Submitted by Jim O’Rear
The Florida Board of Education approved several tweaks Wednesday to the state’s standards for teaching social studies, but left intact controversial pieces on Black history that sparked widespread backlash last year.
The backlash centered on a standard that says, “Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” FEA President Andrew Spar on Wednesday criticized the standard remaining part of the larger instructional guidelines.
Critics, including Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) – the only Black GOP congressman representing Florida, urged the state to reconsider that language. And others criticized the state’s phrasing on crucial lessons surrounding the 1920 Ocoee massacre and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, which are labeled as violence perpetrated “against and by” African Americans.
On a campaign stop, Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, told reporters, “As a country founded upon freedom, the greatest deprivation of freedom was slavery. There is no silver lining…in slavery…. What slavery was really about [was] separating families, about mutilating humans, and even raping their wives. It was just devastating.”
But these lessons went unchanged, triggering further objection Wednesday from the Florida Education Association teachers union and free speech advocacy group PEN America, among others.
“It still refers to slavery as having a potential benefit,” Andrew Spar, president of the FEA, said during the state board meeting in Miami. “And that is a concern, as well as making sure that our students have a complete and honest history around both the African American experience and all experiences in our country.”
Board Vice Chairman Ryan Petty argued that rules and standards approved by the board are crafted with input from educators.
“The notion that we’re not out engaged with educators and engaged with teachers in developing these rules is a false notion,” Petty said.
Florida Gov, Ron DeSantis does not appear to have commented on the most recent news, though it would of course not be a surprise to hear him defend teaching students that there were some positive aspects to being enslaved. During a gubernatorial debate in 2022, he claimed that it was “not true” that the US was built on stolen land (and that students should not be taught as much), and last year, he backed the Florida Department of Education’s decision to ban the College Board’s AP African American Studies course, after his administration claimed the curriculum lacked “educational value.”
