So now we see the consequences of DeSantis’ fabricated culture war against African-American history. Too much—or any—attention to racism runs afoul of Florida’s STOP WOKE law. One school decided to “stop woke” by ordering the teacher to remove pictures of Black heroes. The teacher quit. Escambia County, where this happened, has a severe teacher shortage.
An Escambia County public school teacher resigned this week over what he characterized as racist behavior by a school district employee.
The teacher, Michael James, emailed a letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis and Escambia County Superintendent Tim Smith in which he wrote that a district employee removed pictures of historic Black American heroes from his classroom walls, citing the images as being “age inappropriate.”
Images that were removed from the bulletin board at O.J. Semmes Elementary School included depictions of Martin Luther King Jr., Harriett Tubman, Colin Powell and George Washington Carver, James said.
District concludes its investigation:Escambia school district refutes teacher’s account of removal of Black leaders’ photos
“It really floored me,” James told the News Journal. “I’ve been teaching special education for 15 years, and it just really floored me when she did that.”
James chose the board’s theme because the majority of the students and the residents in the neighborhoods that surround O.J. Semmes are Black, and he wanted to motivate his students with inspirational leaders they could easily look up to and see themselves.
James, 61, of Daphne, Alabama [who is white], sent his letter to the governor Monday night. He officially resigned from his position as an exceptional student education teacher at O.J. Semmes Elementary School on Tuesday morning.
His resignation came in the midst of a national teacher shortage, a day before the start of the new school year Wednesday.
Superintendent Smith said teachers are permitted to decorate their classrooms with educational materials and he was unaware of any policies that would prohibit a teacher from displaying pictures of inspirational American heroes on their walls.
Smith said a full investigation of the incident, which he called an “anomaly,” has been launched.
Charlie Crist, who is running for the Democratic nomination for governor to challenge DeSantis in November, blamed the governor’s “culture wars” for politicizing Florida’s public schools.
The district concluded its investigation and disputed the teacher’s account. It said that two staff members—including a “behavior analyst”— came to help Mr. James set up his classroom. They noticed that he had pictures of “black luminaries” in the front of the room when he should have installed a list of state standards instead.
The behavior analyst told James that the bulletin board directly behind his teaching area had to be dedicated to state-required curricular materials that he would require to teach his specific students, according to the district.
“To be clear, due to the nature of this specific population of students, it is critical the instructional materials be within their line of sight during instruction, for the purposes of student focus and retention,” read the district’s statement.
“The Behavior Analyst observed his bulletin board was ‘Awesome,’ because of the history tied to it, but the language and reading levels on the posters were too complex for this particular group of students,” the statement said.
Mr. James said that the district’s account was malarkey.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
If you take the school system at its word, they are micromanaging twits. So do we have an overzealous anti-wokist? or a self-important bureaucrat? The question reminds me of what Hannah Adrent discovered about Eichman, suggesting that he was more bureaucrat than murderer. The implications are very serious now as then.
Micromanaging twits.
Precisely. No one wants to work in conditions of such low professional autonomy. So, even if the district’s account were true (it sounds doubtful), it’s still appalling.
I taught at the beginning of my career and then returned to teaching at the end of my career. In the time I was away from it, teachers lost almost all professional autonomy. It was shocking how many and how often micromanaging nitwits would come into my room, presuming that they knew more about my work than I did. (I had spent my life writing and editing curricular materials, including textbooks.)
Gotta say, Bob, I totally agree (Surprise!).
I managed to write my own curriculum as a teacher, and ‘nitwits’ didn’t have much to offer because they knew nothing about the subject areas I was teaching. I wasn’t trying to sell textbooks, I was trying to educate my students.
Yes, in “Eichmann in Jerusalem”, he can come across, at least through Arendt’s writings, as quite human. He contends that he saved thousands of Jews and others through his various orders. He was an outstanding Nazi in that he followed his orders to their deadly conclusions without questioning them-if not him then someone else would have done the work.
Following mandates without questioning them, except maybe trying to mitigate some of the disastrous effects. . . who does that remind me of? Yep, almost all public school administrators and teachers. Am I calling them Nazis? No, but I do charge that they are Go Along to Get Along Good German types, much like Eichmann was, obeying their orders from above.
From Ch. 7 “Ethics in Public Education” in “Infidelity to Truth: Education Malpractices in American Public Education” I wrote about the ethics of implementing malpractices:
“Ethics in regard to students and towards practices and performance, are the two categories that interest us and warrant further commentary along with a quick caveat about ethics toward the profession of teaching itself. Obviously teachers’ main ethical concern should primarily be directed toward the student as noted by the AAE code: “The professional educator deals considerately and justly with each student, and seeks to resolve problems, including discipline, according to law and school policy” and “the professional educator makes a constructive effort to protect the student from conditions detrimental to learning, health, or safety.” What happens when “law and school policy” actually hinder those dealings as hinted at in the end of the statement? The answer to follow. Or from the NEA code: “the educator shall make reasonable effort to protect the student from conditions harmful to learning or to health and safety.”
In regard to ethical considerations in relation to professional competence and practices the NASDTEC code states: “The professional educator demonstrates responsible use of data, materials, research and assessment . . . and the professional educator acts in the best interests of all students. . . .” And the AAE code offers: “The professional educator assumes responsibility and accountability for his or her performance and continually strive to demonstrate competence. The professional educator endeavors to maintain the dignity of the profession by respecting and obeying the law, and by demonstrating personal integrity.”
“Should we therefore forgo our self-interest? Of course not. But it [self-interest] must be subordinate to justice, not the other way around. . . . To take advantage of a child’s naivete. . . in order to extract from them something [test scores, personal information] that is contrary to their interests, or intentions, without their knowledge [or consent of parents] or through coercion [state mandated testing], is always and everywhere unjust even if in some places and under certain circumstances it is not illegal. . . . Justice is superior to and more valuable than well-being or efficiency; it cannot be sacrificed to them, not even for the happiness of the greatest number [quoting Rawls]. To what could justice legitimately be sacrificed, since without justice there would be no legitimacy or illegitimacy? And in the name of what, since without justice even humanity, happiness and love could have no absolute value. . . . Without justice, values would be nothing more than (self) interests or motives; they would cease to be values or would become values without worth.” [my additions]
This episode occurred in a neighboring county. The reason given for the removal of the photos was that the reading level on the posters was above the reading level of the developmentally challenged students in the class. Students can appreciate and be inspired by photos with or without the associated text. The whole anti-woke or anti-CRT laws are giving school districts too much latitude on how to interpret the law. The school district is waIking back some of its original statements and getting some teachers to corroborate the district’s version of the story. It wonder the ACLU is ever going to get involved in these disputes. Fear and loathing reigns in DeSantis’ Florida.
cx: I wonder if the ACLU is ever going to get involved in these disputes.
Calling Henry Drummond! “We need you!” (or Spencer Tracy will do).
This is egregious.
This is fodder for an OCR Complaint*
Start a Michael James Defense Fund!
Why is a team including a behavior analyst helping a 15-year veteran set up his classroom?
Who actually took it down?
Why do they even have a behavior analyst? (I thought they banned SEL there – but then again, they are all about control and behaviors, not soft feelings and emotions).
Where are the Parents? Will they storm a Board Meeting like the book burners and homophonics?
*That’s it – Tell the right wingers “Now the leftist liberals are using OCR in the schools!” Let them make fools of themselves complaining about that.
This is only the tip of the iceberg.
And to think, it was President Bush who talked about “soft bigotry”
““To be clear, due to the nature of this specific population of students, it is critical the instructional materials be within their line of sight during instruction, for the purposes of student focus and retention,” read the district’s statement.”
And I’d bet two bits that the students read: “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah ad infitum.”
Whoever made up that bullshit of a line of reasoning, i.e., that those “instructional materials. . . for the purpose of student focus”, shows great potential for being an outstanding adminimal.
Or, like Eichman, an outstanding Nazi. Adrent raised the question of whether there was a difference.
yes, an adminimal’s admiral
Fascism sneaks in one-step-at-a-time with big feet in steel-toed boots, kicking and stomping everything in sight until they own it all.
Why is a “behavior analyst” weighing in on any aspect of education other than student behavior?
Why would they have anything at all to say about the “reading level” of classroom materials?
Shouldn’t that be determined by a reading specialist?
Some psychologits are as pompous as economists when it comes to thinking they know everything about things far outside their area of expertise.
Psychology = Economics = Pseudo-Scientific Horse Manure.
“Instructional coaches” and “literacy coaches” are as unnecessary as “behavior analysts.” Why do districts think that adult professionals can’t do their jobs without “help”?
Do physicians, lawyers, accountants, etc need work-place coaches? Who originated this insulting and expensive idea that we can’t do the jobs we were trained to do? The coaches often know less than the teachers.
I was also evaluated poorly for not posting standards on the board. Such a boring requirement that runs counter to student curiosity and real learning by discovery.
Does anyone believe that students learn more because the standards are posted on the board?
Not any true teacher.
Teachers should make a dart board with DeSantis picture in the middle surrounds in circles by the standards.
They can devote five minutes of each class to letting students throw darts.t o see if they can hit the bullseye.
Bullyseye
Again, what is happening in Florida and other Conservatively led states is utter nonsense, but worse, it also damages children, teachers, communities, and education as a whole. Quite frankly, as a resident of the state and a former full time faculty in a college of education, it is embarrassing to live in Florida with all that is happening in education and beyond.
There really is a malignant pettiness associated with this fascist cult, isn’t there?
DeSantis and the others are obviously winning.
They are accomplishing precisely what they set out to accomplish: drive out anyone who disagrees and instilling fear in the ones who stay.
Although one certainly can not blame Michael James for resigning.
“African American heroes” are elevated in respect and reputation when we know that the champion of White, straight, Republican men is Marjorie Taylor Greene.
My gawd…this is: Insanity to the MAX!
No, Yvonne, it’s DeINSANTISity!!!
(Flo-RID-duh’s own special brand of insanity…hopefully not to be the whole of America’s in 2024.)
Bob: I take Poetic License to use the term Flo-RID-DUH (although I don’t think that’s exactly how you type it–my insertion of *RID is in reference to, once again, DeINSANEtis, who simply gets rid (State’s A.G., school curriculum, FDPH statistician) of anything & everyone disgreeable to/in disagreement w/the it (another non-human). I give you carte blanche to use ILL-Annoy at your discretion.
Although I haven’t had to use it lately, & hopefully will NOT have to do so at anytime in the near future–working on keeping IL BLUE & our incumbent Guv in place. (His opponent, Darren Bailey, just said some pretty disgusting things about a VERY disgusting comparison he made–in 2017, I believe–RE: abortion & the Holocaust. He won’t apologize “because some Rabbis told him what he said was right.” No…they DIDN’T.)
I feel sad and mad for the 4-6 kids on the autistic spectrum who were going to have Mr James as their teacher. Who will teach them now? A long-term substitute?
Was the “behavior analyst” more knowledgeable and experienced on set-up for a self-contained autistic classroom than the teacher? More likely what they were really doing: following admin’s instructions to remove anything that might remotely be interpreted by some self-righteous tattle-tale as counter to DeathSentence’s marching orders.
James was right to quit; he will not be able to do what he does with people like that looking over his shoulder, justifying their salary by jerking teachers around. As he says, he will find another position easily with his qualifications and a shortage of SpEd [and all] teachers in FL. But no guarantee he won’t run into similar crap with these micromanaging yet vague laws.
I love how the analyst was concerned that the wording beneath the pictures was above their level, yet
they insist placing the standards where students could read them.
What student EVER paid attention to the standards?
I seriously doubt the “behavior analyst” even knows what the standards mean.
These are people who believe thst studies of pigeons are applicable to people.