For some children, bringing home a report card leads to punishment severe enough to become physical abuse. This project tested whether the day report cards go home is linked to verified abuse.
At a glance
Question
Is the day schools release report cards linked to verified child physical abuse?
Partners
Funder
Timeline
Completed
Why it matters
Corporal punishment is legal in the United States and common among parents of young children, but the line between corporal punishment and physical abuse is unclear and differs by state. Corporal punishment is associated with poorer academic achievement and more emotional and behavioral problems, and it does not improve behavior or school performance in the long term. Schools control when report cards go home, so a link to abuse would point to a simple prevention step.
What we’re doing
A pediatrician colleague suspected that report cards sometimes lead to abuse. To test it, we studied all calls to a statewide child abuse hotline over one academic year, narrowed to children ages 5 to 11 and to calls that were investigated and verified as physical abuse. We then matched them with the dates each school district released report cards, typically four times a year.
What we’ve learned so far
When report cards were released on a Friday, the risk of a verified child physical abuse report on Saturday more than doubled.
The link appeared after Friday releases, not after releases on other days.
The study shows a link, not a cause: it can’t say why the link appears.
Papers from this project
JAMA Pediatrics, 2019
Friday Report Card Release and Saturday Child Physical Abuse
The risk of verified child physical abuse on Saturday more than doubled when report cards were released on Friday.
Can’t access a paper? Email us and we’ll share it.