A recent report from the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch offers some perspective for New Rochelle parents.
American Civil Liberties Union : U.S.: End Beating of Children in Public Schools: “More than 200,000 US public school students were punished by beatings during the 2006-2007 school year, Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union said in a joint report released today. In the 13 states that corporally punished more than 1,000 students per year, African-American girls were twice as likely to be beaten as their white counterparts.”
The report was based on research primarily in Mississippi and Texas.
The report found that in the 13 southern states where corporal punishment is most prevalent, African-American students are punished at 1.4 times the rate that would be expected given their numbers in the student population, and African-American girls are 2.1 times more likely to be paddled than might be expected. There is no evidence that these students commit disciplinary infractions at disproportionate rates.
The full report can be found here.
