Rewarded by Punishment : Reflections on the Disuse of Positive Reinforcement in Schools

Most approaches for dealing with student disruptions involve the use of various forms of_punishment such as removals from the classroom, fines, restitutional activities, inschool and out-of-school suspensions, and expulsions. Although some of these approaches may make schools safer by removing the offending students, they have little effect on encouraging students to perform socially appropriate behaviors. There are many reasons why educators find punishment a more acceptable approdch for managing students' challenging behaviors than positive reinforcement. This article delineates these reasons and argues for educators to plan the occurrence of_positive reinforcement to increase appropriate behaviors rather than running the risk of it haphazardly promoting inappropriate behaviors. P h erhaps no other discipline has received as much criticism from various factions of society as has public education. This statement should come as no surprise because public education has always been a convenient political whipping post for some fanatical ideologues to explain a variety of social ills (Reid, 1997). Criticisms often resonate with the public because many of them cannot be disproven. For example, there is no way to refute the contention that "education has failed" because it is inconceivable to experimentally test this belief by forming two groups of children-a treatment group that receives education and a control group that does not receive education. Sagan (1996) cogently pointed out how assertions that cannot be tested and are immune to disproof are fimctionally useless regardless of the degree of popular support they may enjoy. Other more specific criticisms of public education such as declining achievement test scores, unresponsive schools, and bloated or top-heavy administrations are outright false (Berliner &