When Wendy Chandler received a back-to-school packet from her daughters Alabama elementary school in 2013, she was stunned. Included in the packet was a permission slip asking if school staff members could administer corporal punishment on her child as a form of discipline.

Chandler said that she did not give permission and wrote a note at the bottom of the slip that said: I can not imagine how it would ever be ok to show violence towards anyone. Hitting a child is beyond disgraceful. Anyone who could hit a child should be put in jail.

At the time, Chandler had assumed that corporal punishment was no longer allowed in schools. Little did she know that the practice is not only allowed in 19 states, but that schools in Alabama allow it to occur more often than in almost any other state, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Penn State.