Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said in 1995 that no shootings had occurred in one northwestern Sunshine State school district because of corporal punishment.
Bush, 62, who is expected to announce his White House candidacy next Monday, wrote in the book "Profiles in Character" that corporal punishment was "very effective" in Walton County along the Alabama border.
The remarks, included in the chapter "The Restoration of Shame," were
reported by BuzzFeed. Bush was governor from 1999 to 2007, writing the book after he lost his first Statehouse bid in 1994.
"In some school districts, such as Walton County, one of the oldest forms of shame, corporal punishment, is alive and well, and despite protests by some parents and Florida's PTAs, the students in Walton have actually found that this doling out of shame is very effective," Bush wrote in the chapter. "The students of these schools will tell you, as will anybody who experienced corporal punishment in school, that it is not the brief spanking that hurts but the accompanying shame."
"A senior valedictorian of one high school in Walton County told a reporter, 'We feel ashamed when it happens to us, but when you're in the classroom and you want to learn and somebody else won't let you learn, well, they are dealt with.'"
"To date, Walton County has never experienced a shooting at any of its schools."
According to the Walton County School Board Policy Manual: "No student may be suspended from school, from school bus transportation or from class, nor may corporal punishment be administered except as provided by law and the Code of Student Conduct."
However,
the school district's 2014-2015 student conduct code manual makes no reference to corporal punishment.
More broadly, Bush said in the chapter, according to BuzzFeed: "We have also lost shame in our schools, too. Specifically, there is little shame in poor academic performance or classroom misconduct. We now see many students who do not care if the teacher yells at them or if their test results are less than stellar."
"In many of Florida's largest school districts, there is little that the teacher can do to make students feel some sense of shame."
A Bush spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BuzzFeed.
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