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Dana Milbank: Disney Should Leave Florida and DeSantis Should Create His Own Theme Park of White Supremacy

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2022 //
22

Ever since Governor Ron DeSantis punished the Disney Corporation for opposing his “Don’t Say Gay” law, I’ve been wishing that the Magic Kingdom would pull up stakes and move to another state. It’s one of Florida’s biggest employers and attracts millions of tourists every year. Surely it would be welcome in any other state, especially one that does not insult and humiliate any of its employees.

Turns out that Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank had the same idea.

He wrote:

Mickey Mouse needs a sanctuary city.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Hades) got his state legislature this week to abolish the favorable tax arrangement that brought Disney World to Orlando and kept it there for 55 years. It’s the latest salvo against corporate America from the Trump right, which has already threatened Twitter, Facebook, Citigroup and Delta Air Lines. But now they’re canceling Mickey and Minnie? That’s just Goofy…

Suddenly, sad times are upon the Happiest Place on Earth. Jared Polis, the Democratic governor of Colorado, has promised to “grant Mickey and Minnie full asylum in Colorado” and offered Disney a “Mountain Disneyland” retreat from “Florida’s authoritarian socialist attacks on the private sector.” Many Disney fans online are urging Disney World to leave Florida.

Of course, you can’t just put a resort with six theme parks and two dozen or so hotels on a magic carpet ride to, say, New Jersey. (As it is, central Floridians could be stuck with more than $1 billion in debt and a massive property-tax increase because of DeSantis’s anti-Disney vendetta.) But Disney is the place where dreams come true, and mine is that the whole of Disney World, which employs roughly 80,000 Floridians and attracts tens of millions of tourists every year, will take the second star to the right and straight on till morning — and abandon Florida entirely.
DeSantis would be left with a 25,000-acre house of horrors in Orlando: an abandoned resort in a state nobody wants to visit, thanks to Ron’s Runaway Railway.

His “don’t say gay” legislation makes Florida unwelcoming to LGBTQ people. His voter-suppression laws and race-baiting attacks on teaching history and race make Florida hostile to Black, Latino and Asian Americans. Rising antisemitism (Florida’s most famous resident just had a film screening at Mar-a-Lago characterized by antisemitic swipes at Mark Zuckerberg) gives Jews pause about the state. DeSantis’s MAGA-signaling anti-immigrant and antiabortion laws repel more large swaths of the population. His banning of math textbooks should send educated Floridians packing. His opposition to Medicaid expansion and Florida’s excessive covid-19 death rate over the past year have sent many Floridians to the morgue.


Soon, there won’t be much of a constituency left. As J.D. Vance, a Republican Senate candidate from Ohio, put it in a just-released private message from 2016, “We are, whether we like it or not, the party of lower-income, lower-education white people, and I have been saying for a long time that we need to offer those people SOMETHING.” So offer them a theme park! Rename Disney World’s ruins DeSanty World.

DeSanty World would make the Carousel of Progress turn in reverse, reimagining the Disney classics to suit its growing audience of Snow White nationalists. Pinocchio would dream of becoming not a “real boy” but a Proud Boy. Lady Tremaine, the wicked stepmother, would become the heroine of Cinderella, championing parental rights. Bambi would be seen from the hunters’ point of view. Aladdin’s new soundtrack would warn of “A Whole New World Order,” and Mulan would be reviled for spreading the coronavirus. Brave Frollo would fight valiantly to free France of minority groups and the disabled. And all would cheer for QAnon’s own Captain Hook as he battles to prevent villainous Peter Pan from grooming the Lost Boys.

Some attractions would require only minor changes. The Barnstormer roller coaster (“a staggering series of stupendous stunts”) would be dedicated to DeSantis instead of Goofy. The Mad Tea Party and Festival of Fantasy Parade could pretty much stay as they are, and the Hall of Presidents would just be dispossessed of its 46th inductee. DeSanty World would build a wall around the Alien Swirling Saucers. And, because of the park’s new open-carry gun policy, the whole thing would become a Frontierland Shootin’ Arcade.

DeSanty World would surely sack the China Pavilion at Epcot and its planned film “Wondrous China.” This would be replaced by a Covid Theater (no masks allowed!). A new 101 Dalmatians Dog Whistle attraction would feature DeSantis, who said, when he had a Black opponent in 2018, “The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up.” The existing Under the Sea Journey of the Little Mermaid would be repurposed to promote offshore oil. The Frozen Ever After boat ride would refute the climate change hoax. Splash Mountain, already getting re-themed around “The Princess and the Frog,” would now swap the evil voodoo practitioner Dr. Facilier with the more evil Dr. Fauci.

A thoroughly remodeled Tower of Terror would have the MAGA faithful screaming as Ursula lures them into gender reassignment surgery, Maleficent tries to enchant them with universal health care, and the demons Pain and Panic attempt to vaccinate them.

Then, after all but the QAnon faithful had self-deported from DeSanty World, the few remaining stragglers would sing as one: It’s a small world after all.

Categories Bias, Censorship, Florida, Freedom, Ignorance, Injustice

Florida: Man Demands Ban on Bible and Dictionary in Schools

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2022 //
28

Chaz Stevens, a 57-year-old tech wizard, noticed that Florida made it easier to challenge books used in schools and housed in school libraries. The law doesn’t take effect until July 1, but Stevens couldn’t wait that long. So he immediately launched a complaint about the Bible and the Oxford English Dictionary and requested that they be banned.

As of Wednesday, he has filed near-identical petitions with 63 Florida school districts asking to ban the Bible. He has also filed a second petition with one district, Broward County Public Schools, requesting the removal of the Oxford English Dictionary.

His three-page petition critiques the Bible for its depictions of bestiality and cannibalism, its “eye-popping passages of babies being smashed against the rocks” in Psalms 137 and its “strong pro-slavery position,” citing Ephesians 6:5-7.

“As the Bible casually references … such topics as murder, adultery, sexual immorality, and fornication — or as I like to think, Date Night Friday Night — do we really want to teach our youth about drunken orgies?” the petition asks.

Stevens’s subsequent complaint against the dictionary calls it “a weighty tome over 1,000 years old, containing more than 600,000 words; all very troubling if we’re trying to keep our youth from learning about race, gender, sex, and such.”

The Washington Post checked with First Amendment scholars, and one said “that the Bible is replete with episodes of violence and sexual abuse, including the rape of Dinah in Genesis, which leads her brothers Levi and Simeon to kill every man in the city of Shechem to avenge her honor; the incestuous rape of King David’s daughter Tamar by her half brother Amnon; and the brutal dismemberment of a concubine in Judges. She said the Bible is at least as sexually explicit as some of the books parents are labeling inappropriate, raising the question: Why can the Bible stay in the library when those books have to go?”

Two districts told Stevens that he is not a resident of their district, but he hopes to find residents in every district to file the same complaint.

A third official, Eydie Tricquet, the superintendent of the Jefferson County School District, wrote to say that her district is still under state control; Florida took over managing the district five years ago because of its failing grades, financial problems and staffing woes. But Jefferson is due to revert to local control this summer, and Tricquet promised in her email to Stevens that she will consider his request then, in accordance with school board policies and Florida law.

“At this time, I do not have a school or a library to place or remove a Bible,” Tricquet wrote.
Stevens, whose day job involves managing a website that connects people with mental health issues to supports including clinicians and therapy animals, said he knows many people see his efforts to ban the Bible as just the latest triviality in a long line of political pranks.

His colorful history includes campaigning to open city commission meetings with invocations to Satan, erecting a Festivus pole at the Florida Capitol to protest the Christmas Nativity scene and sending butt plugs to misbehaving public officials.
He pointed out that his antics once led to the arrests of two-fifths of Deerfield Beach city’s ruling body, including the mayor, over allegations they falsified records and violated state conflict of interest and gift disclosure laws.

“I’m sorry you’re stuck with me,” he said. “But I don’t see anybody else rising to the challenge, just a lot of …Twitter commentary.”

He added: “If not me, then who?”

Categories Censorship, Florida

Florida: School District Bans “Everywhere Babies”

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2022 //
36

The book-banning and censorship are reaching absurd proportions. A school district in Florida just banned a beloved children’s book, “Everywhere Babies.” Caitlin Gibson wrote about it in the Washington Post. what’s next? “Goodnight Moon”? Some think it’s atheist because the little bunny doesn’t say its prayers. “Harold and the Purple Craton”? Why “purple? Is Harold gay? These censors don’t realize how ridiculous they are. They join the ranks of the ignoramuses who think they can ban ideas and books that are easily available on the internet and television.

The inspiration for the popular children’s picture book “Everywhere Babies” came to author Susan Meyers more than 25 years ago, after the birth of her first grandchild. It was around Christmas, she recalls, and she kept seeing Nativity scenes everywhere — baby Jesus embraced by his doting mother, surrounded by kindly visitors. Meyers, deeply smitten with her 5-month-old grandson, was struck by the everyday, extraordinary miracle of babies in their earliest months of life, how their development touches the lives of everyone around them. So she decided to write about it.

Since its publication in 2001, “Everywhere Babies” — a whimsical, lyrical ode to infancy, illustrated by Caldecott Medal-winning illustrator Marla Frazee — has become a staple of family bookshelves, a common recommendation in new parent groups, and a celebrated title on Best Books lists.

But for the first time in its history, “Everywhere Babies” was featured this week on an entirely different kind of list: The book was among dozens of works recently banned from public school libraries in Walton County, Fla. School district officials confirmed the removal of the books to WJHG-TV in Florida. Walton County School Superintendent Russell Hughes told the outlet that it was “necessary in this moment for me to make that decision and I did it for just a welfare of all involved, including our constituents, our teachers, and our students.”

Hughes did not respond to requests for comment from The Washington Post. A spokesperson for the Florida Department of Education referred questions to Walton County, noting that “individual school districts are responsible for making these decisions,” and did not respond to follow-up questions….

Gibson interviewed the author Susan Meyers and illustrator Marla Frazee. They were shocked that their book was banned but thrilled to be in the company of illustrious writers like Toni Morrison and Judy Blume whose works were also banned.

Categories Censorship, Florida, Stupid

Beware the Gay Penguins! The Sensitive Ferdinand! The Heterosexual Ducklings!

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2022 //
22

Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, the authors of a popular—and frequently challenged—children’s book “And Tango Makes Three,” warn in this article that Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law threatens every book that deals with “gender identity.”

They wrote in The Washington Post:

Dear K-3 teachers of Florida,

Thank you for your kind messages! Please don’t feel bad. We totally understand why you have to stop reading our “gay penguins” book in school. You’re doing great and deeply important work at an extraordinarily difficult time to be a teacher. You shouldn’t have to worry about being slapped with a lawsuit for discussing homosexual seafowl.

We’ve been thinking this law leaves some pretty key terms undefined. Take “sexual orientation.” There are lots of them! Answering a question (“classroom instruction”) about any of them could land you in hot water. So just to be safe, you probably ought to pull more than our book from your curriculum. In case it’s helpful, here are a few we thought could run you into trouble.

• “The Story of Ferdinand” by Munro Leaf — for gender identity

We know, we love it too! But a bull that doesn’t roughhouse and prefers to sit in the shade and smell flowers? This is going to lead you right into some verboten gender-identity discussions. “Do some boys like flowers?” “Why don’t cows get invited to bullfights?” “Can ungulates be nonbinary?” You don’t want to go there.

• “Make Way for Ducklings” by Robert McCloskey — for sexual orientation

Such a gem, but sadly, there’s no way around the sexual orientation of this mallard couple. One is male; the other is female. They go island-hopping, hatch eight ducklings and look after their little ones together. Heterosexuality is a sexual orientation, people! Unless you want to be hit with newly illegal questions such as, “Are Mr. and Mrs. Mallard married?” or “Why would a girl duck want to marry a boy duck?” you should probably nix this one, too.


• “The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes” by DuBose Heyward — for very sexual orientation

“The little girl Cottontail grew up to be a young lady Cottontail. And by and by she had a husband and then one day, much to her surprise there were twenty-one Cottontail babies to take care of.” Tempting at Easter time, but skip it.

• “Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel”by Virginia Lee Burton — for gender identity and sexual orientation

A hard-working backhoe named Mary Anne is bound to raise gender-identity questions. “How can you tell if an engine is a boy or a girl?” “Can boys be backhoes?” Steer clear. Ditto for the author’s books about a tractor (“Katy”) and cable car (“Maybelle”), as well as Watty Piper’s titular Little Engine That Could, who uses she/her pronouns. Meanwhile, all these machines appear resolutely single. Could they be asexual? Probably best to give a wide berth to all books featuring gendered heavy machinery, at least until we can figure out what’s what.


• “A Kiss for Little Bear” by Else Holmelund Minarik — for pansexuality

Grandmother wants to pass along a kiss to Little Bear, and so we watch a female bear kiss a female chicken, who kisses a male frog, who kisses a male cat, who kisses a male skunk, who gets into some serious necking with a female skunk (they marry) before giving the kiss back to the chicken, who kisses Little Bear. It’s like Berlin in the 1920s. Pass!

• “Good Night, Gorilla” by Peggy Rathmann — for that bedroom scene

A male zookeeper shares a bed with a woman who calls him “dear,” only to be joined by a mouse and an ape (who look as though they’ve been there before). You do not want to discuss “polyamory” with your principal.

• “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle — for fabulousness

A ravenous, and possibly gender-fluid, male caterpillar mysteriously transforms into a “beautiful butterfly.” Trans parable? Don’t risk it.

Now that we think of it, eliminating all books with characters who have a gender identity or a sexual orientation doesn’t leave a lot. You’ll probably want to avoid all books that touch on love or relationships. Also, books with people or animals or things that are male or female or some other gender or non-gender.

Actually, it’s probably best to skip books altogether. Maybe stick with games.

Is duck, duck, goose okay?

Hang in there,

Peter and Justin

Categories Censorship, Florida

Brooklyn Public Library Opens Its Archives to Teens to Fight Book Banning

By dianeravitch
April 28, 2022 //
25

Good news from the Brooklyn Public Library for teens whose libraries have been ransacked by censors and other vandals.

The Brooklyn Public Library will give you free access to its collection, which is uncensored.

Like we needed another reason to love libraries: with book bans ramping up in school systems around the country, the Brooklyn Public Library is taking steps to make its massive catalog available to as many young people as possible.

Right now, and for a “limited time,” anyone in the United States between the age of 13 and 21 can apply for a free Brooklyn Public Library eCard, which gives access to 350,000 eBooks, 200,000 audiobooks, and online databases. (Normally, Brooklyn Public Library eCards are only free for people who live and/or work in New York state.)…

Teens who want to apply for the free eCard can send an email to BooksUnbanned@bklynlibrary.org or a message to @bklynfuture on Instagram.

Categories Censorship, Democracy, Freedom

Chris Rufo Wants You to “Lay Siege to the Institutions”

By dianeravitch
April 26, 2022 //
36

Conservatives used to be known as people resistant to radical change. In decades past, conservatives sought to conserve traditional institutions and make them better. That stance appealed to many Americans who were unsettled by radical ideas, opposed to big-box stores that would wipe out small-town America’s Main Street. Conservatives were also known for opposing government intrusion into personal decisions; what you did in your bedroom was your business, not the state’s. What you and your doctor decided was best for you was your decision, not the state’s.

Chris Rufo is the face of the New Conservatism, who wants to frighten the parents of America into tearing down traditional institutions, especially the public school that they and their family attended.

Rufo became well-known for creating a national panic about “critical race theory,” which he can’t define and doesn’t understand. But he seems to think that schools are controlled by racist pedagogues and sexual perverts. In his facile presentation at Hillsdale College, one of the most conservative institutions of higher education in the nation, he makes clear that America has fallen from its position as a great and holy nation to a slimepit of moral corruption.

He has two great Satans in his story: public schools and the Disney Corporation. The Disney Corporation, in his simple mind, is a haven for perverts and pedophiles, bent on corrupting the youth of the nation.

Rufo asserts, based on no discernible evidence, that the decline and fall of America can be traced to the failed revolution of 1968. The radicals lost, as Nixon was elected that year, but burrowed into the pedagogical and cultural institutions, quietly insinuating their sinister ideas about race and sex into the mainstream, as the nation slept. Rufo’s writings about “critical race theory,” which he claims is embedded in schools, diversity training in corporations, and everywhere else he looked, made him a star on Tucker Carlson’s show, an advisor to the Trump White House, and a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute. Benjamin Wallace-Wells wrote a profile of Rufo in The New Yorker and identified him as the man who invented the conflict over critical race theory, which before Rufo was a topic for discussion in law schools.

Before Rufo’s demonization of CRT, it was known among legal scholars as a debate about whether racism was fading away or whether it was systemic because it was structured into law and public policy. I had the personal pleasure of discussing these ideas in the mid-1980s with Derrick Bell, who is generally recognized as the founder of CRT. Bell was then at the Harvard Law School, after working as a lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He reached the conclusion that the Brown Decision of 1954 was inadequate to root out systematic racism.

At the time, I was a centrist in my politics and believed that racism was on its way out. Derrick disagreed. We spoke for hours, he invited me to present a paper at a conference he was organizing, which I did. Contrary to Rufo, I can attest that Derrick Bell was not a Marxist. He was not a radical. He wanted an America where people of different races and backgrounds had decent lives, unmarred by racial barriers. He was thoughtful, gentle, one of the kindest people I’ve ever known. He wanted America to be the land it professed to be. He was a great American.

Was 1968 the turning point, after which the radicals took over our culture and destroyed our founding ideals, as Rufo claims? No, it was not. I was there. He was born in 1984. He’s blowing smoke, making up a fairy-tale that he has spun into a narrative.

In 1968, I turned 30. I had very young children. I was not sympathetic to the hippies or the Weather Underground or the SDS. I hated the Vietnam War, but I was not part of any organized anti-war group. I believed in America and its institutions, and I was firmly opposed to those who wanted to tear them down, as the Left did then and as the Right does now. I worked in the Humphrey campaign in 1968 and organized an event in Manhattan—featuring John Kenneth Galbraith, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and a long lineup of “liberals for Humphrey”— that was disrupted and ruined by pro-Vietnam Cong activists. That event, on the eve of the 1968 election, convinced me that Nixon would win. (While my event was disrupted, Nixon held a campaign rally a block away, at Madison Square Garden, that was not disrupted.)

1968 was the year that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. It was a horrible, depressing year. America seemed to be falling apart.

Did the Weathermen and other radicals begin a long march through the institutions and eventually capture them? That’s ridiculous. Some became professors, but none became college presidents, to my knowledge. Many were ostracized. Some went to prison for violent crimes. Those who played an active political role in 1968 are in their 80s now, if they are alive.

Rufo’s solution to what he sees as the capture of our institutions by racists and pedophiles is surpringly simple: school choice. He hopes everyone will get public money to send their children to private and religious schools, to charter schools, or to home school them. If only we can destroy public schools, he suggests, we can restore America to the values of 1776.

Good old 1776, when most black people were slaves, women had no rights, and the aristocracy made all the decisions. They even enjoyed conjugal rights to use their young female slaves. Those were the good old days, in the very simple mind of Christopher Rufo.

Turning the clock back almost 250 years! Now that’s a radical idea.

Categories Accountability, Censorship, Charter Schools, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Fake, History, Home Schooling, Hypocrisy, Ignorance, Politics, Privatization, Propaganda, Racism, School Choice, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Grumpy Old Teacher: Censoring Florida’s Math Textbooks

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2022 //
53

Grumpy Old Teacher explains in his blog the “thinking” behind Ron DeSantis’ decision to censor math textbooks and purge them of content that he and his Department of Education found objectionable.

He begins:

As the uproar over Department of Education (FLDOE) deemed inappropriate mathematics textbooks continued this week, the governor claiming that the curriculum materials were proprietary, the publishers could appeal the decision, and he would respect the process, the FLDOE decided to release four examples of objectionable content. In this post, GOT will examine the first example or as he will dub it, Exhibit A for the court of public opinion. Cue the theme song for the People’s Court.

The exhibit shows two bar graphs with the cited source being Project Implicit, which is a research endeavor by three scientists from the University of Washington, Harvard University, and the University of Virginia. From their page, they describe themselves as “The mission of Project Implicit is to educate the public about bias and to provide a “virtual laboratory” for collecting data on the internet…”

CRT is used like people use acronyms for texting, shorthand for talking about race and the disparate treatment of human beings based upon their perceived category. This is anathema to people like Ron DeSantis and Moms for Liberty, who disguise their preference for white supremacy by claiming to be color-blind and that is the highest ideal. They even quote the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. out of context as support.

In response to actions like banning math books over Exhibit A, public education advocates explain that this is not CRT and that CRT is not taught in public schools. They might as well try to explain that LOL means laughing out loud, not lots of love to the uninitiated. They’re not listening. The actual meaning or theory does not matter; what matters is the irrationality and great emotion that the acronym will arouse.

CRT, for them, means any discussion about race other than that America is a great, benevolent nation, Ronald Reagan’s shining white city on the hill, and that is all public schools should teach.

Fun fact: Florida avers that history such as the 1920 Ocoee massacre will be taught. That was when a white mob took revenge on the Black citizens who had had the audacity to vote in the 1920 presidential election. In one November night, a Black population of hundreds was reduced to nearly none.

We will teach the history of Ocoee, but that is not the question. The question is how it will be taught. Will schools present it as a shameful episode of lynching? Or will it be taught as something else? (If you’re following the policies of Ron DeSantis, you’ve already noted that the voting rights of Black citizens is something he does not respect.)

The excerpt does not do the post justice. Open the link and read the rest.

Categories Censorship, Florida, Racism

Iowa: High School Students Are Smarter Than Legislators

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2022 //
16

High school students in several districts in Iowa have staged walkouts to protest legislation that affects their education. Students want their teachers to have the freedom to teach, and they want the freedom to learn. Iowa legislators don’t want either.

In light of recent education bills at the Iowa Legislature, whether it’s promoting vouchers for private schools or restricting what teachers are allowed to mention in class, many Iowa students are getting fed up. And they’re standing up.

Friday afternoon in Johnston, a group of close to 100 students walked out of class and stood on school grounds to talk about those bills, explain how they’re impacting Iowa students and teachers, and encourage their peers to register to vote and to elect different legislators.

“I think the biggest thing now is putting people in positions of power that actually will do the work and will care and represent the student voices that are speaking out about this,” said Waverly Zhao, a junior at Johnston High School who helped lead the walkout.

The walkout was organized by students and two student organizations, Johnston Community of Racial Equity (CORE) Club and Iowa WTF.

And Johnston was only one of several with recent walkouts. Thursday, students walked out at Ankeny and other events have been planned for public and private high schools in Ames, West Des Moines, Des Moines, and possibly Waukee. All are organized by student groups, and generally around the same issue of not having their voices heard about their educations. Students have also held walkouts in recent months in Iowa City, Cedar Rapids and Waterloo.

Specifically, students are calling out House File 2577, the bill that requires teachers to post every single piece of classroom material online, and Senate File 2369, the bill which allows vouchers for private schools and includes a parents’ bill of rights. Both have only passed in their chambers.

Students are also calling out House File 802, the law that prohibits so-called “divisive concepts” being taught in school, which passed last year…

HF 802 prohibited teachers from teaching “divisive concepts” and targets ideas such as systemic or institutionalized racism and sexism, and how those have shaped the way the country was built and how it functions now. Students say they’ve already seen it cause a chilling effect in their classrooms.

“As a student of color, it’s been hard enough in the district, and with the recent legislation, it’s harder to discuss racism and harder for us to combat that in schools,” said Anita Danakar, a Johnston high schooler.

For example, she said her history teacher made sure to tell students they weren’t trying to make student feel guilty when they talked about redlining in class.

Zhao said in her history and social studies classes teachers are talking less about racism and sexism so they don’t cross any lines. A history lesson she had about the 3/5ths compromise in the Constitution left most of the class confused, Zhao said, because the teacher was never quite able to explain why it existed….

Overall, the students said they want to learn about these topics in school, from a trusted source and in an environment where they can ask questions.

“This entire attitude that [says] these students are not mature enough to learn and have mature conversations in the classroom about race, gender, sexuality, to say we can’t even talk about that in an educational environment is disgusting,” said Nicholas Arick, a 17-year-old student who plans to vote in the next presidential election. “It’s saying these students don’t deserve to learn about these things, and eventually when they get out of high school, they’re be ignorant and they won’t know what they’re voting for.”

Categories Academic Freedom, Censorship, Education Industry, Freedom, Ignorance, Injustice, Iowa, Lies, Privatization, Racism, Students

Today at 2:30 PM EST: South Carolina “Anti-Truth” Town Hall

By dianeravitch
April 21, 2022 //
10

This should be a fascinating event, and it starts in only 2 1/2 hours!

Educators and concerned citizens in South Carolina are holding a Town Hall zoom at Furman University about the new legislative mandates that criminalize teaching the truth about race and gender.

I asked for and received permission for readers of this blog to join the zoom.

To register for the zoom, sign in here:

https://furman.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0pZJAK1PSPGZSS4npLWqOg

Categories Censorship, Racism, South Carolina

Florida Rejects 54 Math Textbooks, Claiming Many Contain “Critical Race Theory”

By dianeravitch
April 19, 2022 //
148

Florida is spinning downward into a pit of political ignorance.

The state rejected 54 math texts on grounds that some contained critical race theory, others referred to Common Core concepts.

The rejected books make up a record 41% of the 132 books submitted for review, the Florida Department of Education said in a statement.

Of them, 28 were rejected because they “incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including [critical race theory],” the statement said.

Critical race theory has been described by scholars as an examination of racism and its impact through systems, such as legal, housing and education. However, it is typically not taught in K-12.

Twelve books were rejected because they did not meet Florida’s benchmark standards, while 14 books were rejected because they both included prohibited topics and failed to meet curriculum standards.

The names of the rejected books were not included.

Since the names of the rejected books were not revealed, no one can judge how dreadful or how innocuous the content is.

State House Member Anna Eskamani said, “I get it. The goal of math is to solve problems which the Republican Party of Florida doesn’t like to do.”

Among grade levels, 70% of the math materials for kindergarten through fifth grades were rejected. Twenty percent of the materials for grades 6-8 were rejected, and 35% of materials for grades 9-12 were rejected.

Categories Accountability, Censorship, Common Core, Curriculum, Florida, Stupid
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