From the New York Times:

Children with disabilities are disproportionately paddled, spanked, or physically punished in American public schools, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The report found that more than 200,000 children were subjected to physical punishment in the nation’s schools during the 2006-2007 school year, and that more than 40,000 of them were students with disabilities. Students with disabilities made up 18.8 percent of students who were physically punished during that year, although they constituted just 13.7 percent of the total nationwide student population.

Most states prohibit corporal punishment in public schools, but 20 do not. The study’s authors urged federal and state lawmakers to extend the ban nationwide and enact an immediate moratorium on physical punishment of students with disabilities.

“Corporal punishment is just not an effective method of punishment, especially for disabled children, who may not even understand why they’re being hit,” said Alice Farmer, who wrote the report.

Earlier post here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 at 10:26 am and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, corporal punishment, education, research news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.