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Scott Maxwell: Purging Knowledge in Florida

By dianeravitch
May 20, 2023 //
36

The mainstream media has given ample coverage to the likelihood that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is likely to announce his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president in the next week. The stories about him treat him as a normal elected officials. They do not reference his multiple efforts to censor ideas and people he doesn’t like; to ban teaching ideas he doesn’t like; to ban textbooks that include ideas he disagrees with; to persecute drag queens and gay people. The American people need to know who he is. DeSantis’ regime of censorship is a pathetic attempt by pasty-faced cowards to dumb down the students of Florida. They can’t succeed because everyone has access to the Internet and television, where they will learn about the lies the state is teaching them.

Scott Maxwell is a regular columnist for the Orlando Sentinel. He is fearless. In this post, he writes about Governor Ron DeSantis’ purge of knowledge he doesn’t like.

The headlines are as abundant as they are dystopian:

“Florida rejects, amends many social studies textbooks”

“An Entire Florida School District Has Banned a Kids’ Book on Segregation”

“Florida bans more than 40% of math books after review”

“350+ Books Banned in Florida School Districts Since Last July”

A knowledge purge is underway in Florida. The targets: History lessons that politicians want hidden. Perspectives that make parents uncomfortable. Truths that ideologues find inconvenient.

Basically, we have people who want to control the narrative. And they think it’s easier to do that if kids don’t know all the facts.

Now, it’s hard to get your hands around both the scope and the specifics of this purge, because education officials are censoring so much and revealing so little.

In the latest salvo, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ education department rejected 35 different social studies books — more than a third of all they reviewed.
Florida rejects some social studies books, forces ‘Take a Knee’ out of one

But to justify their actions, they released snippets from only six of the books they shunned or ordered altered. So you don’t have much to go on.
But let’s look at one of those six examples. It’s from an elementary school textbook that teaches children about patriotism.

DeSantis staffers approved passages that instructed students to learn the Pledge of Allegiance and encouraged parents to stress the significance of the national anthem. But they did not want kids hearing why they might see some Americans, especially athletes on TV, take a knee during the anthem.

Specifically, the Florida Department of Education ordered the textbook to remove a section that suggested parents — not teachers, mind you — use that lesson on patriotic traditions “as an opportunity to talk about why some citizens are choosing to ‘Take a Knee’ to protest police brutality and racism.” DeSantis staffers ordered that suggestion stricken.

A popular talking point for people who dislike athletes taking a knee is to describe them as “anti-American,” “anti-cop” or “unpatriotic.” And it’s easier to peddle that narrative if students don’t hear why the players themselves say they’re doing what they are.

Personally, I think there’s valid debate over taking a knee. I can see why some players would. I can see why many people would dislike them doing so. It’s not really that hard to understand the divide — if you listen to what people on both sides are saying.
But the new Florida model of education doesn’t want to share all sides. The censors say kids aren’t ready for these discussions. Really, though, it’s the adults who are scared their kids might hear a different perspective. They’re the snowflakes.

The DeSantis censors also axed a section about Black Lives Matter from a middle school textbook that presented both pro and con perspectives on the social movement. The passage described the killing of George Floyd, explained that social media gave rise to civic activism and then gave a brief explanation of why some people supported Black Lives Matter and an even lengthier description of why others opposed it.DeSantis’ education staffers ordered the entire section removed.

At least one of the passages DeSantis staffers removed looks justifiably flagged. It’s a section from a middle-school book that attempts to teach students what a socialist form of government is.
The first part does a fine job explaining that, in a socialist society, the government controls much of the means of production, but then says: “It keeps things nice and even and without unnecessary waste.” Um, what? That seems more like a pom-pom for socialism — and a pretty skewed one at that — than a civics lesson. Yank it out.

But here’s the problem: DeSantis staffers shared a reworked version of the textbook that met their approval. It removed the word “socialism” altogether, replacing it with “planned economies.”
I’m no fan of socialism, but I’d sure like students to have a correct understanding of what it is. Why? Because the vast majority of adults who scream about socialism absolutely do not. They somehow believe anything government-funded is “socialism” … and then turn into Cletus the Slack-jawed Yokel when you ask them if that means Medicare and highways are socialist as well.

I’d love to see students better informed than these adults. But that seems to be the last thing the grown-ups want.

Last year, before state officials were rejecting social studies textbooks, they were flagging math books for being allegedly too woke. A handful of people apparently believed liberal boogeymen had infiltrated the nation’s algebra-instructional complex. And the handful got their way.

Some of this censorship is silly, political theater. Some is a serious effort to indoctrinate.

One publisher, Penguin Randomhouse, sued the Escambia County school district last week over its book-banning. Other publishers agree to comply with whatever censorship orders they’re given as they’re more interested in selling textbooks than standing on any sort of educational principles.

Then there are all the school library books being banned in historic numbers, thanks to the Republican-led Legislature’s new book-banning bill — books about everything from the civil rights movement to nontraditional families.

School book challenges, already on rise, could escalate in Florida

The Lake County school district pulled a picture book about the true story of two male penguins in Central Park Zoo who raised a chick after the zookeeper gave them an egg. A Panhandle district removed a book about school segregation in the 1950s with the New Republic reporting the district concluded the subject matter was “difficult for elementary students to comprehend.”

I don’t think kids are the problem here. In fact, the local banning crusades are sometimes led by just one or two adults who not only want to shelter their own kids from ideas they find scary but want to keep books away from everyone else’s kids at school as well.

I thought of all this book-banning and history-censoring while attending a recent session on the rise of antisemitism at the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida. One panelist said the best way to combat hatred, intolerance and ignorance is to ensure children hear unvarnished truths. He described it as “The criticality of giving truth to our kids.”

The leader of a Holocaust Center in South Florida made a similar point recently stressing: “The Holocaust, it didn’t start with guns and death camps. It started with words.”

Well, words are precisely what Florida is trying to ban, censor and distort. In unprecedented fashion.

smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Censorship, Character, Cruelty, Curriculum, Democracy, DeSantis, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Florida, Republicans

Editorial: In Florida, It’s Best to Be Woke

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2023 //
31

The editorial boards of the Orlando Sentinel and the South Florida Sun Sentinel published this commentary on Governor DeSantis’ campaign to demonize being “woke.” What does it mean to be woke? It means being aware of systemic injustice. Did systemic injustices occur in the past? Yes. Do they occur now? Yes. Should we banish teaching or learning about systemic injustices, as DeSantis demands? No. That would mean teaching lies. Can we blame teachers or schools for the drop in scores on NAEP (the National Assessment of Educational Progress) when politicians like DeSantis require teachers to teach their students lies?

The editorial says it’s good to be woke:

Have you noticed? Gov. Ron DeSantis doesn’t smile enough. His brand is anger, especially at anything he can ridicule as “woke.”

Disney is “woke.” Diversity is “woke.” His obsession to cleanse Florida classrooms of discussions of racism was the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act.”

He took over New College of Florida because it was “woke.” He suspended Tampa State Attorney Andrew Warren because his policies were “woke.”
Florida “is where woke goes to die,” he says. This four-letter word has lost much of its punch, purely from overuse.

But it really doesn’t matter whether people have any idea of what “woke” means — just that it sounds bad.

But what does it mean, really?

‘Systemic injustices’

As good an answer as any came from DeSantis’ general counsel, under questioning from Warren’s attorney in federal court.

“The belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them,” lawyer Ryan Newman replied, adding that DeSantis doesn’t share that belief.

He doesn’t? No society is without injustices. To pretend that ours is is ludicrous.

The term “woke” originated in Black culture almost a century ago. According to the Legal Defense Fund, it became an “in-group signal urging Black people to be aware of the systems that harm and otherwise put us at a disadvantage.”

Those are precisely the systems that DeSantis pretends don’t exist, and that he doesn’t want Florida schoolchildren and college students to learn anything about. His hijacking of the word “woke” is ironic, to say the least.

Obnoxious objectives

His objectives, like that of copycat Republican politicians, are threefold. One is to cater to bigoted and resentful white voters. Donald J. Trump taught them the effectiveness of that. No. 2: Breed a generation of future voters who will have learned nothing about racism’s history or continuing consequences.

The third objective, not quite so transparent but equally pernicious, is to desensitize the nation’s courts to systemic economic and political injustices, many of which afflict poor white people just as much as Black people. The Florida Supreme Court bought into this when it purged diversity guidelines from the Florida Bar’s continuing education criteria.

There hasn’t been such a cynical disinformation campaign since the Daughters of the Confederacy set out more than a century ago to reinvent the Civil War and Reconstruction. In that distorted looking glass, slavery had nothing to do with the war; it was the South fighting for freedom and the North fighting against it. That’s how children were to be taught.

Writing in The New York Times, Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. described how the Daughters suppressed textbooks to the extent of rejecting any that described slaveholders as cruel. Slavery, wrote the Daughters’ historian, “was an education that taught the negro self-control, obedience and perseverance.”

“Undertaken by apologists for the former Confederacy with an energy and alacrity that was astonishing in its vehemence and reach, in an era defined by print culture, politicians and amateur historians joined forces to police the historical profession,” Gates wrote. “The so-called Lost Cause movement was, in effect, a take-no-prisoners social media war.”

The racism didn’t go away when the South lost the war and slaves were freed. It fostered sharecropping — slavery by another means. It rationalized Jim Crow laws, lynchings, inferior schools and a denial of the right to vote that persisted until 1965. It led to federal housing policies that confined Black people to urban ghettos. It was evident when Social Security initially excluded domestic and farm workers on the fiction that it would be too difficult to collect the taxes.

It remains glaring today in the statistic that Black Americans, who account for 13% of the population, are 27% of the people shot and killed by police. It was evident when the Tennessee House of Representatives expelled two Black members over a gun violence protest in their chamber, but not the Caucasian legislator who protested with them. It is apparent in the increasing re-segregation of public schools; profound racial disparities in income, health and mortality; and the persistence of fair housing and fair employment violations.

Exposure is essential

The remedy for injustice begins with exposure. It is essential. To conceal it is to be complicit in the injustice.

To teach American history through rose-colored glasses, as DeSantis intends, is to ignore the heroism and sacrifices that every generation has made toward fulfilling the belief that “all men are created equal.” That so many Americans have risen so often to that challenge speaks well of our nation, not poorly.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked one of DeSantis’ schemes — the law allowing educators and private businesses to be sued for making students and employees feel guilty about racism — but the destruction of the schools and universities goes on.

It’s up to the voters whether that continues. It’s better to be “woke” than silent any day.


The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board includes Editor-in-Chief Julie , Opinion Editor Krys Fluker and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, and Anderson. Send letters to insight@orlandosentinel.com.


© 2023 Orlando Sentinel

Categories Academic Freedom, Bigotry, Censorship, Civil Rights, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, DeSantis, Education Industry, Equity, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Florida, Gender, History, Hoax, Lies, Privatization, Propaganda, Racism, Religion, Shame

Gavin Newsom Fires Back at DeSantis Insult

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2023 //
36

When Ron DeSantis held a press conference to celebrate his latest attacks on academic freedom, he sneeringly said, “If you want to study gender ideology, go to Berkeley,” because universities in Florida will focus on workforce preparation (which he thinks is a “classical education,” a sure sign that he never had one).

California Governor Gavin Newsom enjoys trading punches with DeSantis, and he sent out this reply:

Diane –

Ron DeSantis says if people want to study “niche subjects” they should go to Berkeley, but down in Florida they are going to focus on “the basics.”

His supporters chuckled. They thought it was a sick burn.

But some education is in order:

Six of the top ten public universities are located in California and the most popular majors at UC Berkeley are Cellular Biology, Computer Science, and Quantitative Economics.

That’s Math, Science and Technology.

It also probably explains why California outperforms Florida in all of those categories while having ten times the number of biotech companies as Florida and three times as many tech jobs as Florida.

But at least DeSantis got some laughs for his flailing presidential campaign…

Team Newsom

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, California, DeSantis, Florida, Higher Education, Ignorance, Lies

DeSantis Wants to Fire Superintendent Who Disagreed with Him

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2023 //
27

Florida is the state where freedom goes to die.

Since Governor Ron DeSantis was re-elected, he has been using the powers of his office to punish anyone who dares to criticize him. He fired an elected state prosecutor. He has harassed Disney, the state’s largest employer, for daring to oppose his “Don’t Say Gay” law. He has taken over the state’s only progressive college and handed it over to far-right zealots. He has banned the teaching of honest history, most especially Black history. Under his control, the state Department of Education censors textbooks that include facts he doesn’t like. Under his direction, the state board of education is whittling away the tenure and academic freedom of professors. He is replacing competent college presidents of public colleges and universities with his cronies. During the height of the pandemic, he banned any mandates for masks or vaccines. Now he is going after the elected superintendent of Leon County schools.

We have never before seen, at least in our lifetimes, a state attempt to enact fascism, day by day, week by week. I refuse to accept DeSantis’ dictatorial ways as normal. They are not normal. He personally gerrymandered the state, eliminating three of four Black members of Congress. The list of his anti-democratic actions should alarm everyone. He should turn all of us anti-fascist. The “Greatest Generation” fought a world war to defeat fascism. We must not ignore what is happening or normalize it, as the media does when they discuss DeSantis’ presidential aspirations. All I can do is shine a light. It’s up to the voters in Florida and in the GOP primaries to reject this wannabe Mussolini.

Florida officials are threatening to revoke the teaching license of a school superintendent who criticized Gov. Ron DeSantis, accusing the educator of violating several statutes and DeSantis directives and allowing his “personal political views” to guide his leadership.

Such a revocation by the state Department of Education could allow DeSantis to remove Leon County Superintendent Rocky Hanna from his elected office. The Republican governor did that last year to an elected Democratic prosecutor in the Tampa Bay area who disagreed with his positions limiting abortion and medical care for transgender teens and indicated he might not enforce new laws in those areas.

Disney also sued DeSantis this week, saying he targeted its Orlando theme parks for retribution after it criticized the governor’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law that then banned the discussion of sexuality and gender in early grades, but has since been expanded.

Hanna has publicly opposed that law, once defied the governor’s order that barred any mandate that students wear masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, and criticized a DeSantis-backed bill that recently passed that will pay for students to attend private school. The Leon County district, with about 30,000 students, covers Tallahassee, the state capital, and its suburbs.

“It’s a sad day for democracy in Florida, and the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, when a state agency with unlimited power and resources, can target a local elected official in such a biased fashion,” Hanna said in a statement sent to The Associated Press and other media Thursday. A Democrat then running as an independent, Hanna was elected to a second four-year term in 2020 with 60% of the vote. He plans to run for reelection next year and does not need a teacher’s license to hold the job.

“This investigation has nothing to do with these spurious allegations, but rather everything to do with attempting to silence myself and anyone else who speaks up for teachers and our public schools in a way that does not fit the political narrative of those in power,” Hanna said.

He said the investigation was spurred by a single complaint from a leader of the local chapter of Moms for Liberty, a conservative education group, requesting his removal.

Categories Academic Freedom, Bigotry, Censorship, Democracy, DeSantis, Elections, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Florida, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Read

Florida: DeSantis Continues His War Against Academic Freedom

By dianeravitch
May 15, 2023 //
86

Ron DeSantis signed three bills into law today that tighten his control over higher education and restrict the curriculum to conform to his ideology. If a professor does not agree with DeSantis’ views on race, gender, culture, and history, he or she must change what they teach or find a job in another state.

There are two major contradictions in DeSantis’ approach:

1. He claims that state control over acceptable and intolerable views equates to “freedom.” If you share his views, you are free to teach them. If you don’t, your freedom is extinguished. Freedom for some is not freedom.

2. He claims that Florida intends to focus on “the classical mission of what a university is supposed to be.” But at the same time, he wants the state’s colleges and universities to become “number one for workforce education.” Is that the “classical mission” of universities? Those who know more about higher education than DeSantis would say that “the classical mission” of the university is to teach and deepen students’ knowledge of great literature, history, science, foreign languages, mathematics, philosophy, and the arts. These are not workforce studies; they do not provide “employable” skills. They are probably what DeSantis sneers at as “zombie studies.”

The Miami Herald reports:

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed into law three controversial bills poised to bring major changes to Florida’s college and university systems.

In a ceremony at New College of Florida, he was flanked by a group of supporters including university system Chancellor Ray Rodrigues and Christopher Rufo, an activist known for his opposition to critical race theory and one of six trustees DeSantis appointed to the New College board in January.

DeSantis signed a measure, SB 266, that restricts certain topics from being taught in general education courses, the lower-level classes that all students must take for their degrees. It also expands the hiring and firing powers of university boards and presidents, further limits tenure protections and prohibits spending related to diversity, equity and inclusion programs beyond what is required by accreditors.

Regarding the restricted topics, the measure borrows language from last year’s Individual Freedom Act, also known as the Stop Woke Act. It targets “theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political and economic inequities.”

While those ideas will be kept out of general education courses on Florida campuses, they will be allowed in higher-level or elective courses, subject to review by the Board of Governors, which oversees the university system, or the State Board of Education, which sets policy for state colleges.

DeSantis also signed HB 931, intended to prohibit “woke litmus tests” or required diversity statements, and SB 240, which supports workforce education.

Standing at the New College visitors’ center, behind a lectern with the label “Florida The Education State,” he referred to a group of protesters outside the building who grew louder as he spoke. The governor joked that he was disappointed with the size of the protest and was “hoping for more.”

He spoke of the state’s increased efforts to bring more regulation to higher education.

”It’s our view that, when the taxpayers are funding these institutions, that we as Floridians and we as taxpayers have every right to insist that they are following a mission that is consistent with the best interest of our people in our state,” said the governor, who is said to be preparing a run for president in 2024. “You don’t just get to take taxpayer dollars and do whatever the heck you want to do and think that that’s somehow OK.”

Referring to the Black Lives Matter movement, DeSantis called diversity, equity and inclusion a relatively new concept that took off “Post BLM rioting” in 2020 and “a veneer to impose an ideological agenda.” It’s better described as “discrimination, exclusion and indoctrination,” the governor said to applause.

”We’re going to treat people as individuals and not as groups,” he said.

DeSantis said he hoped the state’s higher education system will move toward more “employable majors” and away from “niche subjects” like critical race theory.

”Florida’s getting out of that game,” he said. “If you want to do things like gender ideology, go to Berkeley,” he said, referring to the University of California, Berkeley. “For us with our tax dollars, we want to be focused on the classical mission of what a university is supposed to be.”

DeSantis said SB 266 will allow presidents to run their universities instead of “a cabal of faculty.” He said he would also allocate $30 million to the Hamilton Center, a civics institute at the University of Florida, where Ben Sasse, the school’s new president, would be able to recruit faculty to join.

The budget also allocates $8 million to the civics center at Florida State University, $5 million to another center at Florida International University and $100 million to recruit and retain faculty across the state system.

HB 931 also establishes an office of public policy events within each state university to organize events on campus representing a range of viewpoints.

”I think some of the universities around the country where orthodoxy has taken hold — a lot of these students can go through for years, get a degree and never have their assumptions challenged,” DeSantis said.

He said SB 240 will support Florida’s goal of becoming No. 1 for workforce education. The bill would expand apprenticeship programs and require districts to offer work-based learning to high school students.

He said he wanted to ensure that not all students feel pressured to go down the university path and end up in debt for a degree in “zombie studies,” a term he has used often.

Also joining DeSantis was Richard Corcoran, the interim president at New College who formerly served as the governor’s education commissioner. Corcoran spoke of the school’s transformation in the weeks since he arrived, saying he had recruited high quality faculty and planned to enroll a record incoming class this fall.

He called New College “the LeBron James” of higher education.

Divya Kumar covers higher education for the Tampa Bay Times in partnership with Open Campus.

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Curriculum, DeSantis, Disruption, Extremism, Florida, Freedom, Higher Education

Ex-Trump Advisor Chosen as New College Commencement Speaker; Graduates Plan Alternate Ceremony

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2023 //
14

A few months ago, Governor DeSantis engineered a takeover of Florida’s only progressive public college, New College. First he gained a majority of the board, then the board fired the president of the college and hired the unqualified Richard Corcoran, who had been a hard-right speaker of the House and state commissioner of education.

For the first commencement under the new regime, Corcoran invited Dr. Scott Atlas to be commencement speaker. Atlas was Trump’s coronavirus advisor. He frequently clashed with Dr. Anthony Fauci because Atlas believes in herd immunity, not public health measures.

The graduates are planning an alternate commencement.

Students at New College of Florida are planning their own graduation event after a conservative speaker with ties to former president Donald Trump and Governor Ron DeSantis was selected to give the college’s commencement address.

Dr. Scott Atlas was chosen by New College of Florida interim president Richard Corcoran to address seniors at a May 19 graduation ceremony in Sarasota.

The radiologist was appointed as Trump’s special coronavirus adviser in 2020.

He resigned after clashes with other public health leaders over his advocacy for herd immunity as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Students say the current administration is made up of new hires, who have only been part of the community for a handful of months.

They say the additional graduation event on May 18 will give them a chance to celebrate on their own terms.

A GoFundMe account set up to help pay for the separate commencement had raised nearly $20,000 by Wednesday afternoon.

Atlas is a senior fellow at Stanford University and a fellow in the Academy for Science and Freedom at the Washington, D.C., campus of Hillsdale College, the small Michigan Christian school DeSantis has said he wants to model New College after.

Atlas’s conservative ideology is in line with a month’s long process to change the culture at the small liberal arts college in Sarasota.

The overhaul began in January when DeSantis appointed six new conservative trustees to the college’s board. The trustees then fired the school’s president and appointed former state education commissioner Richard Corcoran as interim.

In the span of just a few months, trustees fired the school’s director of diversity, equity, and inclusion and abolished the school’s small DEI office. They fired the school’s librarian and dean of academic engagement and denied tenure to five faculty members. They also hired a director of athletics, although the college currently offers only intramural sports.

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Creativity, DeSantis, Disruption, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom, Health, Higher Education, Science, Trump

Florida: Unqualified DeSantis Ally Will Be Sole Candidate for State College Presidency

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2023 //
1

Governor Ron DeSantis continues his takeover of higher education in the state of Florida, in this case, by appointing a board of cronies who appoint another crony.

A Republican politician with no higher education experience has emerged as the lone finalist to lead a Central Florida state college after three other candidates abruptly withdrew from a selection process that has raised concerns about political influence.

Republican state Rep. Fred Hawkins, a close ally of Gov. Ron DeSantis, was picked by the South Florida State College District Board of Trustees on Wednesday morning — two days after Hawkins submitted his application and five days after the board voted to lower the education requirements for the position, a move that allows Hawkins to qualify.

Hawkins is still considered a candidate and is scheduled to be interviewed on May 31.

But he is already claiming the job. “Pages turn and new chapters begin. I am looking forward to becoming the next President of South Florida State College,” Hawkins posted on Twitter Wednesday evening.

The seven political appointees on the board of trustees are scheduled to vote for the college’s next president on June 7. Five of the trustees were appointed by DeSantis in 2020.

A side note about Hawkins:

A former rodeo rider, he was arrested in 2020 for impersonating a law enforcement officer. Prosecutors agreed to drop the charges, if he completed a diversion program. DeSantis suspended him from being an Osceola County commissioner due to the charges.

The talent pool for college presidents seems to be shallow. That won’t deter DeSantis from his determination to cleanse higher education of WOKE professors.

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article275305071.html#storylink=cpy

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Curriculum, DeSantis, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Fake, Fascism, Higher Education

Garry Rayno: History Is Not Always Comfortable

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2023 //
13

Like many other states, New Hampshire passed a law forbidding the teaching of “divisive concepts” or anything that might make students “uncomfortable.” Such laws ban teaching truthfully and direct teachers to engage in self-censorship. Teachers who dare to violate these ridiculous laws risk being fired and losing their teaching license. Such laws are, in fact, shameful and an insult to freedom of inquiry, the freedom to teach and the freedom to learn. Petty tyrants suppress knowledge.

This article was written by Gary Rayno, InDepthNH.org’s State House Bureau Chief.

History is a funny thing.

For example, two communities claim to be the birthplace of the Republican Party, Exeter, New Hampshire and Ripon, Wisconsin.

Around here Exeter is thought to be the holy place, but almost everywhere else in the country — including Wikipedia — believe it was Wisconsin.

No one disagrees its founding was in opposition to slavery, but where it started, well even Jackson, Michigan was thought to be the birthplace for a long time. So, it is anyone’s guess just where the Grand Old Party first emerged.

And the founding place for Aerosmith, which is about to begin its final tour, is also contested.

The Boston Globe and all things Boston, claim the band was formed in the city’s Allston neighborhood.

But a case can be made that the band really formed at the Barn in Georges Mills, a section of Sunapee, and not in Boston.

Two bands played the Barn in the summers of 1968 and 69 and various other places around the Lake Sunapee region, the Jam Band and Just in Time.

Tom Hamilton and Joe Perry were in the Jam Band and Steve Tyler, Joey Kramer and Ray Tabano were in the other band.

They all moved to Boston in 1970 with the idea of making it big with Tabano being replaced by Brad Whitcomb.

But they all played together here and there in Sunapee before moving to Boston.

While the origins may be contested, people in Exeter, Ripon, Sunapee or Boston still feel pride about their place in history.

But some people may not feel pride, they may be embarrassed by the notoriety.

Aerosmith may be one of the greatest American bands selling millions of records and selling out stadiums around the world.

But their lifestyle may not be what you would want your child to experience as some of the members spent considerable time in rehab.

The same could be said about the Republican Party today as it is not the party of 50 years ago and has changed considerably since its founding as an anti-slavery organization.

Several state agencies work together to put up historical markers touting some bit of the state’s history or recognizing state residents who went on to do great things.

I don’t believe there are any historical markers for Aerosmith, but there is a historical marker in Exeter in front of what once was the tavern thought to be the birthplace of the Grand Old Party.

On Route 3A in Bow is a historical marker noting the birthplace of Mary Baker Eddy, an author and religious leader who founded the Church of Christ, Science in 1879, and the Christian Science Monitor and several other publications.

While Christian Science is a well-known religion, some find its teachings controversial.

But the marker remains near the home of her birth.

In Boscawen there is a historical marker and a monument to Hannah Dustin, a woman who was captured by Native Americans in Haverhill, Massachusetts and taken north to an island in the Merrimack River. At night she killed 10 Native Americans and scalped them and freed two others who were captive.

While there were few questions asked years ago about the monument, now it is considered controversial.

There are numerous other monuments to Native Americans and settlers’ interactions, often not for the best, around the state.

In Canaan there is a historical marker for Noyes Academy, the first co-ed academy for black students.

But it was not long before the outraged local citizens forced the black students to leave and dragged the academy building down Canaan Street to the middle of town.

However, a number of the students went on to be black leaders including Henry Highland Garnet, who was the first African American to preach in Congress.

A new historical marker installed in Concord will be removed because of concerns raised by two Executive Councilors, Joe Kenney of Wakefield and David Wheeler of Milford, and backed by Gov. Chris Sununu.

The marker honors Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, “The Rebel Girl,” who was born in Concord in 1890, and went on to be a noted union organizer, women’s rights activist and a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union.

What could be the problem with any of those three accomplishments?

Well, the issue that had councilors upset was she was a member of the Communist Party.

“Wonderful, we are recognizing and honoring someone who joined the Communist Party and died a Soviet,” Kenney wrote in an email to the council. “The same Soviets I fought against during the Cold War with patriotic Americans. This is Crap!”

At the council meeting last week, he called her “Unamerican” and a “Communist.”

During her heyday, many unionists were members of the Communist Party as the polar opposite of capitalism. Many artists and musicians were also members, but as folk singer Dave Van Ronk used to say “communist with a little ‘c.’”

Flynn was convicted in 1951 under the Smith Act which made it illegal to be a member of the Communist Party and jailed for 28 months.

Flynn went to the Soviet Union where she died and is buried.

“One thing I am doing right now is review who does have the final say, the authority when it comes to state markers on state lands and all of that. So we will review that whole process,” Sununu told reporters after the Executive Council meeting. “I don’t know whether it is the council that should have the final say or view or anything like that. It is something we can definitely talk about. But we are going to look at the process internally.”

So now deciding on which historical markers will be a political decision?

Flynn was a controversial figure but so was Mary Baker Eddy and the Noyes Academy certainly is not New Hampshire’s best foot forward.

History is not always comfortable, and really shouldn’t be.

Scalping Native Americans is not a comfortable notion, neither is intimidating young black students, nor is the work Flynn spent her life doing to uplift, particularly textile workers in the mills of New England and around the country.

History should reflect what happened, not what we wished happened or what we want to hide from our children.

That is what is so troubling about the divisive concepts law passed two years ago and the rush to ban books someone doesn’t agree with for whatever reason.

If we cannot be honest about our history and what was and was not done, we cannot learn from it, and we will keep repeating it and repeating it.

History should not be Groundhog’s Day.

Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.

Distant Dome by veteran journalist Garry Rayno explores a broader perspective on the State House and state happenings for InDepthNH.org. Over his three-decade career, Rayno covered the NH State House for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Foster’s Daily Democrat. During his career, his coverage spanned the news spectrum, from local planning, school and select boards, to national issues such as electric industry deregulation and Presidential primaries. Rayno lives with his wife Carolyn in New London.

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Freedom, Freedom to Read, History, Lies, New Hampshire

Justin Parmenter: Will North Carolina Adopt the Hillsdale 1776 “Patriotic” Curriculum?

By dianeravitch
May 12, 2023 //
13

The blog of the Network for Public Education posted Justin Parmenter’s concern about the latest meddling into education by the state’s Republican-dominated General Assembly. The NPE blog is curated by the estimable Peter Greene. Justin Parmenter is an NBCT high school teacher in North Carolina.

Teacher Justin Parmenter monitors anti-public ed shenanigans in North Carolina. He explains in a recent post a bill to force adoption of Hillsdale College’s “patriotic” curriculum.

Parmenter writes:

Legislation filed in the North Carolina General Assembly last week would authorize Beaufort County Public Schools to ignore the state’s standard course of study and instead teach a controversial social studies curriculum developed by a conservative Michigan college with close ties to former President Donald Trump.

The bill was filed by Rep. Keith Kidwell, who represents Beaufort, Dare, Pamlico and Hyde counties.

The curriculum Kidwell is proposing be used in Beaufort County’s public schools was created by Michigan-based Hillsdale College after white fragility over Nikole Hannah-Jones’s 1619 Project prompted former president Donald Trump to issue an executive order setting up what he called a “patriotic education” commission.

Trump said at the time that the commission was intended to counter “hateful lies” being taught to children in American schools which he said constituted “a form of child abuse.”

Trump appointed Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn to chair the 1776 Commission near the end of his presidency in 2020.

The commission’s report, published on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in January 2021, was widely criticized by actual historians as a whitewashed take on American history for its downplaying of Founding Fathers’ support for slavery and quoting Dr. Martin Luther King out of context in order to create a falsely rosy view of race in the United States, among other reasons.

Hillsdale College released the “1776 curriculum” in July 2021. In its “Note to Teachers,” the curriculum reminds anyone who will be using the curriculum to teach children that “America is an exceptionally good country” and ends with the exhortation to “Learn it, wonder at it, love it, and teach so your students will, too.”

In North Carolina, current state law gives the State Board of Education the authority to develop a standard course of study which each school district is required to follow. The state’s current social studies standards were adopted in 2021 over objections of Republican state board members who said the standards portrayed America in a negative light and amounted to critical race theory.

Kidwell’s bill comes just days after Representative Tricia Cotham’s party switch handed North Carolina Republicans a veto-proof supermajority in the legislature. That means there’s a good chance this Trump-inspired, whitewashed version of American history will end up on desks in Beaufort County, and there’s no reason to think other counties won’t follow suit.

According to DPI’s Statistical Profile, more than half of Beaufort County’s 5,821 public school students are students of color. Those students deserve to have their stories and their ancestors’ stories told. Those students and all students deserve to learn real American history, warts and all, not a watered-down, Donald Trump-conceived version designed to make white people feel comfortable.

Read the full post here.

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Bigotry, Curriculum, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Fraud, Lies, North Carolina, Racism, Republicans

Florida Rejects 35% of Social Studies Texts as Too Leftist

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2023 //
24

The Orlando Sentinel reported today that the State Education Department had rejected 35% of the social studies textbooks submitted for review because of leftist content. The DeSantis administration objects to any references to “social justice” or negative references to capitalism.

Leslie Postal of the Sentinel wrote:

Florida rejected 35% of the social studies textbooks publishers hoped to sell to public schools this year and forced others to delete or change passages state leaders disliked, including references to “why some citizens are choosing to ‘Take a Knee’ to protest police brutality” and “new calls for social justice” after the death of George Floyd.

A press release from the Florida Department of Education on Tuesday said 66 of 101 textbooks submitted have been approved, many after making changes the state demanded. On April 6, the department gave approval to only 19 of the books but then worked for the past month to get publishers to update their texts.

The goal was “materials that focus on historical facts and are free from inaccuracies or ideological rhetoric,” said Education Commissioner Manny Diaz in a statement.

The textbooks are for elementary and middle school social studies classes as well as civics, economics, U.S. history and world history courses.

In addition to social justice topics, some of the textbooks initially rejected failed to accurately describe communism and socialism, the department said, and those passages were revamped to emphasize the negatives of both economic systems…

The process became highly political a year ago, however, when the state initially rejected 42 math textbooks, a historic number, and touted the news with a press release that said, “Florida Rejects Publishers’ Attempts to Indoctrinate Students.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration sounded a similar alarm Tuesday.

“The political indoctrination of children through the K-12 public education system is a very real and prolific problem in this country,” tweeted Bryan Griffin, DeSantis’ press secretary. “Just look at some of these examples from textbooks submitted this year to @EducationFL.”

Griffin highlighted a passage from a middle school textbook that described a socialist economy as one that “keeps things nice and even and without unnecessary waste.” The passage went on to say, “These societies may promote greater equality among people while still providing a fully functioning government-supervised economy.”

The department did not indicate what textbook included that passage but shared the new version about “planned economies” that replaced the one about socialist economies. The new passage reads, “Critics say these planned economies have slow development and fewer technological advances” in part because they limit “human incentive. In other words, why do anything if the government is eventually going to do it for you?”

The other examples the department shared included two related to social justice, police brutality and racism. The elementary school textbook that mentioned people taking a knee during the National Anthem as a form of protest was deleted as “not age appropriate,” the department said. So was a passage from a middle school book that discussed “new calls for social justice, including the formation of the Black Lives Matter group and the protests after the killing of Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer.”

The department also disliked that a middle school textbook about the Holocaust asked, “What social justice issues are included in the Hebrew Bible?” The line was changed to “What are some of the key principles included in the Hebrew Bible?”

The DeSantis’ administration last year claimed the math books contained critical race theory, the idea that racism is embedded in American institutions, and other unacceptable topics such as social emotional learning and culturally responsive learning.

DeSantis and other Republicans argue CRT aims to make white children feel guilty and to teach children to hate the United States and that, while traditionally a graduate school topic, its tenets have seeped into K-12 classrooms. The Legislature last year passed what the governor dubbed his “stop woke” act that outlaws the teaching of the concept in public schools.

Opponents of DeSantis’ efforts argued the real aim was to prevent children from learning about tough topics such as slavery and racial discrimination and said they feared it would lead to a whitewashing of history.

Most of those who reviewed the math textbooks — math teachers and professors — found nothing objectionable in the texts, with only three of about 70 reviewers raising concerns about CRT. Eventually, many of the rejected books were approved after making some changes. The three reviewers who raised questions about the math textbooks were a member of the conservative Moms for Liberty group and two people affiliated with the Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian school in Michigan aligned with the DeSantis administration.

The math book rejections stunned school district administrators, who had already made plans to purchase the rejected textbooks — which were part of a longer list first posted to the education department’s website. As they typically do, committees of teachers and curriculum experts reviewed the books before recommending which ones should be purchased and had not found material they found objectionable.

The districts needed to buy new math textbooks last year and new social studies textbooks this year to make sure their instructional materials match with new state standards for those subjects.

Mindful of what happened last year, Orange County Public Schools decided to select both first and second-choice options for new social studies books this year. The Orange County School Board approved its list of recommended books April 25, but the district has not yet made any purchases, which could cost more than $21 million.

The social studies textbooks OCPS selected as its top choice for elementary schools is on the rejected list the education department released Tuesday. The district could go with its second-choice option, which is approved, or wait to see if the other wins approval in the coming weeks.

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Bigotry, Citizenship, Civics, Civil Rights, Corruption, Curriculum, Education Industry, Extremism, Fascism, Florida, Ignorance
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