DeSantis Takes the Sunshine State into the Dark Ages

Connecting the dots on Florida’s war on public education

Ron DeSantis has been making national headlines lately for his attempts to politicize Florida’s schools. Every week there’s a new story about how the Governor is taking on the woke libs in Florida’s educational system. The pace of his war on schools has accelerated each year, it’s enough to make your head spin. That’s my motivation for writing this article. I wanted to document the scale of the destruction left in DeSantis’ wake just to get it straight in my own head, hopefully it will serve some purpose for others as well.

With each of these laws the question to ask is, what is the problem they are intending to solve. Often the bill’s sponsor will freely discuss the law’s real intent, while using wording in the bill to obscure what it actually does. In most cases the real goal is to get a headline showing they’re taking on the liberals, rarely is it solving an actual problem. Of course, the result is they are diverting time and resources away from real problems in our public schools.

War on universities

DeSantis has focused a lot of his energy on what he refers to as the liberal elites in the state’s Universities. He has directed much of his efforts at college professors. In 2022 Florida enacted a law putting the governor appointed boards of trustees in charge of tenure review. Professors have always had tenure review, but it’s usually performed by other professors who are better positioned to evaluate their performance. This law also requires that universities make instructional material available for five years after a class finishes. In combination with another law allowing secret recording of professors, it’s become clear the goal was making it easier to remove what they see as liberal professors.

Just in case anyone still had any doubts about the real goal of the Governor’s actions, Florida is going even further this year. New legislation will allow tenure review at any time, effectively eliminating the concept of tenure. Florida’s Republicans are also further expanding the role of politically appointed boards of trustees by putting them in charge of all professor hiring. The significance of this became apparent when DeSantis completely replaced the board at New College in Sarasota. The new board members are all DeSantis supporters and many come from Christian colleges. A DeSantis spokesperson said the goal was to remake New College along the lines of the Christian school Hillsdale College. They immediately eliminated all diversity, equity and inclusion programs and replaced the college president with a retired Republican politician. The overt politicization of higher education at New College has been dizzying.

The governor has been explicit that he’s planning on “dismantling” all diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the state. This means programs intended to attract students and faculty from a range of demographic backgrounds are effectively dead. Likewise, he’s banning all gender or race based degree programs. This means degrees in women’s studies or African American studies will be eliminated. Taken together, these measures represent an unprecedented attempt to reshape higher education along strictly political lines. DeSantis’ actions are an all out assault on academic freedom at Florida’s universities.

War on secular education

At the heart of many of these laws is the effort to force Christianity into the classroom. One way they’re getting around the Constitution’s prohibition on this is to fund private religious schools. In 2021 DeSantis signed a law that expanded publicly funded vouchers to send lower income Floridians to private, usually religious, schools. If there was any doubt about the intention of this law, the Governor held two events to celebrate its passing, both at Catholic schools. Now two years later, DeSantis has expanded this still further by removing all income requirements.

The result is thousands of Florida’s children are going to publicly funded private schools. These schools are largely free of any constraints on what they teach and can become right-wing indoctrination centers. This latest bill is a huge handout to the state’s wealthiest families. They have always sent their children to private schools, but under this bill the state will begin paying for it. The inevitable result of this is funneling money away from public schools to private religious schools. This is a fundamental attack on separation of church and state. However, conservative courts in Florida have not only upheld these vouchers, but ruled that the state can’t dictate a curriculum to religious schools.

Also in 2021, Florida enacted a law that requires a one-minute moment of silence each day. They don’t come out and say it’s for school prayer, but the bill’s sponsor made it clear that this was a response to what he characterized as attempts to push God out of public institutions. Of course, students have always had the right to pray in school, but that doesn’t give them a campaign talking point.

The following year they passed an act declaring “Victims of Communism Day.” Gosh, I wonder if Republicans passed this because of their false rhetoric equating Democrats with Communists? This bill requires high school students to receive 45 minutes of instruction on the evils of communism every November 7th. Communism and its impact have always been taught as part of the lessons on the Cold War. By dictating that this instruction take place on a specific date each year it disrupts normal instruction. Republicans claim they want to get indoctrination out of schools, but Victims of Communism Day is clearly right-wing indoctrination.

War on history

One of DeSantis’ most contentious actions was the Stop WOKE Act which he signed in front of a group of bewildered black and brown elementary school children holding “No CRT” signs. The weird thing about this law is it doesn’t really do much. It lists prohibited lessons, but none of those lessons were in the curriculum to begin with. This is a classic solution in search of a problem. Probably the most controversial element was a provision that many interpreted as banning lessons that might make white children feel uncomfortable. But again, I think it would be next to impossible to find a class in Florida that was teaching white kids to feel guilt over past racism.

Despite the general lack of meaningful changes included in this bill, it has had a real impact. First, in January of this year DeSantis banned the advanced placement course on African American Studies based on the false assertion that Critical Race Theory (CRT) was being taught. The DeSantis administration claims the Stop WOKE Act outlawed CRT, eventhough there’s nothing in the wording of the law that supports this. They simultaneously claim there is nothing in this law that whitewashes history, as critics have claimed, while also using this law to in fact, whitewash history.

The second way this law is having a real impact on the way history is taught in Florida is in textbook selection. Again, there was no meaningful change in the actual standards, so there’s no reason why the law should have much impact, but it is. DeSantis has ties to the conservative group Florida Citizens Alliance, which has urged the state to reject 28 of 38 submitted social studies textbooks. They complained that one history book mentioned slavery 189 times. They also felt another history book over emphasized the “negative side” of the treatment of Native Americans. The Stop WOKE Act has given them the legal justification to object to these textbooks.

It’s also having a direct effect on publishers. Several publishers chose to not even submit textbooks this year. They declined to state why, but it’s pretty clear they saw how Florida politicized the process and calculated the changes they’d need to make to the material wasn’t worth the effort. Florida is the third most populous state, and they surrendered that market because of DeSantis’ politicization of education.

Another publisher made changes they believed were necessary to comply with the Stop WOKE Act. They changed a lesson on Rosa Parks from stating the law required her to give up her seat to a white person, to saying she was asked to move because of the color of her skin. The change is subtle, but important. When you mentioned the law required her to give up her seat, that implies institutionalized racism, not a mere custom. When you start talking about institutionalized racism it begins to sound like Critical Race Theory. That’s a big no-no in Ron DeSantis’ Florida. That’s just one example of the changes they made to comply with the Stop WOKE Act.

Does the Stop WOKE Act require removal of references to Jim Crow laws from educational materials? No. But the combination of vague wording and political rhetoric is directly leading to the whitewashing of history in Florida’s schools. It’s likely other textbook publishers will issue Florida specific anti-woke versions that dumb down racial and gender issues as well. What problem is this law intended to solve? It bans teaching subjects that no one was teaching. However, its practical effect has been to encourage presenting a sugarcoated version of history. This is clearly an intentional feature of the law. It gives them deniability while accomplishing the very thing they publicly claim they aren’t doing.

War on LGTBQ

As much attention as Florida Republicans got over their anti-woke campaigns, they were fairly restrained in their efforts. They knew they couldn’t just come out and say they were against teaching African American history, so they attacked it indirectly and nibbled away at it from the edges. The real intent was to get a big headline showing they were taking on the woke libs, while not putting anything in writing that was clearly racist. They’ve shown no such restraint in going after LGTBQ people. It seems they calculated they can refuse to acknowledge the LGTBQ community’s existence without paying a price for it.

DeSantis’ first target in his war on LGTBQ people was a ban on trans athletes in 2021. I think there can be a reasonable discussion about if trans women have an unfair advantage. But this was never about having a reasonable discussion. DeSantis used rhetoric stating, “girls are going to play girls sports,” implying that trans girls are not girls. To rub salt in the wound, the signing event was held on the first day of Gay Pride Month. Just to make sure the politics of the situation was evident, the ceremony was held at a private Christian academy, rather than a public school.

Are trans athletes really a problem? To find a poster child for this bill, Ron DeSantis had to fly in a female athlete from Connecticut who claimed she failed to advance in a track meet because of trans athletes. Apparently, he couldn’t find a real-life example in Florida. There may be instances when trans women should be restricted from competitive sports. That question is probably best handled by the governing bodies of each sport. The hyperbole from Republicans made it clear, this was about attacking trans people, not fairness in sports.

DeSantis was just getting warmed up, the following year he went after the whole LGTBQ community with a law known as Don’t Say Gay. This law bans “classroom instruction . . . on sexual orientation or gender identity” through third grade, and limits it in higher grades. Just recently DeSantis made a proposal that would expand the restriction to all grades. The DeSantis appointed Florida Board of Education will almost certainly approve this expansion.

The problem is, what do they mean by instruction? No school in the state has lessons on these topics so there’s no required change to the curriculum. Again, we have to ask what is this legislation actually about? What problem are they trying to solve? It’s become apparent through the implementation that by instruction they mean any mention of a LGTBQ person. You might be thinking, wouldn’t this law also apply to discussions of “straight” people? There’s an existing law in Florida that requires “teaching the benefits of monogamous, heterosexual marriage.” Therefore, when discussing heterosexual people you are upholding state law, but when you mention homosexual or trans people you are instructing on sexual orientation or gender identity. There are a lot of problems with this reasoning, but that’s their justification.

War on literacy

The Don’t Say Gay law became particularly harmful when combined with the 2022 law on instructional materials. Republicans have described this law as making the selection of educational materials more transparent. What this law actually does is make it much easier for people to challenge textbooks and library books. It also adds many bureaucratic reporting procedures and requirements for maintaining searchable databases of educational materials. It also adds a requirement mandating going back through every book in Florida schools to remove all pornography.

Of course, school libraries have never had pornography, but some counties have removed vast sections of their libraries while conducting this review. Teachers with personal classroom libraries have had to pull their books until a trained media specialist reviews their content. They didn’t fund any of these new requirements, taking precious resources away from actual education to address a non-existent problem.

Republican lawmakers knew that fundamentalist Christians would scour school libraries for any content that wasn’t consistent with their faith. They haven’t been disappointed. Across the state right-wing activist have inundated school districts with challenges to any material that mentions gay or trans characters. These right-wing activists have labeled these books pornography and anyone who defends them as pedophiles who are grooming children. Many of these removed books have been highly acclaimed works of literature that students no longer have access to. Even when parents have fought off these challenges, the schools often put the books in restricted areas.

Perhaps the most insidious measure is the enforcement mechanism. Any parent who feels the schools haven’t addressed their concerns can request a magistrate be appointed, at the school district expense, to determine the facts. Parents can also sue for damages if they believe teachers exposed their children to material they feel is inappropriate. If the parent wins the lawsuit the school district is also on the hook for attorney fees and court costs. Already cash strapped schools are facing the prospect of a slew of frivolous lawsuits if they leave anything a parent might object to the shelves. The risk of financially ruinous legal actions, even if they win the cases, is directly reducing students’ access to important literature. Of course, these rules don’t apply to Christian schools that are receiving public funding.

Conclusion

This is a lot to take in, and I didn’t even get into DeSantis’ efforts to bust teacher unions, make school board races partisan, and force colleges to report information on trans students. The DeSantis war on education has been stunningly effective at imposing right-wing ideology on public schools. Governors in other states are parroting his efforts and Republicans in Congress also recently attempted to pass a DeSantis inspired education bill. At the same time, outraged parents are pushing back leading to packed and often contentious school board meetings. DeSantis signed most of these laws in his second term so it’s not clear what the political fallout will be. What is clear are both students and teachers are paying the price for DeSantis’ naked political pandering and ambition for higher office.