Robeson County parents have a great power and a rare opportunity. Should they become convinced that hitting students is unhelpful to the learning process, they can all but eliminate the practice - statewide.
The latest survey by Action for Children North Carolina shows that only six local school systems across the state still resort to corporal punishment. Among them, they struck students 184 times during the 2012-2013 school year, another steep decline.
Do not divide 184 by six. A hundred and forty-one of those incidents - 76 percent - took place in the Robeson system. Had the system gone the way of most others, North Carolina would have been only 43 public-school beatings away from zero.
Who knows, for sure, why others have drifted away, abandoning the practice or banning it outright? Maybe they immersed themselves in child psychology. Or maybe they took a moment to wince at the few limits the state places on the intentional infliction of pain: Afterward, a student must "not require medical attention beyond simple first aid."
Robeson residents needn't do any of that, or drop the practice merely to follow the crowd. All they need do is heed statistical evidence that hitting contributes nothing to the cultivation of young minds and serves no worthwhile purpose.
The latest survey by Action for Children North Carolina shows that only six local school systems across the state still resort to corporal punishment. Among them, they struck students 184 times during the 2012-2013 school year, another steep decline.
Do not divide 184 by six. A hundred and forty-one of those incidents - 76 percent - took place in the Robeson system. Had the system gone the way of most others, North Carolina would have been only 43 public-school beatings away from zero.
Who knows, for sure, why others have drifted away, abandoning the practice or banning it outright? Maybe they immersed themselves in child psychology. Or maybe they took a moment to wince at the few limits the state places on the intentional infliction of pain: Afterward, a student must "not require medical attention beyond simple first aid."
Robeson residents needn't do any of that, or drop the practice merely to follow the crowd. All they need do is heed statistical evidence that hitting contributes nothing to the cultivation of young minds and serves no worthwhile purpose.