Our friends Keith Flaugh and Pastor Rick Stevens, Managing Directors of the Florida Citizens Alliance,
alerted us that the amazing and bold leadership that Governor Ron DeSantis and Republican Richard Corcoran, Florida’s Commissioner of Education, have provided by banning the teaching of critical race theory in Florida’s public schools is being undercut by the Leftwing education bureaucracy.
As a coalition of some 48 conservative organizations explained in an open letter to Governor DeSantis and Commissioner Corocran, their leadership and the wishes of millions of Florida parents are being undercut by the Sunshine State’s Leftwing education bureaucracy that is right now committing millions of dollars to purchasing textbooks tainted with the poison of Critical Race Theory.
As a reminder on the threat Critical Race Theory (CRT) presents to our children and our society, a quote from Hillsdale College’s “Imprimis” newsletter provides some insight into what Critical Race Theory really is:
Critical race theory is fast becoming America’s new institutional orthodoxy… built on the intellectual framework of identity-based Marxism. There are a series of euphemisms deployed by its supporters to describe critical race theory, including “equity,” “social justice,” “diversity and inclusion,” and “culturally responsive teaching.” Critical race theorists, masters of language construction, realize that “neo-Marxism” would be a hard sell. Equity, on the other hand, sounds non-threatening and is easily confused with the American principle of equality…. It has been injected into government agencies, public school systems, teacher training programs, and corporate human resources departments in the form of diversity training programs, human resources modules, public policy frameworks, and school curricula. (Read the entire Imprimis article on CRT through this link.)
What CRT really does is teach Americans to hate each other on the basis of their race and skin color. Governor DeSantis’ strong declaration that “wacko” Critical Race Theory will not be tolerated in Florida was welcomed by conservatives. And Commissioner Corcoran is following up.
According to reporting by John Haughey, a contributor to The Center Square, the State Board of Education (BOE) on June 10 will ponder a proposed rule from the Florida Department of Education (DOE) explicitly prohibiting Florida K-12 teachers from “indoctrinating” public school students by espousing “critical race theory.”
The proposed rule was introduced by Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran during a May 5 speech at Hillsdale College, a private college in Hillsdale, Mich., that often hosts conservative speakers issuing significant policy addresses.
Asked for his views on progressive ideas in textbooks and instructional materials, Corcoran said Florida’s Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking (BEST) standards adopted after Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order in January 2019 to eliminate vestiges of Common Core standards, ensures a fair representation of historical fact.
We’re passing a rule this coming month that says, for the 185,000 (Florida) teachers, you can’t indoctrinate students with stuff that’s not based on our standards, the new BEST standards,” he said.
Corcoran said it is a ”constant, vigilant fight” to ensure progressive bias, such as “critical race theory” do not become the dominant narrative in history taught in public schools.
DeSantis in March criticized critical race theory, which surmises that racism is embedded within American society and institutions, rolled out his own “civics literacy” proposal within 2019’s BEST standards reflected in DOE’s proposed rule.
“Critical race theory” is “basically teaching kids to hate our country and to hate each other based on race. It puts race as the most important thing. I want content of character to be the most important thing,” DeSantis told reporters in March.
“We rewrote all of our standards, we did all of that stuff, and then we do a book adoption,” Corcoran said at Hillsdale College. “And the publishers are just infested with liberals. And so we would have to say to them in our bid specs, we are not going to approve your bid unless … a certain percent of our reading list has to be in your text.”
The proposed rule the BOE will see on its June 10 agenda when it meets at Florida State College at Jacksonville would impose strict guidelines on teaching U.S. history.
“Instruction on the required topics must be factual and objective and may not suppress or distort significant historical events, such as the Holocaust, and may not define American history as something other than the creation of a new nation based largely on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence,” the DOE’s proposed rule states.
The proposed rule would require that any classroom discussion be deemed “appropriate for the age and maturity level of the students,” and prohibits teachers from “sharing their personal views or attempt to indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view” inconsistent with state BEST standards.
However, as our friends at the Florida Citizens Alliance explained:
…we know the devil is always in the details. Right now all 67 Florida school districts are adopting and purchasing English Language Arts (ELA) textbooks. Many of these materials are published by the same progressive publishers that gave us, and the rest of nation, Common Core. Unfortunately, while the textbooks being adopted do reflect much of the great work the FL DOE did to create the new B.E.S.T ELA and Math standards, these materials being adopted also contain all of the tentacles and subtle aspects of Critical Race Theory. Once purchased, these materials will be in our schools for the next 4-6 years.
This is unacceptable for Florida’s 2.8 million public school children. We urge you to add your name to the letter to Governor DeSantis and Education Commissioner Corcoran – tell them they are being undercut by the education bureaucracy, and the only way to stop CRT is to put an absolute prohibition on any textbooks tainted with Critical Race Theory.
