The Winston Salem Journal calls for ban on hitting children with disabilities in NC

In most North Carolina school systems, including Winston-Salem/Forsyth County, and Davie, Stokes and Rockingham counties, corporal punishment isn't used. School officials understand that society does not effectively discipline children by physically abusing them.

Unfortunately, in many districts, such as Surry and Davidson counties, there is no ban, and in some districts corporal punishment is administered far too regularly.

Legislators refuse to pass a statewide ban on corporal punishment, fearing reaction from areas where spanking is still tolerated. At the least, however, the General Assembly should ban the use of corporal punishment on disabled students, and do so this spring.

Tom Vitaglione, a senior fellow at Action for Children and a lifelong advocate of state policies to protect children, asked legislators to implement the limited ban during a recent hearing. He cited a 2006 U.S. Department of Education report that said North Carolina students with disabilities received corporal punishments 290 times during that year.

By contacting each school district in the state, Action for Children learned that corporal punishment was used more than 1,400 times last school year. Three county systems, Burke with 325 cases, Nash with 296 and Robeson with 167, administered more than half of all those punishments, the advocacy group found.

The case against corporal punishment has been made for years. The Center for Effective Discipline, an Ohio-based, national organization that opposes corporal punishment, makes the argument strongly:

• Corporal punishment perpetuates a cycle of abuse. Children are taught that, when angry, they can hit someone smaller and in a subservient position to them and get away with it.

• Bruising is common with corporal punishment, and there have been some very serious injuries in this country. The punishment has been shown to be used more commonly against minority, disabled and low-income students.

• There is a correlation between schools with corporal punishment and those with low academic performance.

The argument against corporal punishment can also be made on the basis of what it does not accomplish.

Many of us like to think that things were better in the old days when paddling was allowed. But there is no evidence that schools with corporal punishment have fewer discipline problems, including violence against fellow students and teachers, or that students in those schools are any less likely to end up in prison as adults.

Corporal punishment creates a lot of problems but it doesn't solve any. Legislators should ban the practice in all North Carolina schools. But if they won't do that, they should at least ban the paddling of disabled students.