If it's hard for you to imagine a high school student having their butt paddled or spanked by the school principal, you're probably don't live in Texas, Mississippi, Georgia or Alabama.

According to a recent report from the Washington Post, "corporal punishment" is still legal in public schools in 19 states, and nearly 60 percent of the students actually being hit in schools live in one of those four Southern states. Equally disturbing? A disproportionate number of those students are black.

The report notes that Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia "happen to have among the largest African American populations. Blacks constitute about 16 percent of public school students in the United States but 35 percent of those who receive corporal punishment. That leaves a situation at majority-black districts in the Deep South where physical punishment is a relative routine part of the public school experience."

Principals, not teachers, do the beating in most school districts, and many require the use of a paddle -- with some schools even specifying its size and shape, as well as the number of whacks that students are to receive. According to the Washington Post, "Typically, students are ordered into a passive position: butt sticking out, hands on the desk or wall."

According to data from the U.S. Department of Education, in many Southern states including Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, over 4,000 students receive corporal punishment in school every year.

Eighteen-year-old Laquerius Leflore, who graduated from a Mississippi high school that practices corporal punishment last year, told the Washington Post that he was hit with a paddle five times during school. "Some people would cry," he said. "It would be like somebody really got tortured, sometimes. They tried to make it hurt. That was the whole point of it."

In some school districts, parents have to sign a consent form allowing their children to be hit in school, but in many, they do not. Other states where the practice is legal include Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Wyoming.

A 2008 report from the ACLU and Human Rights Watch asserts that corporal punishment not only does not stop student from acting out, but is also harmful to their education and future.

"Studies show that beatings can damage the trust between educator and student, corrode the educational environment and leave the student unable to learn effectively, making it more likely he or she will leave school," the report states. "African-American students are punished at disproportionately high rates, creating a hostile environment in which minority students struggle to succeed."

The report also includes the story of Tim L., a Texas student was paddled so severely in elementary school that he bled and was terrified to return. His mother ultimately kept him home and taught him herself rather than sending him back. When she filed a private lawsuit against the school, her case was dismissed because the law protected the use of corporal punishment in the school district.

The same report goes on to point out that "106 [other] countries outlaw the practice, including the United Kingdom and other European countries," and that "experts ... consistently have concluded that corporal punishment by school officials and teachers violates governmental obligations to protect children from physical violence and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment."