200K US Students Spanked Last School Year: Report

Over 200,000 US children were on the receiving end of corporal punishment last year, and a disproportionate number were black, a pair of human-rights groups finds. Black students, who make up 17.1% of the national school population, made up 35.6% of those paddled, CNN notes. Overall spankings are down, however, from 342,038 for 2000-01 to 223,190 in 2006-07.

“Every public school needs effective methods of discipline, but beating kids teaches violence, and it doesn't stop bad behavior,” said one of the report’s authors. But one school superintendent disagrees with that last point. “It works on some, and it doesn't work on others," he said. "If you're one of the individuals that it does work on, yes, it will become a deterrent.” (More spanking stories.)