While the nation waits for congressional action on bills eliminating seclusion and restraints as a form of discipline, states are acting independently while educators, and staff in residential treatment facilities, continue to respond to unruly youth with physical, chemical, or manual force.

The actions of states indicate little consensus with disability rights advocates often pitted against educators. Townships in Arizona approved a policy that allows teachers and administrators to use force on a student "to the extent necessary to act in self-defense, defense of students and/or in defense of property." The issue was too contentious in Wisconsin to come to a vote, with "deep divisions" over whether seclusion and restraint produced psychological harm or protected children from harming themselves and others. Next month Georgia is scheduled to vote on whether to ban on solitary confinement in schools.

Elsewhere, leaders are attempting to harness or outlaw these remnants of control that the Government Accounting Office found harmful and unregulated. Incidents leading to abuse, injury, and in some cases death of disabled students. New York's mental health office recently held teleconferences calling for an end to seclusion and restraints in residential treatment facilities based on principles establsihed by the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD), and Florida's Gov. Charlie Crist signed a law restricting the use of seclusion and restraints but not eliminating them outright.

Twenty states have no regulations, and many states still allow these practices in psychiatric hospitals. Some of the actions are stop-gap measures while waiting for the full Congress to act. The House passed a measure (HR 4247) introduced by Rep. George Miller (D-Cal.), and a similar bill was introduced in the Senate (S 2860) by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) but it remains in committee.