Spanking? If ever there was a reason not to ...

.... this would be IT!

Politicians claiming spanking "helped them" become who they are...?

RRR R R R RR RR R

Well, if you want your kids to grow up to be politicians, you know
what to do then, folks. Get out the switches, straps, and paddles and
lay to with vigor. You can be proud.

0:]

'Course you might note what teachers, especially those that work with
the most difficult kids have to say about the failure rate ... and
schools have always been able to paddle in this state. Kane

http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=263121

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Published on Thursday, May 24, 2007

House denies spanking measure

By John Fuquay
Staff writer

RALEIGH - A bill to ban corporal punishment in North Carolina public
schools failed late Wednesday, after a debate in which two lawmakers
said they benefited from spankings they received in their formative
years.

Rep. Ronnie Sutton, a Robeson County Democrat, said he averaged two
spankings a week from first through eighth grades.

"I know I was a tough problem to handle in school as it was," he said.
"I had one teacher that I told him later I think he whipped me like a
rented mule. But I truly believe I would have served time in prison
had I not had the discipline that I had in school."

Rep. John Blust, a Guilford County Republican, said he appreciated
teachers who steered him to the right path when he went astray.

"I'm not going to say I'm a victim of corporal punishment. I would say
very clearly that I am a beneficiary of corporal punishment," he said.

The bill passed in two House committees before being recommended for
approval Wednesday. The House vote - 66 opposed and 50 in favor - did
not follow party lines. The bill cannot be considered again this
session.

A companion bill in the Senate failed to win committee support and
won't be heard this session.

Rep. Rick Glazier, a Fayetteville Democrat, was one of the bill's co-
sponsors. Glazier said every industrialized nation except the United
States and Canada has banned corporal punishment in schools.

Its use is banned in 29 states and the District of Columbia. In North
Carolina, it is banned in prisons, jails, detention centers, day
cares, group homes, foster homes and other institutions.

"Schools are the only institutions in some places in this country
where striking another person is sanctioned," Glazier said.

Rep. Laura Wiley, a Republican from Guilford County, said she taught
children with such severe behavioral problems that they attended a
separate school. She said they threw chairs and swore, yet she never
saw the need to spank them.

"As a matter of logic," she said, "we've had corporal punishment at
our disposal for a number of years, and I keep hearing how kids are
getting worse and worse. So, just deduction, it's not working."

Opponents argued that the use of corporal punishment should be decided
by local school districts, and that it serves as an option to
suspensions.

Some school administrators have said students would miss more class
time without corporal punishment because paddling would be replaced
with out-of-school suspensions.

Each of North Carolina's 115 school districts has had the authority to
use corporal punishment for more than 50 years, although 47 districts,
including Cumberland County, have policies against it.

Of the remaining 68 districts where spanking is allowed, not all of
them use corporal punishment. According to the state, 24 school
districts used it during the 2005-06 school year, led by Burke County,
where it was used 508 times. Robeson County was second, where it was
used 297 times that year.

A Robeson County case was investigated by the District Attorney's
Office two years ago after a seventh-grade boy received severe
bruising from a paddling by a Rowland Middle School teacher. The
district attorney declined to file a charge.

Critics in North Carolina say there is no formal protocol for paddling
students, it is applied inconsistently and its uses often are
undocumented.
Staff writer John Fuquay can be reached at or
(919) 828-7641.
Copyright 2007 - The Fayetteville (NC) Observer