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UPDATE 6.18.24: In City Journal, Scott Yenor explains the efforts of Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida’s legislature to push back on woke ideology in Florida’s schools. He writes:
Only recently have people noticed politically radical gender and race books like Julián Is a Mermaid or We Miss You, George Floyd on the shelves in elementary school libraries. Some blame rogue librarians and ideological pressure groups; others, school board members asleep at the switch. Few trace the problem to schools of education, where teachers and administrators are trained.
The few states that recognize how social-justice ideologues have gained control over the teacher certification process have, in recent years, deregulated the profession by implementing alternative modes of certification. These efforts have proved partly successful. Nearly half of Florida public school teachers were certified through processes that bypassed schools of education, a share that ranks among the highest in the nation. Still, that means over half of Florida teachers still enter the profession through the education schools.
But if education schools cannot be bypassed, they can be regulated. During the 2024 legislative session, legislators in Tallahassee made Florida the first state to leverage its power over teacher certification to roll back the social-justice agenda in schools of education. According to Florida’s House Bill 1291, a pathbreaking law that Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed last month, state-approved teacher-preparation programs may not be “based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States.” Instead, programs must afford candidates the opportunity to “achieve mastery of academic program content” and “learn instructional strategies.” The legislation becomes effective on July 1.
Florida’s legislative effort to regulate schools of education is a response to social-justice radicals’ takeover of teacher-prep programs like those at the University of Florida, as detailed in a report released today from the Claremont Institute.
After the George Floyd riots in the summer of 2020, the University of Florida’s College of Education undertook a significant curriculum revision for elementary education majors. “The state of our nation and global society,” read a proposal submitted to university officials for approval, “leads us to conclude that emphasizing a social justice focus in our new program is important and much needed.”
The revision eliminated seven required courses and added new ones emphasizing social-justice themes. “Core Teaching Strategies,” “Mathematics Content for Elementary Teachers,” “Art Education for Elementary Schools,” and “Music for the Elementary Child,” among others, were replaced with a new four-course sequence “centered on equity pedagogy.” Suffused with critical race theory, equity pedagogy makes raising consciousness and eliminating racial gaps—not subject matter mastery or effective teaching strategies—the moral imperatives of the teaching profession.
A mandatory course called “Core Classroom Management” was dropped in favor of “Rethinking Discipline and Classroom Management.” Replacing the allegedly white supremacist vision of classroom control, the new course aims to deconstruct “classroom management as it currently exists in schools, developing the skills to work within this system while simultaneously challenging and disrupting common practices that have adversely affected many school children including Black and Brown students,” as the syllabus reads.
At least ten required courses in the University of Florida’s new elementary education major have critical pedagogy embedded in their course descriptions, readings, and assignments. Throughout the major, the assumptions of equity pedagogy are treated as matters of fact. Students are required to integrate equity-pedagogic assumptions into their practice. Course assignments lack rigor; nearly all focus on self-reflection about a teacher’s own biases.
Florida’s push to regulate schools of education is based on a simple exercise of legitimate state powers. States determine which schools of education can and cannot certify teachers. Schools of education that offer teacher preparation programs dominated by theories of systemic racism will henceforth not be able to certify teachers, though they can continue to operate.
De-regulation of teacher certification, while salutary, is not enough to change the direction of public education. Teachers will still mostly come from schools of education, so states cannot afford to ignore how they are trained. Florida is showing the country how effective regulation of teacher training can produce instructors who show kids how to read, write, and do math—not obsess over their gender or skin color.
Read more here.
UPDATE 6.6.23: There has been no elected official over the last two years fighting harder against the progressive “woke” agenda than Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida. He has dubbed the state “where woke goes to die,” and backed up those claims with actions. DeSantis is facing down the toughest opponent any Florida politician can, Disney, which has encouraged the woke agenda wherever possible. Remember, Disney is run by executives in faraway Burbank, CA, not the Republican voters of Florida. The Wall Street Journal’s Arian Campo-Flores and Jacob Gershman detail the battle between DeSantis and Disney, writing:
In dueling lawsuits, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Walt Disney Co. are locked in a legal battle over corporate power, governmental control and freedom of speech, without a clear-cut advantage for either side.
The showdown is the culmination of a fight sparked by Disney’s criticism of a DeSantis-backed law limiting the teaching of gender identity and sexual orientation in schools.
Disney is trying to convince a federal judge that it is the victim of a campaign of retribution waged by a governor intent on silencing dissent. In a competing lawsuit filed in state court, DeSantis’s allies are arguing that Disney illegally sought to usurp government authority in its effort to have more control over its Florida operations.
Originally posted February 18, 2020.
John Bolton is taking to the media to flog his book and to create controversy surrounding it by claiming the administration is “censoring” his speech. I wrote the post below on November 17, 2016, and even then encouraged the Trump team to avoid Bolton, writing “John Bolton, a foul ball doctrinaire neocon of disappointing proportions. If you begin to read more on Bolton, make your feelings known to people who count, and fast. This guy is a big time interventionist who will keep America in the Middle East until the end of time. Vote NO on Bolton.”
What just happened in America? Down here in Key West, over 40 causeways and 135 miles from Miami, faces are long and shock is the pivotal word of the day as the literary crowd attempts to regroup with the recognition that the hated Donald Trump will now be calling the shots in Washington.
I ask, why the misery? For the most part the answers come swiftly: Trump hates people, women’s rights, the poor, LGBTs, etc. Not a peep about Obama driving the country over the economic cliff or America’s lost AAA-bond rating or the catastrophe that is the Fed or nearly two decades of intervention in a Middle East Muslim world in which America has neither a place nor any national interest or America’s burgeoning budget, trade deficits, and debt or Obamacare (imploding under Americans).
It appears that a wide swathe of the American public cares not a rat’s keister about the basics of a sound economy, sound money, or a foreign policy based on realism and restraint.
Progressive liberalism has dragged America a long way down the path to ruin. The same course has been pursed in Europe, as Debbie and I have found out first hand over the last six years of on-the-ground fact finding. We moved our international research and fact-finding base to Paris and have continued to use our Paris launching spot to meet with international business leaders and sophisticated travelers from around the world. We have reported to you with consistency that the ruling parties all over Europe have lost their grasp, with hardline right groups moving in for the kill. It’s no more business as usual.
Muslim immigration is front and center dividing Europeans. And the anti-Muslim immigration forces are rapidly consolidating their position and gaining ground. England departed the EU largely on this issue. And we have witnessed a firming of hardline positions from Hungary through Slovenia, Austria, Germany and France. In Paris, it’s not unusual to see the military armed with automatic weapons near any corner café or bistro one wishes to visit. And the Eiffel Tower? In October, it was surrounded by barricades, fences, security entrances, bomb sniffing dogs and teams of unpleasant no-joking military guys with guns, it looks like a battle zone. Sound cozy? Well no, and business is in the tank, to be kind.
So why are so many Americans so exercised that the country just elected a most outspoken fellow voicing exactly the same message that has been resonating in Europe for years. To Debbie and me, the election of Mr. Trump was a foregone conclusion. Trump simply got a wet finger in the air and properly concluded that the wind had changed and that his fellow countrymen had had it. We saw the change coming on the ground in Europe. And the change was magnified after many weeks on the road in the eastern United States. We did not need to take America’s pulse on the West Coast or in the heartland because positions are largely engraved in stone. California, Washington and Oregon are examples. We felt the 2016 battle would be won or lost along a stretch of highways and byways from Pennsylvania through North Carolina and Florida.
The national print and electronic media and the bought and paid for polling outfits chose to B.S. Americans that Hillary Clinton, a disgraced liar and national security risk programmed by Middle East oil tyrants and assorted Clinton Foundation rabble, was the likely victor.
Our 20 days of road trips through small towns and the interstates of the Maine to Key West corridor produced a 20-to-0 margin of victory for Trump. Clinton won not one counting of lawn signs. I know, I know. Not very scientific, but zero? And not a single Clinton sign, banner or poster in some of the most progressive liberal strongholds in America! Sure didn’t make one think Clinton.
We concluded that the Electoral College vote could go to Trump if he took Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida. And such certainly looked likely by what we witnessed. All of which of course could have simply been our lying eyes, which, of course, would turn out to be not the case.
Today Debbie and I are turning our focus to the emerging Trump governance team with an eye on advising you whether the selections appear to match with the promises Trump made to Americans on the campaign trail. Besides Rudy and Newt, two hardliners that perfectly fit the mold is one John Bolton, a foul ball doctrinaire neocon of disappointing proportions. If you begin to read more on Bolton, make your feelings known to people who count, and fast. This guy is a big time interventionist who will keep America in the Middle East until the end of time. Vote NO on Bolton.
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