skills that determine life outcomes," Baltimore prekindergarten teacher Berol Dewdney told NPR in 2022. The word "education" is often associated with high school or college, where students develop key skills that will serve them for a lifetime.
Still, research has long shown that early childhood education, where children learn comparatively less in academics, can be just as important. However, despite decades of research showing the long-term benefits of early childhood education, government-funded preschool and pre-K programs are still limited in the U.S.
While state-run pre-K programs exist in all but four states, they are far from universal. Only a handful of states offer universal pre-K programs, including Florida, Oklahoma, Vermont, and Washington D.C.
Elsewhere, programs vary in scope, with priority typically given to communities vulnerable to being overlooked for key resources and programming. Studies have consistently shown that quality pre-K programs can improve children's readiness for school, enhance their social skills, and even lead to better life outcomes in adulthood. Early childhood programs are particularly beneficial for children from low socioeconomic backgrounds, helping to level the academic playing field and reduce educational inequalities from an early age.
An investment in pre-K education is increasingly seen not just as an educational policy but as a powerful tool for social and economic development. For that reason, HeyTutor analyzed academic research to better understand the importance of pre-K education. The benefits can be wide-ranging A 2017 metastudy from the RAND Corporation, a think tank in California, examined academic research about the effects of early childhood programs.
Its analysis examined the impact of 115 programs covering various programs and early childhood assistance, including preschools, formal playgroups, parenting education, and even vouchers or cash to cover child care and basic necessities. RAND's metastudy revealed that, in addition to academics, pre-K programs have positive effects on children's emotional development, health, and long-term outcomes in adulthood, such as income levels. Out of all the programs reviewed by RAND, about 9 in 10 (89%) had at least some positive impact, and only a small handful demonstrated negative effects.
The results of RAND's analysis align with one of the earliest and most influential experiments on the importance of early childhood education. The Perry Preschool Project was conducted in the 1960s in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and involved 128 Black children from low-income households. Half of them were randomly selected to attend a high-quality preschool program.
Researchers then followed up with both groups of children over two decades later. The results were striking. At age 27, the children who attended preschool had completed an extra year of schooling on average.
Moreover, study participants who went to preschool reported 50% fewer teen pregnancies. Researchers also interviewed the Perry Preschool children when they turned 40. Once again, those selected for preschool fared much better than their peers who did not.
The preschool graduates were 46% less likely to have gone to jail or prison, 26% less likely to have received welfare programs such as food stamps, and had 42% higher median monthly incomes. The lasting benefits of play-based learning Economist and Nobel laureate James Heckman, who has studied the Perry data extensively, found that while the program initially boosted the participants' IQ, this effect soon faded. The program had a far stronger impact on character or noncognitive skills.
The children who attended preschool in the program were less antisocial and less likely to break rules. Heckman estimates that every dollar invested in the Perry Preschool Project delivered $7 to $12 of benefits. Research on comparable preschool programs has yielded similar estimates.
The fact that preschool graduates go on to earn more money and are much less likely to commit crimes means such programs often pay for themselves. Despite these findings, obstacles to instituting universal pre-K remain. Ongoing budgetary constraints on existing programs and limited funding for new ones may hinder the progress that's already been made in pre-K programs across the country.
Hiring and retaining qualified teachers, providing them with proper training, and making accommodations for students with certain disabilities are also challenges to creating a truly universal program that benefits all students. However, communities that invest in early childhood education will likely reap its rewards for decades. Current research that sets the precedent for today's focus on play-based learning—encouraging student-led inquiry, an exploration of topics based on children's interests, and a sense of joy—has already made a difference.
As Stephanie Hinton, director of early childhood at Oklahoma City Public Schools, succinctly stated in the Hechinger Report in 2022: "This isn't just about play. This is about building relationships, and social-emotional learning." Story editing by Alizah Salario.
Additional editing by Kelly Glass. Copy editing by Janina Lawrence. Photo selection by Clarese Moller.
This story originally appeared on HeyTutor and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio. Get local news delivered to your inbox!.
