Paddling in Government Schools?

My elementary school, back in the day, had a policy of paddling habitually misbehaving students. For me, getting called to the principal’s office would have been traumatic enough. I couldn’t imagine someone other than my parents or grandmother spanking me. Oh yes, I’m from the old-school, raised during a time when parents spanked naughty children. But when I read that some schools still paddled students, I was shocked.

I’m a strong supporter of school discipline, but I draw the line at corporal punishment. If a kid is that out of control, he needs to be out of the school. Permanently.

Reasons #2,000,013 and -014 to homeschool your children: You’ll never have to deal with a paddling principal or teacher or contemplate whether the school should allow it. From USA Today:

As the number of studies showing the negative effects that corporal punishment can have on children has increased, the number of students paddled in public schools nationally has decreased — going from 342,038 in 2000 to 217,814 in 2009-10, according to the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

Studies have shown that in states where paddling is allowed, it’s used disproportionately on minority students and those with mental, physical and emotional disabilities.

It follows that if minorities disproportionately behave in suspension- or expulsion-triggering behaviors, they’ll receive a disproportionate share of paddling in such schools. But to hear liberals tell it, there’s a nationwide, government conspiracy to pick on and malign black kids. Apply Occam’s razor to the problem.

In southeast Georgia’s Coffee County, Superintendent Morris Leis said his school district allows paddling because it’s an effective form of punishment.

“We won’t paddle a student if a parent doesn’t want us to, but we don’t get a lot of complaints,” he said.

Tim Wyrosdick, the superintendent in Santa Rosa County, Fla., said paddling was “very popular” among the majority of parents there. But the county banned the practice in June after parents accused three teachers who had administered corporal punishment of mistreating their children.

Teachers actually volunteer to administer physical discipline? Strange. Weird. And I thought paddling was banned in every government school by the 1980s. What do you think about the government hitting children?

Photo credit: Terry McCombs (Creative Commons)