Corporal punishment, still allowed in 20 states, should be banned in schools nationwide, the National Lieutenant Governors Association says in a resolution.
The association is working with Unlimited Justice, a campaign to end corporal punishment in U.S. schools.
The NLGA’s chairman, Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown of Maryland, speaking at the association’s Federal-State Relations meeting in Washington last month, said that more than 220,000 public school students in the country were paddled by teachers or principals in 2006, and more than 20,000 of them sought medical care afterwards. He cited the latest data from the U.S. Department of Education’s office for civil rights.
Mr. Brown also said that minority children and students with disabilities were subjected to corporal punishment at a greater rate than their peers.
