I know people from the South do a lot of things differently than us Northeasterners, but this is ridiculous.
Human Rights Watch and the ACLU released a study today that shows more than 200,000 children were spanked or paddled in U.S. schools during the past school year.
According to the report, corporal punishment in schools is legal in 21 U.S. states and is used frequently in 13: Missouri, Kentucky, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Florida, according to data received from the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education and cited in the report. The highest percentage of students receiving corporal punishment was in Mississippi, with 7.5 percent of students. The highest number was in Texas, with 48,197 students.
If a teacher hit my kid, I would press criminal charges. I’m pretty sure every other parent I know would do the same. Are parents in Mississippi so different that they would allow or condone their child being assaulted by an adult in a public school classroom? What teacher would want to hit a kid? Are they given special attack training? Go for the soft tissue and make sure they cry?
Let’s say I move to Texas and a teacher hits my kid for acting up in class. I’m going to be told: “You got a problem with the law, pardner?” I always figured our cultural differences ended with and appreciation for biscuits and gravy and NASCAR.
Shall we look at student test scores by geographic region?