Paddling Kids Won't Whip HISD Into Shape, Grier Says
The leaders of Temple, Texas may have decided that restoring paddling to their bag of tricks was a good idea for schools there, but Houston ISD Superintendent Terry Grier doesn't agree.
At a Wednesday media roundtable, Grier talked about the discussions district personnel are having with parents from what have been identified as the worst schools in the district (for high schools, that's Kashmere, Jones, Sharpstown, and Lee) when Hair Balls asked if anyone has suggested the return of corporal punishment.
"No," Grier replied.
"I've been an assistant principal in a school where we paddled students and I can't think of a time when we paddled students that I thought it changed their behavior. We paddled students and it got to a point where we just didn't see it having impact. I'm sure you've get a lot of people who say 'spare the rod and ruin the child' and that's OK. But personally I don't think paddling has a place in public schools."
"I would not want someone paddling my child. And I don't believe you'd want somebody paddling yours," he said, before adding to general laughter: "That was not necessarily my father's opinion."
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