Increased Child Abuse After School Report Card Release

Corporal punishment and child abuse, both common in the U.S., might be triggered by parents learning from report cards about poor performance or bad behavior at school.

Researchers used government data from Florida to calculate incidence rates of agency-verified physical child abuse among primary-school-age children (aged 5–11 years) by day of the week during one public school year. Rates were compared between days of the week and by type of day: “release days” (a day when report cards were released), “postrelease days” (the day immediately after report card release), and “nonrelease days” (all other days). Adjustments were made for county-level demographics related to household income, race, child school readiness and performance, child mal…