Report: Local Students With Disabilities Facing Harsher Punishment

A new report from the state comptroller’s office found students with disabilities received corporal punishment at a higher rate than students without disabilities.

That data includes 18 schools across the Upper Cumberland with a higher rate of corporal punishment among students with disabilities than the general population in 2013-2014.

The Comptroller’s Office of Research and Education Accountability (OREA) analyzed data from the 109 of 148 school districts statewide that allow corporal punishment. In 2011-12 and 2013-14, the most recent data, statistics showed a 2 percent difference between students with disabilities and students without.

Tennessee Tech Professor Dr. Seth King researches behavior among students with emotional disturbances at the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. He said the findings are not all that surprising.

“When you actually look at the type of training that most educators receive, even those in the general education classroom really aren’t prepared to provide effective or positive classroom management,” King said. “When you add into the mix a population that often exhibits very challenging behaviors, you’re going to see a lot of default punitive approaches.”

All 12 Upper Cumberland school districts allowed corporal punishment as of August, 2017, according to the report. 49 schools across the region reported to the Office for Civil Rights that they used corporal punishment in 2013-14. Multiple schools region-wide did not report.

Of the 18 schools that showed a higher rate of corporal punishment among students with disabilities in 2013-2014, Fentress County reported the most with five schools. The data shows three schools each in Cumberland and Jackson Counties, two in Smith County and Warren County and one each in Dekalb, Overton, and White Counties.

The biggest discrepancy in numbers came from Allons Elementary School in Overton County, reporting a 63 percent difference in punishment. Seven of 10 students with disabilities received corporal punishment during 2013-14, compared to seven percent among non-disabled students.

King said we are likely seeing more extreme behaviors in regular classrooms as society has moved to a more inclusive approach.

“Many students who, by default, would have been placed in restrictive settings are now appearing in your regular school rooms or even resource rooms,” King said. “In the past, they would have been institutionalized.”

Several state legislators asked for the OREA study after hearing concerns about disproportionate discipline across the state.

Students with disabilities includes a wide range of categories from autism to developmental delay to hearing or sight impairment to intellectual disability.

King said we need to focus more on treatment, agreed upon by parents and educators, in dealing with students. He said federal guidelines surrounding behavior presume positive methods more so than punishment.

“Corporal punishment is about intense as punishment can get,” King said. “We can use punitive methods that don’t necessarily involve that. The fact that we are using the most intense form of
punishment with these students is concerning.

The report further found that corporal punishment cases declined 46 percent in the general population between 2009 and 2014. Some 10,870 students without disabilities received corporal punishment in 2009-10, a number that fell to 5,821 in 2013-14. Among students with disabilities, the number fell by just seven percent, from 1,540 students in 2009-10 to 1,428 students in 2013-14.

Though the numbers are of concern, the report notes there are limitations to the conclusions because of the lag in data reporting and the number of schools that did not report. The report suggests the General Assembly might wish to require reporting or take further legislative action including banning corporal punishment for some or all students with disabilities.