Check this one out and decide for yourself. A principal in South Carolina has taken to "whippen" kids to restore order in the school -- and it has worked to the benefit of his school achievement scores.
You can decide for yourself on this one, but it really depends on the definition of success, doesn't it. A scared school doesn't necessarily strike me as a successful school, no matter what the test scores say. We have made a lot of progress over the past few decades in phasing out corporeal punishment and I would really hate to see young principals start picking it back up because they feel like they have no other options to get test scores up.