From the NY Times
The report, based on federal Department of Education data, said that of the 223,190 public school students nationwide who were paddled during the 2006-7 school year, at least 41,972, or about 19 percent, were students with disabilities, who make up 14 percent of all students.
This is a link to a map showing the states with thehighest rates of incidence.
This is fucking ridiculous.
Among the cases cited in the report was that of a 6-year-old, first-grade boy with autism, who was paddled at his Mississippi elementary school. An assistant principal who the report described as weighing 300 pounds "picked up an inch-thick paddle and paddled him" on the buttocks, the report said.
"It just devastated him," the report cited the boy’s grandmother as saying. "When a child with autism has something like that happen, they don’t forget it. It’s always fresh in their minds."
A 300 pound adult beating a 6 year old Autistic child that on average would be 45-60 pounds.
These schools are little Stanford Prison Experiments. My brother and I both got paddled when we lived in North Carolina and it was horseshit. It's a bunch of underskilled, over-papered babysitters with a license to beat kids on a whim. If you feel the need to beat a disabled kid, you might be in the wrong line of business. Or you might be a redneck.