What I find unfortunate is the 'politically correct' delimma our young families and the school system faces regarding how to create 'good discipline'.
When I was growing up and to a lesser degree when my kids were growing up, the family values and the values of the community as a whole were pretty much the same. And if kids got out of line, either the mom/dad figure that observed the infraction took care of it right then and there, or let the parents know about it and it was handled (by woodshed method most likely) when said kids got home. Now not so much, especially in some areas.
And I think we all knew even back then that there were those parents who were unnecessarily harsh and I agree that there should be safeguards in place to counteract that. However requiring that no one lay a stern hand on a child is unnecessarily counterproductive IMO.