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Latest DeSantis Attack on the Woke Agenda
When our kids and their education are at stake, Gov. Ron DeSantis is ruthless in going after the Woke agenda. And he’s upset a lot of people who are accustomed to having their way when it comes to the education curriculum and propaganda taught to children.
The latest kerfuffle has been that the Florida Department of Education has rejected 35% of the social studies textbooks submitted by publishers:
Officials offered several examples of passages they rejected, including one headlined ‘New Calls for Social Justice’ in a middle school textbook. The passage discussed the start of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013 and the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in 2020. It was removed from the book, according to the department. Also stricken was a mention of people kneeling during the national anthem in an elementary school textbook.
Those who support publishing this information in textbooks also see no problem with promoting BLM, a Marxist organization with a violent agenda.
Critical Race Theory is also prohibited in the textbooks and clearly has a Leftist agenda, the way it’s been taught in the schools; we don’t need to teach our children the hateful information that they are being oppressed or are oppressors to their classmates. This type of teaching only confuses and upsets students who likely get along just fine, or quibble over whose turn it is to go to the front of the line.
Especially disturbing are the people who mischaracterize this review of textbooks:
‘There’s so many emotions, but I guess immediately it’s fear,’ Hillsborough School Board member Jessica Vaughn said. ‘I’m afraid of the pattern of erasing or trying to rewrite history, because to me this is right out of the playbook of fascism.’
These two sentences illustrate how the resistance to reasonable curricula is emotional and irrational. What is Ms. Vaughn afraid of? What legitimate history is being erased? And what makes these efforts fascistic? I doubt Ms. Vaughn could give a coherent explanation of her concerns.
Take a look at this description of socialism (which was also rejected, then replaced):
The original text said socialism ‘keeps things nice and even and without unnecessary waste.’ It also said socialist societies ‘may promote greater equality among people while still providing a fully functioning government-supervised economy.’
. . . The revised text cites China during the Maoist era and Cuba as examples of planned economies. It goes on to say that critics say planned economies “have slow development and fewer technological advances” with little human incentive.
A few dynamics are at play in the requirement for reviewing social studies textbooks. One is that the education establishment (administrators and teachers) have been taught and raised for years in the Leftist mindset, and they are determined to carry on the tradition. They also have enjoyed the level of power they’ve exerted and resent any efforts to curb their influence. The other issue is that the Left will characterize efforts to restrain their propaganda agenda with labels of racism, white supremacy, and fascism to denigrate their opposition. Finally, they know that our kids are the future, and to fully realize their Leftist agenda, they will need the kids carrying on their message.
If DeSantis runs for President, it will be fascinating to see if his anti-woke agenda continues.
I encourage you to go here to review additional changes required by the Florida Board of Education.
Published in Education
Get government out of the business of providing education directly. Wanna ensure an educated populace and have public funding? Ok, but all education should be private.
That’s fine with me, but upending that tradition will be a long slog. I guess we have Ben Franklin to thank!
Not sure what you are getting at here.
I agree with @edg, education is essentially a personal matter. During the Agricultural Age, having lots of children was important for ranchers and farmers but not so much for those who were already living in the cities. They could see a legitimate need for education for purposes of teaching self-discipline and social functionality in an emerging rule oriented society as the Industrial Age developed. They made education into more of a public matter and now those self-interested in the preservation of the public education institution have taken measures to do just that. The Information Age has caused another shift and changed the nature of what we call the working class and I think this might be what we have seen in causing the division of views shifting towards populism.
He has more common sense in his baby fingernail than the whole Brandon administration. Here’s another one – DeSantis is not allowing Chinese purchase of anymore Florida property unless they are a citizen or in the process of obtaining citizenship. It is a problem worldwide by the way.
That is a pretty chilling description when you realize that Socialism has cause more death than any philosophy that man has every designed. Yet the left accuses us of airbrushing history.
I get to use this one again!
I’m sorry, Bob. I think Franklin established universal public education
They repeatedly show what hypocrites they are.
There are other things to criticize them for.
Universal public education was first started during the Scottish Reformation in 1560.
I meant in the US.
?? Here in Michigan it is generally credited to people who had been admiring the Prussian system. (The same people also appear in the story of the Black Hawk war scare of 1832. It was a real war but just a scare out here.)
“If DeSantis runs for President, it will be fascinating to see if his anti-woke agenda continues.”
If DeSantis takes office I am sure it will continue. So many priorities but getting the military back to a meritocracy focused on its mission has to be near the top.
DeSantis is wonderful and has all the moral standing to make this argument. Meanwhile the other guy is defending himself against going to porn star prostitutes and sexual assault and a whole string of adulterous affairs. DeSantis is the real deal while the other guy is…well, he can’t make the moral argument with credibility. Just saying.
The bad guy you’re looking for was Horace Mann. He was from Massachusetts. Why does that not surprise me?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Mann
The Michigan guy I was referring to went back east and visited with Horace Mann when he was putting together his plan for Michigan schools. That’s something I learned just tonight when I was reading a biography of him that I hadn’t known existed. The biography also has some information about Michigan’s path from centralization to decentralization to centralization of schools. Part of that history is new to me.
Long ago, when I first learned about him, I went to the Michigan State Archives and read a sermon he gave at the time of the Black Hawk War, in a little notebook in its original string binding. I wondered if his sermon would have anything to say about current events. It didn’t, and it seemed exceedingly boring, besides. I think I made a photocopy of it anyway.
This is a common view among conservatives. Let’s just get government out of X. I’m all for it, but there’s a reason it never happens (even Reagan couldn’t eliminate the newly created Department of Education). I like that DeSantis is fighting within the existing system and actually making a difference. That beats the right saying let’s eliminate something that has no hope of elimination while the left marches through the institution of education unchallenged.
Yeah, except we are re-rewriting history after Zinn and company had their way with it.
Or in Wikipedia-ese, reverting the re-writing of history.
I agree! He’s also big on vouchers and charter schools. In many ways, those choices are taking us in the right direction.
They rename the buildings, pull down the statues, rewrite the literature, and now they get their knickers in a twist about history modification?
An important feature of achieving Full Woke is to have the self-awareness (and the attention span) of an almond moth.
Never take history lessons from people who were born yesterday.
Ridiculous. So much for a primary challenge not fracturing and damaging the MAGA, AF wing.
Having slept with women means he can’t argue against sexualizing kids? Ridiculous. You’d oppose him in that effort just because you hate him? Would anyone? It’s all so ridiculous Manny.
It makes it harder for him to pitch it to independents and especially to independent women, which is a group very much in play because of school closures and the woke agenda. Additionally the current GOP front runner’s heart isn’t really in the culture war/ woke stuff remember he sided with Disney and with Bud Light. I don’t hate him but I am looking at him with fresh eyes. He has to earn my vote again. His attacks on DeSantis from the left are not doing it for me sorry. All that having been said if he wins the nomination he has my vote. He may even get my vote in the primary but it isn’t certain at this point.
The fact that DeSantis can do this and demonstrate that it’s a winning political strategy gives me hope that others will reach the same conclusion.
There is some movement in other states, Hank, but of course it’s not widely publicized.
Oh, so fakery and hoaxes are the plan then? That’s what we’re accepting now as the standards and norms? Never mind that an obviously biased “finding” like that could just as easily backfire – as it should.
This is part.of what I mean when I say that moving on without defeating the BS or because we’re too tired of it all, would be a big loss. Bigger than Trump possibly losing in 2024.
Harder than Joey kid sniffer pitching it? Harder than Tara Reade raper pitching it?
Ridiculous. Buck up people. It’s gonna be a long war.
Boston Latin was established in 1635.
The Mayflower brought education with them. :) Not to argue because I think you are talking about tax-funded public education. :)
I just think it is really cool how quickly the colonists established a functioning society in Boston. Harvard was founded in 1636. The Mayflower arrived in 1620. So a mere 16 years later, by 1630, the colonists had built two cities–both Boston and Cambridge (all 7 square miles of Cambridge)–capable of even thinking about organized education.
I read somewhere (which I have been unable to find again, unfortunately) that at the start of the American Revolution in 1775, the Colonies–not including England–had the highest GDP in the world.
It was an amazingly productive and intelligent group of people who planted and tended this country. Pretty cool. :)