Thanks again to all of you for the chatter and help. I hope that you are spreading this topic to your friends, it is the dirty little secret of the south, for the most part.
Sorry if the pictures offend, but it is the best way to show the level of abuse that is tolerated. I have personal contact with several of the families involved, and their stories are unbelievable. The vast majority of children who are hit are not even trouble makers at home or school. We tend to find that children are hit for missing math problems, picking their nose, being tardy to class, chewing gum, tossing a techup packet in the lunchroom, minor stuff, some of which is not even disciplinary, eg the homework issue, which has a natural consequence called grading the work.
It is such a irony as pointed out that we do have wellnes programs in place. We have anti violence and anti bullying campaigns.
Of interest to me is the fact that the No Child Left Behind just issued 31 million dollars in grant money to 19 school systems in the nation, to be divided. It is a Safe and Healthy Schools Initiative. Each got between nearly 1 and 1.8 million dollars to spend. 465 school districts applied, and 19 were chosen, representing 14 states. I dug around and found that of the states, 7 of the 14 have corporal punishment, and of those seven winning districts, 6 of them still hit kids. I have called those in charge of the grant to let them know that these school districts need to use this money for safe discipline, teacher training, etc. I am being heard, no one knew this was going on. I called the superintendents of all the school districts still hitting, and challenged them to use a portion of the funds for teacher inservice, effective classroom management. There is a winner from my state, NC, and the superintendcnt told me she could count on one hand the number of children hit. I told her she must have 225 fingers on that hand.....
