Following his so-so results with school board endorsements during the primary election in August, Gov. Ron these campaigns hadn’t drawn as much of his attention because he had “so much other stuff going on.”

DeSantis endorsed 23 candidates and watched 11 lose, six win, and six have their fate on hold until this week. Tuesday, four runoffs went in favor of DeSantis endorsees, with wins in Brevard, Miami-Dade, Volusia, and Lee counties.

In all, DeSantis watched 13 of his 23 endorsements lose, while 10 won — eleven counting his less-formal endorsement of Laurie Cox in Leon County, who won in August against Democratic-endorsed candidate Jeremy Rogers.

Eight-year member Matt Susin won reelection to the Brevard County School Board, fending off Ava Taylor with a margin of nearly 20%. He previously served as chair of the board, which remains fully conservative, .

DeSantis-endorsed Donna Brosemer challenged incumbent Carl Persis to win a seat on the Volusia County School Board. Brosemer finished with 58% of the vote to Persis’ 41%.

Vanessa Chaviano, a DeSantis endorsee running for an open seat on the Lee County School Board, beat Sheridan Chester with 69% of the vote to Chester’s 30%, with nearly 300,000 votes cast.

DeSantis’ endorsement was not enough for Stacy Geier to claim an open seat on the Pinellas County School Board; she lost to Katie Blaxberg, a . Geier held a 2% edge on Blaxberg in the August primary, although the general favored Blaxberg by more than 4%.

DeSantis endorsee and Air Force veteran Mark Cioffi lost his bid for the Hernando County School Board. He lost to Michelle Bonczek by nearly 10% in the general, despite earning 44% of votes to Bonczek’s 28.8% in the primary, which prompted the runoff.

Democratic endorsements both lose

Two of the Democratic Party’s 11 school board endorsements faced runoffs Tuesday. Of the 11 the party backed, seven won in August. Facing runoffs were Max Tuchman in Miami-Dade and Stephanie Arguello in Seminole County.

Tuchman, a tech entrepreneur, lost in a big way to incumbent and DeSantis endorsee Mary Blanco, who earned 67.88% of votes — 86,151 to Tuchman’s 40,773. Blanco was appointed to the board a year ago by DeSantis.

Arguello, a public health PhD student, lost to incumbent and chair of the board Abby Sanchez by nearly 6%. Sanchez earned 52.95% of votes, or 114,630 votes to Arguello’s 101,842.

‘Other stuff’

The “other stuff” DeSantis alluded to included Amendment 3, which would have legalized recreational use of marijuana, and Amendment 4, which would have guaranteed a right to an abortion in the Florida Constitution. Both fell just short of the 60% voter approval threshold.

The governor, the First Lady, and other GOP officials paraded around the state campaigning against the two amendments in the weeks between two major hurricanes and Election Day. Some said the outcomes of the amendments could be a major mark on the governor’s record, for better or worse, if he chooses to pursue the White House again.

Nonpartisan school board elections will remain, as voters rejected Amendment 1 Tuesday, which would have printed candidates’ political party affiliations next to their names on the ballot. The races will remain nonpartisan on paper, although partisan endorsements likely will not stop any time soon.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on and .

In , voters will decide whether to preserve or overturn 2023 legislation that created a private school scholarship program. Initiatives in and , if approved, could pave the way for lawmakers to create vouchers or education savings accounts in the future.

Despite past defeats, “school choice is continuing to gain support across the country with every demographic,” said Ben DeGrow, a senior policy director at ExcelinEd, which supports the expansion of private school choice. “We’re only likely to see more states add programs by the end of the decade.”

Over the past two years, several GOP governors and lawmakers have been able to push through education savings accounts, which allow families to use state funds for private school tuition, homeschooling or a combination of programs. Nearly 600,000 students in eight states were enrolled in universal ESA programs in 2023-24, according to , a think tank at Georgetown University. In 2022, only Arizona had a universal program that served about . But it’s unclear if that momentum will continue at the polls in the face of opponents who argue such programs hurt public schools.

11 measures in 9 states

The questions on school choice are among 11 education-related initiatives on the ballot in nine states this November. Other measures likely to drive voters to the polls include a union-led Massachusetts proposal to relax high school graduation requirements and a asking whether school board elections should be officially partisan. A few measures would impact school funding, including a that would provide $8.5 billion to modernize outdated K-12 schools.

But with enrollment in district schools continuing to  decline, the questions about public funds for private schools have attracted the most attention. 

While Colorado offers charter schools, there are few school choice options in Nebraska and Kentucky. Votes in favor of choice in those states would “represent a significant step forward for families in terms of educational opportunity,” DeGrow said.

But all three states have large rural areas, where resistance to vouchers has traditionally . In states like Texas, Republican lawmakers from rural communities have been the fiercest opponents. Some worry ESAs would prompt more families to choose homeschooling and private schools, forcing public schools to close or consolidate. Others argue such programs don’t benefit families in rural areas because there aren’t enough private schools. 

The question is “whether rural voters themselves can be convinced to support vouchers,” said Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado Boulder.  

Well-funded conservative organizations, like in Colorado and the in Nebraska, have tried to make the case that voters need to pass school choice to keep up with neighboring states offering more education options for families.

While have mobilized against private school choice, “I expect that the money battle will be lopsidedly pro-voucher,” Welner said. “It will be interesting to see how much of an effect that money has in shifting popular opinion.”

In Kentucky, Amendment 2 wouldn’t automatically result in a school voucher program, but  asks voters if they want public funds to pay for education outside of what the law calls a “system of common schools.”

Until now, Kentucky courts have had the final say over whether the state joins the 29 others with at least one school choice program. In 2022, the said a 2021 law creating tax credits for “education opportunity accounts” violated the state constitution. A yes vote on the ballot measure would give the Republican-dominated legislature a “safe, legal path” to pass a school choice program, DeGrow said. 

Supporters like Republican Rep. Jared Bauman say it’s time for the state to catch up with neighbors like Indiana and Ohio that offer parents some form of school choice. But , including Democratic , warn that a voucher plan could cost the state as much as $1.19 billion if it reached a scale similar to that of Florida’s universal program. 

The “common schools” wording of the constitution has also held up efforts to fund charters. Kentucky has had a since 2022, but in December a state court it unconstitutional. 

In Nebraska, where lawmakers passed a $10 million private school scholarship program last year, Support Our Schools Nebraska, a union-led advocacy group, gathered enough signatures this summer to put a veto referendum on the ballot. 

Like public school supporters in other states, opponents argue that such programs are a drain on state budgets and mostly serve families who already pay for private school instead of the neediest students. But Republican state Sen. Lou Ann Linehan, who sponsored the school choice legislation, that students shouldn’t have to attend schools that are failing or can’t meet their needs.  

Finally, in Colorado, a ballot question asks voters if they support adding language to the state constitution that would guarantee children a right to the full array of school choice options — traditional district schools, charters, private schools, open enrollment and homeschooling. 

Some the measure could invite more government oversight into homeschooling, while Welner predicted it would prompt legal challenges “because it’s so vague and yet touches on so many issues.” 

Bond issues, graduation requirements 

Beyond debates over school choice, several other ballot measures affect both education policy and funding. Here is a brief rundown:

Arkansas 

Since 2009, the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery has provided over 720,000 college scholarships, totaling $1.2 billion. But students attending vocational and technical schools haven’t been eligible for the awards. The legislature placed on the ballot that would change that. 

California

Almost 40% of California’s public schools fail to meet basic facility standards, according to a from the Public Policy Institute of California. Students often attend schools with unsafe conditions, like gas leaks, faulty electrical systems or structural damage. asks voters to approve a $10 billion bond issue that would provide $8.5 billion for new construction and renovations at district schools, charters and career and technical centers. Local districts would have to provide matching funds. 

After voters rejected a $15 billion bond in 2020, repair projects have piled up, but in addition to renovating schools, districts would also be able to use the funds for . Teachers often can’t afford to live in high-priced parts of the state, like Los Angeles, San Diego and the Bay Area, which creates recruitment and retention challenges for districts in those metro areas. 

An anti-tax organization, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association that  the measure doesn’t make sense at a time when the state is losing enrollment and would likely lead to higher property taxes. 

But Public Advocates, which focuses on the needs of low-income students, is for a different reason. They say the measure should include a sliding scale that allots poorer districts a greater share of the funds. 

Colorado

A proposed on firearms and ammunition would take effect April 1, 2025 and raise roughly $39 million a year. Most of the revenue would fund services for victims of gun violence, but $1 million would go into a school security program for violence prevention in schools as well as staff training and facility upgrades to improve safety. Another $3 million would expand access to youth behavioral health programs. 

Rep. Monica Duran, a Democrat who sponsored legislation to get the measure on the ballot, says the tax doesn’t infringe on gun owners’ Second Amendment rights. But gun lobbyists argue that gun and ammunition purchases are already subject to an 11% federal tax. 

Florida 

School board races have become increasingly partisan, especially since the pandemic, when issues like mask mandates and disputes over curriculum split communities in half. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis further politicized school board races in 2022 when he endorsed a slate of 30 candidates, 25 of whom won that year in the general election.

Amendment 1, which the legislature placed on the ballot last year, would officially change the Florida constitution to end nonpartisan races and require candidates to state their political party. 

Sixty percent of voters would need to approve the measure for it to pass. If they do, the new provision would apply to elections in 2026. Opponents of the idea argue that education issues have grown overly divisive and that partisan races would who aren’t registered party members. Proponents say the requirement would increase transparency. 

One former Polk County school board member thinks there won’t be enough support for the measure to reach the 60% threshold. 

“I think voters here are actually very tired of the school drama,” said Billy Townsend. “While they tend to vote GOP in state offices, [voters] also tend to prefer non-partisan offices locally. I would bet it falls short of 50%.” 

Massachusetts

Decisions over academic expectations are generally left up to state and local school boards. But in Massachusetts, voters will whether high school students should still have to pass state exams in English, math and science to graduate.

The , the state’s largest teachers union, led the effort to get the referendum on the ballot. The union argues that teachers spend too much class time preparing students for the tests and that the requirement hasn’t achieved the results testing proponents want. Under their alternative, students would have to master state standards to graduate.

Opponents, however, say scrapping the requirement would ultimately hurt students and leave them for college and careers. They’ve launched a $250,000 to convince voters to reject the measure. 

New Mexico

New Mexico voters have a strong track record of for capital improvement projects on education facilities. Since 1995, they’ve approved that have been on the ballot. This year, they’ll vote on a that would fund, among other items, furniture, equipment and materials at school libraries, as well as early childhood education centers at both the state school for the blind and the school for the deaf.

Utah

Utah voters will decide on two school funding measures, both placed on the ballot by the legislature. The asks voters to remove a state constitutional requirement that all revenue from income taxes and intangible property, like capital gains and royalty payments, be spent on education, children and people with disabilities.  If the measure passes, the law would only say that the state must provide a “framework” for funding schools.

The state teachers union was initially neutral on the change, but now opposes it. Lawmakers say revenue is up and this change would make budgeting easier.

The measure asks voters to increase from 4% to 5% the cap on investment earnings the state can transfer from the State School Fund to education. Local of parents and educators decide how to spend the funds for purchases like library books or an extra teaching assistant position. Last year, the state distributed over $100 million from the fund.

But in mid-2021, dismayed by screaming matches over COVID protocols that often broke out at school board meetings, she decided to meet individually with the board members to discuss her concerns. She found them kind and professional, so she encouraged leaders of her local chapter to do the same thing. 

“I said ‘I think you’d like them,’ and they said ‘Nope, we don’t want to do that,’ ” Christian recalled. “All of a sudden, I was the bad guy. It was very polarized.”

After initially attending some of their meetings and supporting their cause, Christian cut ties with Moms for Liberty. To her, the moment demonstrated the uncompromising way the conservative group became a force in today’s Republican party. Keeping divisive issues like sexually explicit books and lessons on racial discrimination in the spotlight was a in 2022 as Moms for Liberty-endorsed school board candidates scored victories across the country, especially in Florida where the organization originated. 

Since then, the group hasn’t been able to repeat its success at the polls. But there are signs that taking control of school boards isn’t Moms for Liberty’s top concern right now. They’re spending money to mobilize voters for like-minded GOP candidates and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate, an “anti-parent radical candidate.” Max Eden, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, suggested the group is focused on preparing “for the two alternative futures they stand to face.”

“If Trump wins, I expect that whomever he picks for [education] secretary will be tasked with a strong emphasis on the issues that they care about,” he said. “If he loses, there’s an expectation that Harris will double down hard on social issues from the left.”

Eden described Moms for Liberty’s recent strategy to join four Republican-led states in over the new Title IX rule as a “coup” from both an organizational and membership perspective. The revised regulation extends protections against sexual discrimination to LGBTQ students and gives transgender students the right to use restrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity. Moms for Liberty’s legal move spurred a federal court to issue an injunction, blocking hundreds of schools across the country from enforcing the new Title IX regulations. Moms for Liberty also used the ruling as an opportunity to so they could block the new provisions in more schools. 

‘Outraged over something’

The success of Moms for Liberty’s endorsed candidates, however, is still a way to measure the future of a “parental rights” movement that seeks more control over curriculum and opposes attention to race and social-emotional issues in school.

Former Florida school board members Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich founded the organization in 2021. At the time, their primary cause was battling mask mandates. But their approach quickly resonated with many disillusioned parents in the wake of COVID school closures and the intense reactions to school equity efforts often labeled as critical race theory.

“It’s hard to think of another education advocacy organization that has grown to such national prominence so quickly,” Brookings Institution in March.

In the 2022 election cycle, the group took in , and of its endorsed candidates were elected. But in 2023, the percentage of Moms for Liberty candidates winning school board seats dropped to , in part because other organizations to endorse their own candidates and slow down the group’s progress. This year’s results seem on track to mirror last year’s, but the group is not completely out of the running. 

Sue Woltanski, a school board member in Monroe County, Florida, has monitored and Moms for Liberty’s influence across the state, where it has joined forces with Gov. Ron DeSantis to endorse conservative candidates. A critic of their approach, she called Moms for Liberty members “people who have been outraged over something scary at their kid’s school.”

This year, the group targeted 14 school board races in Florida. Its candidates won just three of the open seats in the August primary. Another five are headed to November runoffs. In a statement, Justice and Descovich counted those candidates who advanced among their victories, saying they were “thrilled that Moms for Liberty saw a 60% win rate.” 

But the group’s tactics — like reading aloud the most salacious passages from sexually explicit library books at — often are aimed at making “people question whether it’s safe for their kids to go to public schools,” said Woltanski, who defeated one of their endorsed candidates two years ago. Moms for Liberty also embraces private , which continues to in Florida, causing public school enrollment in several districts to decline. 

“In my little vacation community, if we don’t have high-quality public schools we’re going to just be a resort,” she said. A lot of school boards have conservative members, she added, “but they are still in favor of public education.”

‘Us-versus-them mentality’ 

Examining Moms for Liberty’s win-loss record is just one way to measure its impact. Researchers at Michigan State University watched hours of school board meetings to better understand the overall effect of the group’s presence on rhetoric and behavior during the convenings. 

If Moms for Liberty-backed candidates took the majority of seats following the 2022 elections, they often acted quickly to fire superintendents, place restrictions on books and issue bans on critical race theory or lessons on sex and gender. Members of the public “turned out in high volume” to both support and oppose their policies, the researchers said.

“Successfully winning a majority of seats on the board seemed to deeply entrench the us-versus-them mentality, leading to increased and divided engagement at meetings in the post-election period,” they wrote. 

But even in districts where Moms for Liberty didn’t “flip” the board, the researchers found an overall increase in insults, threats and disorder, like outbursts from the audience, compared to the period between late 2019 and early 2020. 

“I don’t really think they have any true plans to govern,” said researcher Rebecca Jacobsen. She called their style the “politics of disruption.”

There were more displays of anger — a speaker banging their first on the podium, for example — and an increase in incidents in which police intervened and removed protesters. Before the pandemic, they found that police only got involved once. But in 2021 and 2022, as Moms for Liberty chapters were spreading across the country, they identified nine board meetings across five school districts where the police intervened.

The Moms for Liberty website urges chapters to push for policy changes, but some critics, like Christian in Florida, say members are more focused on national issues than local concerns, like school safety, bullying and curriculum.

“I thought they were going to educate moms and dads how to stand up for their children,” she said.

‘Close ties to powerful individuals’

At Moms for Liberty’s Washington, D.C., summit in late August — which featured a lengthy conversation between Justice and Trump — there was no evidence that the group had lost its edge. Despite a poor showing at the polls in Florida, members had other victories to celebrate. 

Three of their leaders, from Naples, from Palm Beach and from Brevard County, had won primary races for Florida House seats and made it onto the ballot in the general election.

“This is huge for us because it represents the momentum of change we are making across the country as we take our schools back from the union bosses,” the statement from Justice and Descovich said. Justice and Descovich declined ����Ӱ��’s requests for an interview.

As the November election approaches, Moms for Liberty has further turned its attention to increasing membership and mobilizing more voters, spending $3 million in , like Arizona and Georgia. With chapters in 48 states, the Brookings researchers said Moms for Liberty still carries a lot of influence.

“[Moms for Liberty] is a well-financed group with close ties to powerful individuals and institutions in conservative politics,” they wrote. The organization “represents a voting bloc that Republican political operatives are actively trying to court in the 2024 elections and beyond.”

Come July 1, school districts in Florida could authorize volunteer chaplains — those who are religious or not and with no training — to provide support and services for students in public schools, though GOP-controlled legislatures across the country are rejecting similar proposals.

Last year, passed a first-of-its-kind law authorizing schools to pay for religious figures to work in mental health roles, and lawmakers in 15 states followed suit by pitching similar legislation.

Since then, Florida is the only state where the legislature passed the measure and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill (), though Louisiana, Oklahoma and Ohio could still pass their versions this year.

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The proposals from lawmakers to bring chaplains into public schools have varied, with states taking different paths regarding the requirements for people to serve as school chaplains and their purpose.

The school chaplain measures have fallen short this year in Alabama, Nebraska, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Utah, Missouri and Pennsylvania, according to a Florida Phoenix analysis of the chaplain bills.

Florida’s Legislature is controlled by Republicans, but some Democrats supported the move. So beginning July 1, public school districts can decide whether they’ll adopt a volunteer chaplain program, and parents must provide written consent before their children participate. But there is nothing in the legislation that requires the chaplains to have any specific degrees. Those requirements are up to the school districts.

The state won’t allow satanists to take advantage of a new law allowing religious chaplains to serve as counselors in public schools for students whose parents approve, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday while signing the legislation.

The governor also predicted the state would prevail if the new law draws a legal challenge over separation of church and state concerns.

“It’s our view that if school districts want to bring in chaplains to offer voluntary services, they’re within their right to do so. But there’s been a lot of confusion about that, about what’s permitted and what’s not. This legislation clarifies that, yes, school districts and charter schools have the authority to allow volunteer chaplains to be on campus and provide additional counseling and support to students,” DeSantis said during a bill-signing ceremony at Tohopekaliga High School in Kissimmee.

Students with problems may benefit from “some soul craft,” he added.

“It’s totally voluntary for a parent or a student to participate. No one’ s being forced to do anything. But to exclude religious groups from campus, that is discrimination. You’re basically saying that God has no place. That’s wrong. That’s not what our Founding Fathers intended,” DeSantis said.

“Some have said that if you do a school chaplain program that, somehow, you’re going to have satanists running around in all our schools. We’re not playing those games in Florida. That is not a religion. That is not qualified to be able to participate in this. So, we’re going to be using common sense when it comes to this. You don’t have to worry about it.”

Representatives of the Satanic Temple that they intend to take advantage of the law. The group claims .

Counseling

The measure, , allows schools to authorize religious figures to offer counseling on campus. They would publish lists of these chaplains “to provide support, services, and programs to students as assigned by the district school board or charter school governing board,” the legislation says.

“Parents must be permitted to select a volunteer school chaplain from the list provided by the school district, which must include the chaplain’s religious affiliation, if any,” the law adds.

The legislation doesn’t outline qualifications for the volunteer chaplains other than passing a background check.

The governor also signed , which allows “” to address and recruit students with their parents’ consent. The state law refers to a list of groups designated by Congress, including the Boy Scouts of America, Girl Scouts of the United States of America, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, and the Civil Air Patrol.

DeSantis reflected on the chaplains he encountered while in the U.S. Navy, some of them on the front lines.

“I think that model of just having this available as part of the services that you’re providing like we do in the military, we should be doing the same for our students here in school.”

Veto Urged

Regarding chaplains, groups including the ACLU, Interfaith Alliance, and National Education Association on ground that the program would allow religious indoctrination. The ACLU of Florida urged DeSantis to veto the bill.

DeSantis seemed primed for a fight.

“What the ACLU is basically saying is that it’s OK to discriminate against religious organizations. They think the church should be a second-class citizen. They think you should not have the same access to come to campus that any other student organization or other types of groups would have, that it’s an inferior status,” he said Thursday.

“The First Amendment was enacted to prevent that. The First Amendment was enacted to ensure that people weren’t discriminated against on the basis of religion or the basis of their faith. So, I think it’s a bogus challenge. I do not think it’s gonna go anywhere,” he continued.

The Legislature crafted the bill, DeSantis said, so that “if this is something that you don’t want, it doesn’t affect you at all and you don’t even have to worry about it.”

The Phoenix reached out to the ACLU for comment but hasn’t heard back yet.

Christian Nationalism

The governor appeared to endorse arguments proffered by Christian nationalist writer David Barton, who said that the writers of the Constitution favored an active role for religion in government. Other scholars have , and Barton’s publisher withdrew his 2012 book, “The Jefferson Lies,” on the ground that “basic truths just were not there.”

“When education in the United States started, every school was a religious school. I mean, that was just part of it. Public schools were religious schools,” DeSantis insisted. “You know, there has been things that have been done over the years that veered away from it, that original intent. But the reality is, I think what we’re doing is really restoring the sense of purpose that our Founding Fathers wanted to see in education.”

The ACLU of Florida issued a written statement.

“Public schools are not Sunday schools and chaplains are not school counselors. Allowing chaplains to assume official positions — whether paid or voluntary — in public schools as counselors or other support staff will undermine this right by creating an environment ripe for evangelizing and religious coercion of students in violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” the organization said.

“Across the country, families and students practice a wide variety of faiths, and many are nonreligious. All should feel welcome in public schools. Even well-intentioned chaplain policies will undermine this fundamental premise of our public-education system and violate our longstanding First Amendment principles.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on and .

Attorneys representing a group of Florida students, parents and teachers have settled a lawsuit challenging the state’s prohibition on classroom instruction involving LGBTQ people and topics. While lessons specifically about sexual orientation and gender identity are still banned, the agreement will allow in-school classroom discussions of such topics, require schools to prohibit discrimination and bullying based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and make it clear that the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law does not extend to the banning of books.

Further, the agreement stipulates that instruction must be neutral on LGBTQ matters, meaning, for example, that lessons cannot depict heterosexuality as preferable. 

“The state of Florida has now made it clear that LGBTQ+ kids, parents and teachers in Florida can, in fact, say that they are gay,” the lead plaintiffs’ attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said in a statement.

In addition to representing the Florida plaintiffs, Kaplan represented Edie Windsor, whose case resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark overturning the Defense of Marriage Act. More recently, she handled E. Jean Carroll’s against former President Donald Trump.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also the settlement a “major win,” noting that his Parental Rights in Education Act remains in effect. The law originally prohibited LGBTQ-related instruction in kindergarten through third grade. Last year, it was amended to outlaw most lessons in all grades. 

Because the law and related state regulations were broad and vague, school administrators have removed pride flags and stickers from classrooms, made teachers empty bookshelves and done little to quell LGBTQ parents’ fears that their children may be punished for talking about their families. 

“If you read the early drafts of the Florida bill, it really seems as if any discussion at all was prohibited,” says Katie Blankenship, director of the state’s chapter of the free speech advocacy group PEN America. “Teachers were told never to discuss it in school if their families had same-sex partners. Go back in the closet, stay in the closet or find another place to work.”

Florida’s Board of Education issued a rule saying teachers could lose their licenses if they violated restrictions on instruction — even though the law did not include such sanctions — or if their classrooms contained books with LGBTQ characters or themes. 

In January 2023, the Williams Institute, an LGBTQ data clearinghouse located at UCLA, showing that almost 9 in 10 queer parents feared the law’s impact on their families, with more than half considering leaving the state and a fourth reporting they had been harassed since its passage.

Under this week’s agreement, education officials must send every school board in the state a copy of the settlement, which outlines numerous ways in which in-school discussion of LGBTQ topics is allowed, as well as officials’ legal obligations to protect students and educators from harassment and discrimination. 

The document defines classroom instruction as “the formal work of teaching” and lists “teaching an overview of modern gender theory or a particular view of marriage equality” as an example of something prohibited. Not banned is “mere discussion” of gay or transgender people or same-sex couples in class, or a student’s decision to address sexual orientation or gender identity.

“The statute would also leave teachers free to ‘respond if students discuss … their identities or family life,’ ‘provide grades and feedback’ if a student chooses ‘LGBTQ identity’ as an essay topic and answer ‘questions about their families,’ ” the agreement states. It adds that “just as no one would suggest that references to numbers in a history book constitute ‘instruction on mathematics,’ ” a literary reference to LGBTQ people in a book does not violate the law “any more than a math problem asking students to add bushels of apples is ‘instruction on apple farming.’ ” 

Blankenship says she expects compliance will be uneven for some time. 

“I anticipate different levels of eagerness to apply this settlement, depending on the demographics of each community,” she says. School leaders in “some places will be delighted, while in some places it will be a struggle.”

The settlement does not apply to what PEN calls “educational gag orders” in other states, nor will it necessarily have an impact on increasing levels of teacher self-censorship that researchers have found even in states where no law or rule limits what can be taught. 

Following the Florida law’s 2022 passage, legislators in numerous states introduced bills restricting classroom speech. At least 15 states enacted , and hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills are under consideration in statehouses in the current legislative season. 

While the letter of each law may differ, gay and transgender advocacy groups say the overall impact nationwide has been a marked increase in in-school anti-LGBTQ violence and harassment, fear and confusion leading to teacher self-censorship and the end of supportive programs such as gay-straight alliances.

The U.S. Department of Education has launched an investigation into the death of nonbinary Oklahoma teen Nex Benedict after a fight in a high school girls’ bathroom Feb. 7. An LGBTQ educator in that district had been singled out for criticism by state officials for his support of queer youth.

A 2022 Oklahoma law forced Nex to use the girls’ bathroom, a space considered unsafe for transgender youth. A coroner has ruled the teen’s Feb. 8 death a suicide.

Data from the school climate advocacy groups GLSEN and The Trevor Project reveals rising rates of anti-LGBTQ speech and actions not just in states where the new laws are in effect, but in classrooms in places previously known for supporting gay and trans students. 
Referring to the settlement as “very drinkable lemonade,” Blankenship says it’s a start: “The has now been popped.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed HB 1, which would have banned Florida youths under age 16 from creating social media accounts. While the governor has said he wishes to regulate virtual platforms like Instagram and TikTok more carefully, he voiced concerns that the legislation would encroach on parents’ rights to oversee their children’s internet use.

Rather than attempt to override the veto, Republicans in the Florida state Senate announced  a similar bill on Monday in the hopes of bringing a compromise measure to DeSantis’s desk before the legislative session ends on March 8. 

In a Tweet Friday afternoon, DeSantis  because the legislature was “about to produce a different, superior bill.”

“Protecting children from harms associated with social media is important, as is supporting parents’ rights,” he wrote.

A bill sitting on Gov. Ron DeSantis’s desk could block access to social media for minors in Florida — and significantly influence how other states set policy related to children and technology.

, which would both prevent kids under 16 from creating accounts on social media sites and require those companies to cancel the accounts of users under the minimum age, by large majorities in both chambers of the Republican-controlled Florida legislature. Its fate now lies in the hands of DeSantis, who has questioned whether the law would curtail parents’ own authority over their children’s media consumption.

Whether the bill ultimately takes effect will be a test of competing parental interests in a state that, under DeSantis, has placed heavy emphasis on the rights of parents over their children’s education and upbringing.

The decision about whether to sign or veto HB 1, which the governor has until Friday to make, is playing out as federal judges consider state efforts to more closely regulate social media entities like Instagram and TikTok. Earlier this month, an Ohio law that would have compelled such companies to obtain parental permission before allowing children aged 15 and under to create accounts. 

HB 1 would constrain social media access much further, flatly banning minors from using the sites. That unambiguous, and possibly unenforceable, prohibition earned the legislation enemies even among conservatives who have been of technology companies in the past. The co-founder of Moms For Liberty, parental rights group that has been and other Republicans over the last few years, recently said the proposal goes too far.

But others point to the alleged dangers that social media use poses to young people, with Republican state House Speaker Paul Renner “addictive.” Last year, that excessive use could expose kids to troubling content, raise the risk of harassment and bullying and damage youth mental health. Since that guidance was issued, 42 state attorneys general have , alleging that its Facebook and Instagram apps target children and teenagers with harmful features. In Florida, have given HB 1 their backing.

Susan McManus, a political analyst who taught political science for decades at the University of South Florida, said that DeSantis was being “pushed by two groups of parents, both with equally compelling arguments.”

“DeSantis is kind of trapped,” McManus said. “On the one hand, he’s very strong, and he continues to be a strong advocate of parents’ rights. On the other hand, he’s also got to deal with a parent’s rights to control decision making when it regards their minor children.”

Before the bill was passed, the governor about its workability, suggesting that “legitimate issues” still needed to be resolved before he would approve it. The fact that the legislature — by overwhelming margins of 108-7 in the House and 23-14 in the Senate — still opted to proceed with the legislation suggests between Republican leaders and DeSantis, whose unsuccessful run for the Republican presidential nomination may have damaged his standing in Florida. After winning a huge reelection victory in the 2022 midterm elections, DeSantis’s approval has over the last few months.

Matthew Isbell, a Democratic political consultant, said that HB 1 stood a reasonable chance of being vetoed by DeSantis, who has until March 1 to either sign the bill, veto it, or allow it to take effect without his signature.

“The bill is definitely at risk of being vetoed, and discussion already exists about whether an override will [follow],” Isbell wrote in an email. “If it does, it would be one of the rare times a veto was overridden, especially in the last few decades.”

Civil rights groups for the governor to quash the law, arguing that its enforcement would require unconstitutional steps to curtail citizens’ rights to express themselves and consume media. In oral arguments at the Supreme Court earlier this week, justices that laws regulating social media content moderation in Florida and Texas would be struck down.

The prospect of the legislation being ruled unconstitutional may lie behind DeSantis’s reluctance to give it his assent. A long list of previous laws passed with strong conservative support during his tenure in recent months, including restrictions on abortion and gender-affirming medical care.

Michael Binder, a political science professor at the University of North Florida, said in an email that the governor’s decision was “almost less important” than the potential legal threats facing HB 1.

“The fact of the matter is that all of this will fade no matter what happens, and the courts will decide the fate of the law if it eventually passes,” he wrote.

McManus said the probability of veto override seemed remote, adding that DeSantis still has almost three years in office ahead of him and considerable influence over Republicans in the legislature. Still, she added, restricting access to technology remained a thorny question for local politicians. 

“It’s a tough topic because everyone agrees that there are psychological and learning damages that social media has done to young children. But the question is, how does that relate to parents’ rights to control their children?”

“It was the most beautiful tapestry of people I have ever seen in my life,” said Shiren Rattigan, co-founder of the Innovative Educators Network (InEd) that hosted the event in late June. “We only expected about 450 people, but there was a lot of buzz around HB 1,” she said, referring to Florida’s universal school choice legislation that enables all K-12 students to access approximately $8,000 in funding for a variety of approved education expenses, including private school tuition, tutoring, and some homeschool programs. 

The majority of attendees were families with students currently enrolled in public schools. “That was not something I had anticipated and it was really exciting,” Rattigan added. Indeed, it is something that would also likely surprise opponents of Florida’s school choice efforts, who insisted that HB 1 would exclusively subsidize the tuition of affluent families with children already enrolled in private schools.

A former Chicago Public Schools teacher, Rattigan led a Montessori-inspired “pandemic pod” in 2020 in Fort Lauderdale with a small group of students. That evolved into Colossal Academy, a low-cost private school with about 30 students that emphasizes individualized learning and entrepreneurship. 

Colossal is now one of approximately 120 private microschools and related out-of-system educational models included in the InEd network, serving an estimated 8,000 students throughout Broward, Palm Beach, and Miami-Dade counties.

“All parents want their children to succeed and are realizing that traditional schools may not cater to their child’s individual learning styles and passions,” said Toni Frallicciardi, a homeschooling mother who co-founded InEd with Rattigan in 2021 to provide grassroots support to the entrepreneurial parents and teachers who are reshaping education in South Florida. Frallicciardi has seen interest in her weekly, STEM-focused homeschool program, Surf Skate Science, skyrocket since 2020. She currently serves 350 students during the academic year, with a long waitlist. 

Everyday entrepreneurs like Rattigan and Frallicciardi are building new schools and related learning models across the U.S. From the bustling boroughs of New York City to the rural corners of southern Oregon, I have visited and interviewed many of these founders. Geographically, demographically, and ideologically, they are astonishingly diverse; but they share a common commitment to creating alternatives to the schooling status quo.  

Like all entrepreneurs, they are also responding to market demand. The Covid school shutdowns and prolonged remote learning prompted many parents to question the educational default and consider other, often less conventional, options such as homeschooling or microschools, which are intentionally small, mixed-age, inexpensive private schools with a personalized curriculum approach. 

That openness to different ways of teaching and learning has lingered and, in some places, even accelerated as conflict intensifies over curriculum requirements in public schools. “Politics and a desire for more control over curriculum and instruction have influenced parents’ interest in unconventional models,” said Frallicciardi. 

In Florida and elsewhere, entrepreneurial educators are creating programs that are pedagogically and philosophically varied, allowing more parents to choose education options that better reflect their preferences and values. From faith-based programs and classical microschools rooted in the traditional liberal arts, to Waldorf-inspired learning pods and self-directed homeschooling centers, families are increasingly able to select their ideal learning environment. 

These decentralized offerings can reduce the political conflicts that inevitably come with one-size-fits-all schooling. School choice policies aid this process. “With school choice, I really think that families are going to find their community and they are going to find a model that works for them, aligned with their values,” said Rattigan. “For me, that’s being forward-thinking and entrepreneurial. And for other people, it could be that they really want to be Christ-centered.” 

School choice policies like HB 1 are not only fueling entrepreneurship and expanding access to abundant educational possibilities. They are also showing that more freedom and choice can lead to greater social harmony. 

Kerry McDonald is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education and host of the LiberatED podcast. She is also the Velinda Jonson Family education fellow at State Policy Network.

Sara Engels is a rising junior at the New College of Florida studying political psychology. She wants to take a class called “Health, Culture, and Societies” this fall but it might not be available under the atmosphere of conservative orthodoxy the DeSantis administration is imposing on public university and college campuses.

The class, you see, addresses the different health outcomes people realize based on their race, class, gender, or ethnicity. That seems to be forbidden under a new state law banning instruction touching on identity politics, systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege.

Carlton Leffler is the equivalent of a senior at the public honors academy taking urban studies and Chinese classes. The first field entails many of the same topics as Engels’ health class; as for Chinese, the law would appear to limit discussion of pivotal historical material about Mao Tse Tung, his “Little Red Book” and the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

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Engles and Leffler both are plaintiffs in a new legal challenge to SB 226, one of the anti-“woke” laws that the Republican-dominated Florida Legislature has approved for Gov. Ron DeSantis. All of the plaintiffs, including a third student and two professors, are affiliated with New College but the law applies to public higher education throughout the state.

“The student plaintiffs are adults capable of determining for themselves whether the viewpoints advanced by their various instructors … have merit,” the , filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida in Tallahassee, reads.

“In order to know whether the viewpoints advanced by their professors have merit, the student plaintiffs must first have an opportunity to encounter them; that is, they must be permitted to listen to the professors’ instruction in class,” it says.

“The professor plaintiffs are willing speakers and the student plaintiffs are willing listeners. They desire to engage in academic discussion concerning topics prohibited by SB 266.”

Organizing the case is another plaintiff, NCF Freedom, which describes itself as “an independent organization founded to protect and promote the academic mission of New College.”

Sweeping changes

, passed earlier this year, made sweeping changes to higher education governance in Florida, including bans on diversity initiatives or application of critical race theory. The measure also specified that university presidents have the last word on personnel matters, abrogating the contract’s arbitration language.

It followed passage of the “,” or “Individual Freedom,” Act in 2022 to restrict conversations about race and gender in schools and workplaces. A federal judge nearly one year ago.

New College is a public, small honors institution located in Sarasota. As the lawsuit points out, “Historically, New College has had a reputation for welcoming LGBTQ+ students and unconventional individuals of every sort. The landing page for the College’s website proclaims that it is a ‘Community of Free Thinkers, Risk Takers and Trailblazers.’”

The document cites campus organizations including “New College Feral Pigeons;” the “Indigenous Student Union;” and “Queery” — “an organization which ‘serves to maintain New College as a safe place for LGBTQ+ identified individuals and their allies to socialize and engage with the larger community.’”

By contrast, DeSantis hopes to convert the Sarasota campus to “,” referring to the private Christian Hillsdale College in Michigan. He got rid of the sitting board members and including Christopher Rufo, who was behind the anti-CRT (critical race theory) movement. The governor’s board and Corcoran are even promoting as a draw for more conservatively aligned students.

Named as defendants are Manny Diaz Jr., state commissioner of education and a member of the university system’s Board of Governors; Brian Lamb, chairman of the Board of Governors; Eric Silagy, vice chairman of the governors; the 11 remaining governors; the New College Board of Trustees and its members; and Richard Corcoran, interim president of New College.

Academic threat

SB 266 threatens academic fields including gender studies, history, art, English, sociology, and more to the extent they inquire into this country’s complicated political and social histories, the complaint alleges.

“The elimination or curtailment of many AOCs [areas of concentration] or majors directly affects the rights of current and future faculty and students, including the plaintiffs bringing this action. Faculty and students at colleges and universities throughout Florida face the same censorship and the same injury to their rights of free speech and academic inquiry,” the complaint reads.

It adds: “Given its unique status as an honor college, dedicated to the liberal arts and attracting free thinkers from around the nation, New College is uniquely vulnerable to the censorship and pall of orthodoxy imposed by SB 266.”

Furthermore, NCFF risks reprisal against itself and its members because of its support for social justice and diversity, the complaint adds.

The document alleges viewpoint-based discrimination against protected speech in violation of the First Amendment; and that the law is unconstitutionally vague under the Due Process Clause of the Fourth Amendment, in that it fails to sufficiently specify what behavior will draw punishment.

‘Categorical ban on speech’

Additionally, the law is overbroad in that its “categorical ban on speech … is not sensitive to specific speech in context and is not supported by legislative findings of fact which might serve to either justify or narrow the broad scope of the censorship scheme. SB 266 has a strong likelihood of deterring speech which is not properly subject to the law including discussion of almost all controversial historical, political and social topics, many of which are vital to the unimpeded flow of ideas in a free society.”

The complaint also targets new restrictions on tenure protection for faculty, arguing the law will chill free inquiry plus classroom instruction and debate between students in class.

The United Faculty of Florida, which represents university faculty, filed a on Aug. 4 in state circuit court in Leon County over .

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Outraged at the new Black history standards in Florida, Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday blasted what she called revisionist history promoted in the state’s African American history standards approved this week by top education officials.

Just two days after the the standards, Harris told the crowd in Jacksonville at the Ritz Theater and Museum that Florida’s book bans, LGBTQ+ rights restrictions, and Black history revisions are part of a national right-wing agenda.

“Adults know what slavery really involved. It involved rape; it involved torture; it involved taking a baby from their mother; it involved some of the worst examples of depriving people of humanity in our world; it involved subjecting people to think of themselves and be thought of as less than humans,” Harris said.

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“So, in the context of that, how is it that anyone could suggest that, in the midst of these atrocities, that there was any benefit to being subjected to this level of dehumanization?”

Harris continued: “And so, let us be clear: Teachers want to teach the truth. Teachers want to teach facts. And teachers dedicate themselves to some of the most noble work any human being could take on: to teach other people’s children — for the sake of the future of our nation.

“And so, they should not then be told by politicians that they should be teaching revisionist history in order to keep their jobs. What is going on?”

Critics of the first stand-alone say they largely limit elementary school instruction to identifying famous Black people. At the middle school level, the standards describes slavery as personally beneficial in instances where the enslaved learned skills. High schoolers will learn that the 1920 Ocoee Massacre involved violence against and by African Americans.

Extremist leaders

While Gov. Ron DeSantis didn’t address any of the specific criticisms against the standards, he took to his campaign Twitter account to ahead of her arrival.

“Democrats like Kamala Harris have to lie about Florida’s educational standards to cover for their agenda of indoctrinating students and pushing sexual topics onto children,” the governor wrote. “Florida stands in their way and we will continue to expose their agenda and their lies. The Harris-Biden administration is obsessed with Florida … yet they ignore the chaos at the border, crime-infested cities, economic malaise, and the military recruitment crisis.”

Aside from criticizing the standards, the vice president called out the state government’s lack of action against gun violence. Instead of wanting to arm teachers, leaders should be promoting gun safety, she said.

Ultimately, Harris characterized extremist leaders as figures fomenting culture wars meant to divide Americans.

“Let’s not fall in that trap,” she said. “We will stand united as a country. We know our collective history; it is our shared history. We are all in this together.

“We know that we will rise and fall together as a nation. We will not allow them to suggest anything other than what we know: The vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us.”

The whole story

For now, members of the work group that developed the African American history standards are focused on explaining how they concluded that Black people benefitted from slavery because they learned skills. A spokesperson from the Florida Department of Education published a statement on Thursday from two members of the work group, citing people like John Chavis and Booker T. Washington as examples of slaves who developed trades from which they benefitted.

“Any attempt to reduce slaves to just victims of oppression fails to recognize their strength, courage, and resiliency during a difficult time in American history,” according to a statement by William Allen and Frances Presley Rice who helped develop the standards. “Florida students deserve to learn how slaves took advantage of whatever circumstances they were in to benefit themselves and the community of African descendants.”

Allen and Rice added: “It is disappointing, but nevertheless unsurprising, that critics would reduce months of work to create Florida’s first ever stand-alone strand of African American History Standards to a few isolated expressions without context.”

Even so, the work group’s statement didn’t tackle the backlash against other aspects of the standards.

Black lawmakers speak out

This teaching of the 1920 Ocoee Massacre is more personal for Orange County State Sen. Geraldine Thompson. In 2020, she helped champion a bill to add the massacre to Florida’s K-12 education curriculum. She spoke out against the standards during the Wednesday meeting.

“When you look at the history, currently it suggests that the [Ocoee] massacre was sparked by violence from African Americans,” she wrote in a statement on Friday. “That’s blaming the victim, when in fact it was other individuals who came into the Black Community cand killed individuals and burned homes, schools, lodges, etc. So we want to tell the whole story.”

Other politicians such as State Rep. Dianne Hart from Hillsborough County commended Harris for her visit. Hart is the chair of the Florida Legislative Black Caucus.

“It is unfortunate that Florida has become the leader in all the wrong areas, and this new attempt to continue to diminish the importance of African-American history, and to present our students with a lack-luster version of the truth is evidence to that fact,” she wrote in a statement. “As chair of the Black Caucus, we have made this a priority issue and we will continue to advocate for truth, for facts, and for age-appropriate curriculum.”

There has been no shortage of criticism toward the standards, but no concrete actions have been announced. Though, State Sen. Bobby Powell of West Palm Beach said the “so-called” standards needed to be thrown out.

“When the dogs and the water cannons, the police batons, and the lynching mobs were let loose on these former African American slaves, was that for their ‘personal benefit’ as well? He wrote. “These so-called standards need to be thrown out immediately, and a full and honest examination of what’s really driving this one-sided agenda needs to begin.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on and .

Students at Florida public schools will now learn that Black people benefitted from slavery because it taught them skills. This change is part of the African American history standards the State Board of Education approved at a Wednesday meeting.

The description of slavery as beneficial is not the only grievance parents, teachers, education advocates and politicians had with the new . People speaking at the Wednesday meeting generally called out the diluting and omissions of history. For example, instruction at the elementary school level is largely limited to identifying famous Black people, and high school teachers will talk about the “acts of violence perpetrated by African Americans” at the , in which a white mob killed at least 30 Black people.

“Please table this rule and revise it to make sure that my history our history is being told factually and completely, and please do not, for the love of God, tell kids that slavery was beneficial because I guarantee you it most certainly was not,” said Kevin Parker, a community member.

Though the public testimony period lasted over an hour, most of the people objected to the adoption of the standard, with supporters of it waving from their seats. Paul Burns, the chancellor of K-12 public schools, defended the standards, denying that they referred to slavery as beneficial.

“Our standards are factual, objective standards that really teach the good, the bad and the ugly,” he said.

Board member Kelly Garcia upheld the standards and said that none of the backlash she read about them before the meeting pointed to specific concerns. A coalition of Black leaders and community groups — Florida Education Association, FL’s NAACP and The Black History Project, Inc. and Equal Ground — sent a letter to the board on Monday in opposition to the standards.

Whitewashing history

State Sen. Geraldine Thompson, representing part of Orange County, and state House Democrat Anna Eskamani of Orlando showed up to speak out against the standards.

“When I see the standards, I’m very concerned,” Thompson said. “If I were still a professor, I would do what I did very infrequently; I’d have to give this a grade of ‘I’ for incomplete. It recognizes that we have made an effort, we’ve taken a step. However, this history needs to be comprehensive. It needs to be authentic, and it needs additional work.”

A 1994 Florida statute requires schools to teach African American history, but Gov. DeSantis has been chipping away at the legacy of the law. Last year, the Legislature passed HB 7, which restricted certain and gender in schools and workplaces. Regarding race-related discussions in schools, the law says that students must not feel guilt over past actions of people of the same race.

At the beginning of the year, the governor’s rejection of the New York-based College Board’s pilot course amassed nationwide backlash for trying to whitewash history.

“To be discussing African American history in this moment, with no one present who has felt the pain of the infliction of harm on African Americans. It’s overtly problematic,” said former state politician Dwight Bullard, pointing at the non-Black members of the board.

“Part of the reason the ’94 statute exists is because the state tried to cover up the Rosewood massacre. So, by the very admission of the state, the reason that we need a stronger statute that covers African American history, a broader statute is because of the necessity or the failures of your predecessors. So, I simply ask that you table this amendment until those closest to the pain have access to the power.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on and .

NEA made that opposition the focal point of the gathering, joining a protest organized by Florida for All on July 1 and then outside the convention center July 5. Its themes were “Freedom to Learn” and “Teach Truth.”

“As this nation’s largest, most powerful union … we will protect our democracy [and] preserve public education,” said Pringle.

But the union’s commitment to these principles did not extend to its own operations during the convention. It stage-managed every aspect of the proceedings and saw to it that no shadows were cast across its self-image as the progressive defender of democracy.

NEA bills its representative assembly as “the world’s largest democratic, deliberative body.” But just how democratic and deliberative is it?

The delegates spent most of their time at the four-day convention introducing, debating and voting on “new business items.” These are proposals for the national union to take a specific and finite action. They are paid for through NEA’s contingency fund, which totals $3 million.

The NEA annual budget approaches $375 million, which means the delegates are devoting almost all of their attention to less than 1% of the union’s operations.

The delegates do vote on the total budget at the end of the convention, but they cannot add, amend or delete anything from it — only approve it or reject it as is.

Which new business items were approved and which were rejected? Neither the public nor the non-attending members of NEA have any idea. The union put the proposals and actions behind a firewall, and very few individual delegates saw fit to pass along the information.

Education Week — the only media outlet to cover the convention — reported that the delegates , at a cost of more than $580,000. New Business Item 69, which had , passed by 20 votes out of more than 4,500 cast.

New Business Item 53 proposed that NEA instruct local affiliates on how to become “strike-ready.” The delegates voted to refer it to committee, which upset the sponsor of the item, Deb Gesualdo, a delegate from Massachusetts, because she felt it left the decision to act or not in the hands of a few higher-ups, instead of the large representative body.

, she claimed the “NEA board steering committee began to organize against it” and that her item “upset a handful of state presidents who are interested in hoarding information and hoarding power.”

Another delegate also sounded a bit disillusioned. “I sat with some teachers from different states at one point. What did we talk about? Our working conditions, our pay, our workload, student behavior … things that were not talked about during the [representative assembly]. Our [new business items] had little to do with teaching,” .

While the public, the press and most NEA members were in the dark about the proceedings, at least the delegates in attendance could witness them. But even delegates present at the assembly were mostly unaware of what actions NEA officials took just outside the hall.

NEA staffers represented by the Association of Field Service Employees have been working without a contract since June 1. In an attempt to move negotiations along, a group of them showed up at the convention center to hand out leaflets and hold signs.

This didn’t sit well with NEA executives, who, , sent convention center security and a sheriff’s deputy to have them removed from the premises.

The staff union also claims it was prevented from joining the Freedom to Learn rally, and that NEA urged delegates not to interact with the staff union.

“On a day when NEA professed the ‘freedom to learn,’ AFSE members and NEA members were denied their freedom of speech,” .

Its demands include the usual pay increases and benefit improvements, but the association also of increasing members’ workload while shrinking staff and relying on temporary employees, which it calls “an anti-union, exploitative practice.”

The association received strong support from its sister unions of NEA employees, the and the , which has its own gripes with NEA management.

The staff union placed that accuses some NEA leaders of prejudice and racism. “At NEA Headquarters there is a persisting culture of mistreatment and disrespect of our Black staff that has continued to go unchallenged,” the post reads.

There are legitimate concerns about whitewashing history, covering up errors and misdeeds, and promoting only a positive, glowing image. NEA’s own actions during its representative assembly demonstrate the union is not immune from such urges.

Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears most Wednesdays; see the full archive.

“It was an incredibly powerful moment,” says Zander Moricz, a recent Florida high school graduate who was a plaintiff in a suit challenging the law. “We had thousands of students sign a pledge to vote and take a banned history lesson.” 

The law, passed by the Florida Legislature last year, had outlawed classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in grades K-3 and required that any instruction in upper grades be “age-appropriate.” The recent extension to was among a slate of resolutions passed by the board at the governor’s behest. It cannot go into effect until after a 30-day “procedural notification” period.

This was not the first time DeSantis has implemented measures targeting LGBTQ Floridians and people of color rather than wait for the legislature to act. Earlier this year, he directed the Florida Boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine to ban gender-affirming health care for trans youth — a move the legislature is now deliberating enshrining in law. 

DeSantis, widely believed to be laying the groundwork for a 2024 presidential bid, has said his election to the governorship proves to make unilateral policy decisions, which lawmakers can later affirm or — highly unlikely in a GOP-dominated state — overturn. Similar use of executive power by governors and attorneys general in .

He has also restricted instruction on topics involving race, outlawed Advanced Placement African American history classes and announced plans to rid Florida colleges and universities of diversity efforts and instruction involving critical race theory. 

While DeSantis and his backers had said the ban on early-grades discussions of LGBTQ topics was needed to protect young children from inappropriate materials, state officials said last week’s extension to all students was necessary to ensure that teachers do not stray from instruction that meets state academic standards.

The protests, which were followed in some places by community rallies, had a twofold purpose, says Moricz, now a 19-year-old freshman at Harvard University. Young people, he says, needed to feel the power in taking action to defend free speech, while sending a message to elected officials that youth are watching — and planning to vote. 

“There is a culture of fear in Florida schools right now, and it’s hard for students to shake,” he says. “Florida’s legislature is not listening to parents, teachers and students. This legislature is listening to Florida’s governor.”

Students joining the noon walkout participated in 20 minutes of organized activities, including a five-minute version of a Black history lesson banned by DeSantis. The focus: censorship of historical Black and LGBTQ figures. Protesters also registered to vote and wrote letters to school board members and other officials promising to work to elect candidates who support students’ rights. 

Making sure the student demonstrators could realize immediate and tangible outcomes — like taking the voting pledge and having the opportunity to enroll in an online, college-level Black history class created by Harvard faculty who had helped to develop the banned AP course — was important to giving them a sense of their potential power, says Moricz.

“Young people in Florida are taking back the state strategically and intentionally,” he says, “and we’re protecting each other in the process.”

Moricz, a founder of the 2,000-member , gained instant acclaim a year ago, when he was warned not to say gay in his commencement address at Pine View School for the Gifted in Osprey, Florida.

Told his mic would be cut if he mentioned his role as plaintiff, Moricz, who is gay, about coming out as curly-haired.

“I used to hate my curls,” he said, doffing his mortarboard. “I spent mornings and nights embarrassed of them, trying desperately to straighten this part of who I am.

“But the daily damage of trying to fix myself became too much to endure. So, while having curly hair in Florida is difficult — due to the humidity — I decided to be proud of who I was and started coming to school as my authentic self.”

After the speech went viral, Moricz was invited to appear on Good Morning America. 

Walkout 2 Learn tapped a number of youth-friendly technologies to organize students throughout the state. Participants were texted instructions on the day of the protest, for example, and will be kept up to date on the group’s work via a Slack channel. Those who independently complete the online Black history class will earn a certification to put on college applications.
“Don’t worry,” , “if your school threatens to punish you, we have lawyers and politicians who will support you.”

—Carter G. Woodson

Public schools, it seems, are, once again, the fresh front in the culture wars, the next “democratic institution” to be undermined and remade in the sanitized sepia of revisionist white supremacy. The have always spread through .��

Fresh off a series of electoral repudiations of various efforts to acknowledge in meaningful terms the impact of systemic racism on our children, our schools and society, and a general gnashing of teeth from white conservatives, there is a moment of possibility in the air for alt-right demagogues and would-be heirs to the MAGA trash throne.  

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is heir apparent. While a federal judge its implementation earlier this month, DeSantis was able to pass into law last year his Stop WOKE Act, which prohibits the teaching and mention of systemic racism in schools and workplaces; was able the College Board’s Advanced Placement African American Studies course and is now going after , getting one publisher to omit references to race, including in the story of Rosa Parks’s arrest.

And while I laud the efforts of those who are fighting back — including three Florida high school students, represented by , who said they planned to sue DeSantis over trying to kill the AP African American Studies course —the Florida governor’s actions are s of more to come from his ilk as .

White America’s power and position are so deeply entrenched in the very fabric of American schooling and society, the by the modicum of diversity, equity and inclusion work now being done in our public schools would be laughable if it didn’t have such chilling and dangerous consequences for Black and brown children.  

From how we finance public schools to how we assign our children to them, the prevailing structure of traditional public education is inexorably tilted against Black and brown students. The form and function of our traditional public school systems are a produced by racial and economic inequity. 

I worked with fellow educator-activists at the to create the Freedom Schools Literacy Academy in Philadelphia, which have since expanded to Camden, New Jersey, Detroit, Michigan and now Memphis, Tennessee. Our approach integrates proven best practices of the , the Philadelphia Freedom Schools, and the independent Black Schools movement, with a culturally responsive, affirming and sustaining early-literacy curriculum.��

At our summer academy, expert Black educators coach aspiring Black college teacher apprentices and work with high school pre-apprentices exploring careers in education. The effect for our underserved Black and brown elementary students is the personalizedthey need, coupled with a deepening of their racial identity.

Scads of provide evidence that effective, coherent, ; rich, robust, rigorous content; and are the magic ingredients of high-quality learning. Too often we have inadequacies or incompetencies at each one of those levels. None of our systems are aligned for cultural proficiency and creating the kinds of learning opportunities our students need to both be successful academically and feel connected with and supported by their teachers as people.��

Research also shows that exposing students to challenging and even in the classroom increases civic matters. Navigating controversial topics in the classroom builds communication and critical thinking skills. With a well-equipped teacher, students can ask difficult questions, grapple with ambiguity and appreciate the perspectives of other people.

However, too many teacher preparation programs and their faculties have proven time and time again to be woefully short of truly culturally responsive to Black and brown communities. The heights of tenured teachers’ college posts are too far removed from the lived experiences of Black and brown students. 

We know that when Black students have Black teachers, they . When they have one Black teacher by third grade, they are 13% more likely to enroll in college. With two Black teachers in the mix early on, that stat jumps to 32%. When Black boys from underserved communities have a Black teacher, they’re far more likely to experience on-time high school graduation. In fact, their dropout rates plummet by almost 40%. Our Fortifying the student-to-educator-activist pipeline is what we seek, because we know it is critical to

Dr. Carter G. Woodson in his genius knew that there would be no lynching if it did not start in classrooms. writes that Woodson asserted that the violence inflicted upon Black bodies began at the level of ideas and knowledge: “The knowledge system of schools constructed Black people as ahistorical subjects, obscured historical systems of oppression, and taught students to look to White-Eurocentric colonial ideology as a human standard. At an epistemic level, Black people were “human beings of the lower order.” 

Schools failed to offer African American students any cogent social analysis of their historically constructed oppression, no alternative system of representation to interpret Black life. Woodson recognized this phenomenon as a structured system of “mis-education.” 

The work we do is critical to the education of Black children nationwide. We owe it to who entrust schools with the care of the persons of most value, their children. We hope to express to those parents that we, too, value their children. We see , what is possible when students and teachers are connected in a supporting and trusting way. From strengthening a student’s racial and ethnic identity and promoting a sense of belonging to improving critical thinking skills and strengthening reading and math understanding, makes big differences for students — for all students.

The moment shows us both the challenge and opportunity in . The current post-truth political climate puts in sharp relief the need for rigorous and clear-eyed teaching in our public schools.�� 

An unsettling proportion of Americans now hold views that are increasingly ahistorical and untethered from reality on everything from voting rights to race relations. Beyond showing how easily whole segments of society can be manipulated, we also see the urgent need for teachers that are well prepared for the profession and possess the skills and competencies needed to equip students with what they need to navigate ambiguity, uncertainty, and outright racism, particularly of the sort manufactured for political advantage.

Doing so will require all of us to do our part. That means teacher preparation programs and institutions and finally, fully embrace a . It also means that we need to do a much better job of getting more Black and brown young people interested in and pursuing a career in teaching.��And it means that we need schools to engage and empower communities of color and co-create a vision of public education that reflects their diverse needs and aspirations.��

There’s a tremendous amount of work to be done and precious little time to do it. Everyday that goes by is another opportunity for us to slide further from the more perfect union that we all deserve to see realized.��Progress isn’t promised, but it is possible if we have a public education system that supports it. That starts with ensuring teachers can teach — and are prepared without fear or reservation.

Diana Smith stands at the head of a cluttered classroom at Washington Latin Public Charter School. The lights are dimmed, and projected on the wall behind is one of the most famous images in European art, Raphael’s The School of Athens, which acts as the anchor for today’s lesson in art, history and philosophy.

On a handheld whiteboard, Smith jots a word that perhaps 1 in 10,000 adults could define: “Aetiology,” the study of causes and origins. Not contenting herself with one stumper, she quickly adds more SAT material below it, this time written in Greek letters: “Logos.” Coaxing the kids to recite them with her, she wonders aloud what they could mean.��

If the prompt is a bit advanced for 10-year-olds, no one seems fazed. In fact, through the rest of the 80-minute period, Smith’s students gamely follow along as she traipses through more of the antiquarian lexicon, sometimes gesturing toward the image of an early modern masterpiece that decorated the walls of the Vatican for over 500 years. The tutorial, part of the school’s foundational coursework for young pupils, is a concentrated dose of a pedagogy that Smith has spent much of her career refining. 

Washington Latin’s approach to K–12 schooling comes from the somewhat esoteric world of classical education, a movement dedicated to reviving liberal arts instruction as it was understood by the men (and one woman) depicted in The School of Athens: Socrates, Aristotle, Diogenes, Pythagoras and Archimedes. After decades building schools and writing curricula in the parochial and homeschool sectors, its most ardent proponents can sound like evangelists for a long-abandoned faith, laying a heavy emphasis on dead languages and peppering their own speech with words like “quadrivium.” 

But the leading minds in classical education are fixated by the future as much as the past. Pitching a humanistic alternative to both progressive and state-sponsored school reform efforts, established players like the southwestern Great Hearts network and Hillsdale College’s Barney Charter School Initiative are attracting more families and diversifying their offerings. With millions of students leaving traditional public schools since the beginning of the pandemic, classical education providers are attempting to step into the breach with not only a content-rich model, but also a worldview extending deep into the foundations of (another phrase that gets used frequently) Western civilization.

Those efforts have met with early, if somewhat controversial, success in states like Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis of seven Hillsdale-affiliated charters and of a classically oriented college admissions test as an alternative to the SAT. 

The question is whether the opportunity for growth can be seized, or if the movement’s internal differences, religious as well as political, are too cacophonous to allow for anything but niche appeal. Some within the field worry that “classical” might become a byword for “conservative,” particularly as a growing number of activists and families have grown leery of public schools’ teaching of subjects like race, gender and sexuality. Others believe that classical education can’t fully deliver on its potential without religion at its core. 

A public charter, Washington Latin sits at the center of some of these debates. It is a deliberately small program, its roughly 900 students divided into average class sizes of 18 in middle school and 15 in high school. Unlike some of the better-known actors in the classical charter world, it hasn’t laid plans for exponential expansion in the coming years, and its leadership acknowledges that its attraction to families in the nation’s capital rests more with its demographic diversity and strong academics than its classical orientation. 

At the same time, the school is growing. After with district officials, its second campus opened last fall in a provisional space about a mile south of Catholic University. Though a more permanent site has , Smith teaches for the moment in a former warehouse with few windows. The longtime Washington Latin principal now serves as its head of classical education, shuttling between campuses to observe and occasionally lead seminars like this one, which moves from ancient mythology to medieval history and back.

Noting that Raphael lived and worked around 1500, roughly 2,000 years after his Hellenistic subjects passed from the scene, Smith asks the significance of the term “renaissance,” derived from the Latin word for birth. A 10-year-old named Alice thrusts her hand up.

“It means to be born again, but it’s not just talking about people,” she offered. “It’s talking about ideas or beliefs from the past being used again. It’s the rebirth of an era, into the modern day.”

‘We can’t get away from Plato and Aristotle’

The ascendance of classical education in the 2020s is itself a tale of rebirth.

What properly qualifies as “classical” instruction is somewhat contested, but the term generally refers to the educational strategies descended from the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome. In those rigidly ordered societies, the honing of the mind was seen as a pursuit for the sons of prominent families. The masses — women, the poor, vast populations of slaves — received little or nothing in the way of formal schooling.

It was the teachers of antiquity who laid the foundations of Western thought: Socrates, sentenced to death for corrupting the youth of Athens; Plato, whose Republic provided the quintessential vision of justice for both man and the state; and Aristotle, tutor to Alexander the Great. In their explorations of the nature of existence and virtue, all three inspired not only the intellectual awakening of their own age, but also those of the early Christian period, the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment.

“If we live in the West, which we do, we can’t get away from Plato and Aristotle,” said Susan Wise Bauer, who has written widely on theories of classical instruction. 

With the development of mass education in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, however, some felt that cultural inheritance, and the pedagogy necessary to transmit it to future generations, were being abandoned. 

In , “The Lost Tools of Learning,” the British author Dorothy Sayers remarked on the paradox of widespread literacy being accompanied by the rise of propaganda and advertising, the seeming inability of the public to distinguish truth from misinformation, and what she identified as the chief failure of modern schooling: “Although we often succeed in teaching our pupils ‘subjects,’ we fail lamentably…in teaching them how to think.” 

To reverse this confusion, she argued, educators needed to rediscover the educational program pioneered in the ancient world and ubiquitous in European schooling for a thousand years: the trivium, a three-part sequence of grammar, logic and rhetoric. 

The trivium — along with the similarly dusty-sounding “quadrivium” of arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy — makes up what were historically known as , and form much of the substance of the revived classical education movement. To the thousands of families and teachers drawn to it, the antique origins of the liberal arts represent a sturdier basis of learning than the progression of newfangled interventions and orthodoxies that have emerged in recent decades.

“We’re starting to see, parents and educators alike, that we need to return to a better way of doing things,” said Kathleen O’Toole, the assistant provost for K–12 education at Michigan’s Hillsdale College, which has launched or partnered with dozens of schools around the United States. “We need to stop trying to innovate, stop trying to experiment when it comes to K–12; we think the answer lies in some sort of return.”

A lack of ‘core knowledge’

As in the 1940s and ‘50s, part of the dissatisfaction with mainstream public schooling arises from the perception that much of what is taught in classrooms lacks spark and rigor, leading to a disenchantment with learning and a devaluing of the arts and humanities. 

The most obvious manifestation, critics say, can be seen in higher education, where that the number of degrees awarded in languages, literature, history, philosophy, and religion have plummeted in the last two decades. But even among younger students, disturbing signs are emerging. By their own admission, American kids are reading for pleasure since the 1980s, and in an echo of Sayers’s warning, that the vast majority of high schoolers have only a slipshod sense of media literacy. 

Jeremy Wayne Tate is a classical education proponent and entrepreneur who founded the , an alternative to the SAT that has caught on with Christian classical universities and of DeSantis in Florida. Despite mainstream American schooling’s overwhelming focus on the cultivation of skills for college and career, he argued, huge numbers of students graduate in a state of “educational neglect.”

“They spend 12 years and graduate without any serious core knowledge,” Tate said. “They don’t have knowledge of the great books and the classics, but they don’t have any vocational skills either. You almost want to say, ‘Do one of these things!’”

At Washington Latin, the aim is to combine a classical course of study with a grounding in and acceptance of the contemporary — or, as the institutional motto puts it, “a classical education for the modern world.” 

All students of Latin, with an additional option of Greek. But the school also requires credits in modern languages like French, Mandarin, and Arabic. Courses in robotics and computer science accompany robust helpings of world history and literature. The highlights texts from a diverse array of authors past and present — including Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give, of have drawn complaints from parents in other states. 

Particularly for children in younger grades, the classical bent can veer more toward the conceptual. In an elementary math exercise, for example, students are asked to design a poster or comic strip illustrating fractions. At adjoining desks, 10-year-olds Justice and Maddy work on an eight-panel story of a group of friends dividing three cookies.

After only a few months attending their new school, which opened exclusively to fifth- and sixth-graders in September, they have largely adjusted to its structure and routines. Justice compares the experience to that of her last school, a local Montessori whose self-directed ethos emphasized “finding yourself and doing your own thing.”

“We learned a lot too, but we usually started drawing and doing funner” — she quickly corrects herself — “more fun things. So this is more of a straight education instead of just doing what you want, when you want. It’s a bit of a transition not being able to, like, crochet during the lesson.”

‘Explosive’ demand

Judging from local interest, Washington Latin’s approach and offerings are extremely popular. Since the school, like many charters, is oversubscribed, it runs a lottery to determine admissions; show that nearly 1,100 students are currently on the waitlist for seats at its original middle school campus.

That partially reflects the school’s enviable academic results. On district-wide standardized tests last year, 58 percent of Washington Latin middle and high schoolers performed at or above grade level in English, compared with 30 percent of D.C. students overall. Forty-seven percent of its middle schoolers, and 29 percent of high schoolers, scored at or above grade level in math, compared with just 19 percent of Washingtonians in those grades.

But its strength in enrollment mirrors the rest of the classical education space, which has likewise seen what Tate of the Classical Learning Test called an “explosive” surge in demand in recent years. 

Much of it has come in the parochial sector. According to the Association for Classical Christian Schools, an organization that to Protestant classical academies, its membership now stands at over 400 schools enrolling between 60,000 and 70,000 students; those figures over the last half-decade.

Catholic institutions are making their own strides. Since Chesterton Academy opened in Minnesota in 2008, the “joyfully Catholic, classical high school” across the United States, Canada, Italy, and . In the fall of 2021, the Archdiocese of Boston opened the Lumen Verum Academy — its first new Catholic school in a half-century — which features a classical curriculum and operates on a “blended learning” schedule.

But nowhere is the expansion of the classical footprint more noticeable, or more controversial, than in the charter sector. Great Hearts, which already operates over 30 charter schools across Arizona and Texas, will soon open new campuses in Louisiana and Florida and this fall. In with education commentator Rick Hess, CEO Jay Heiler announced plans to leverage Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarships Account program to launch “private schools with church communities” in that state.

The other major entity in classical charters is Hillsdale’s Barney Charter School Initiative, which made national waves in 2022 in Tennessee at the invitation of Republican Gov. Bill Lee. as a popular speaking venue for conservatives; its president, Larry Arnn, led President Trump’s commission to create a “patriotic” U.S. history curriculum as an alternative to the 1619 Project. 

Though the partnership between Tennessee and the Barney Initiative was meant to eventually bring 50 Hillsdale-affiliated charters to the state, the proposal came under fire after Arnn opining that public school teachers are trained “in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.”

Criticisms of the phonebook-sized “1776 Curriculum” added additional strain, with critics citing embedded in its lessons (the Civil Rights Movement was “almost immediately turned into programs that ran counter to the lofty ideals of the Founders,” one passage read). With bipartisan detractors growing louder by the week, the initial charter proposals . 

By the middle of last year, were classical education with the political Right. Notably, however, figures within the private wing of the movement have also expressed some skepticism of how the moral instruction of classical education could be applied in a charter school. David Goodwin, head of the Association of Classical Christian Schools, argued that true classical instruction “cannot exist without a transcendental.”

“My judgment is that Barney largely does that with the Constitution and the American Declaration — what they’re trying to do is use the Bible as maybe a supporting document for Americanism.”

O’Toole, who founded and led a classical charter in Texas before her stint at Hillsdale, said that while there were “fundamental questions about divinity…that we are not going to take up in a direct way” with students,” she preferred the charter environment to that of an independent school and didn’t “see it as a hindrance at all that we don’t talk about religion.” 

Washington Latin’s Smith, a Christian, argued that the study of “timeless truths” doesn’t require sacred underpinnings; Socrates and Plato, to take obvious examples, were not Christian or even monotheistic, and their philosophical explorations have influenced secular as well as religious systems of thought.

“I get as close as I can to talking about schooling in a religious way without being religious, because it’s a public school,” she said. “But it’s holy work that we’re doing, and if you’re in the school, you’ll get a feeling of the transcendent — a feeling of inspiration.”

Fears of partisanship

The divides within the movement are a long way from becoming all-out fissures — in fact, most parents still aren’t aware of their existence. 

But signs of its increasing prominence are stoking worries that, as with seemingly everything in American life, polarization will eventually discover classical education. Tate, a vocal cheerleader for school choice who has called classical schools to what he views as the leftward drift of public schools, said he was “concerned” that partisanship might come to overwhelm their appeal.  

“As a conservative, I don’t want to see this movement politically hijacked. But there are aspects of it that are threatening to the progressive establishment.”

Many in the national press got their first exposure to classical education in January, when DeSantis unveiled to shake up the leadership at the New College of Florida, viewed locally as one of the state’s most progressive universities. The administration’s hope, his chief of staff , was to transform it into a classical institution akin to a “Hillsdale of the South.” 

Wise Bauer, the homeschooling author, grouped DeSantis with other conservative actors aiming to “co-opt” the branding of classical education as a means of appealing to right-wing instincts of what should be taught and excluded from school curricula.

“What I see right now is this big battleground where some people — and I would put Ron DeSantis in this category — use ‘classical education’ without reference to the process, but only in reference to past thinkers who were white and European,” Bauer said.

For her own part, Smith contrasts the outlook of her school with those of more conservative classical Christian and public charter programs, which “tend to treat the modern world as a problem that needs solving.” The building in which she stands, Washington Latin’s newly opened Anna Julia Cooper Campus, takes its name from a pioneering African American educator and classicist who made her home in Washington, not Thebes or Athens. 

“We don’t have the same attitude towards the time period that people have been born into,” she continues. “What we’re trying to do is bring the wisdom, the curriculum, and the pedagogical approach of the Socratic seminar to a public school audience.”

The school’s climate clearly differs from that of progressive icons like Montessori, but also from many of its famous counterparts in the charter sector. For the most part, students come and go as they please without falling into silent transitions through the hallways. During some class periods, they are allowed to sit in chairs or on the floor. Smith describes their freedom of movement as reflecting the liberal embrace of individual autonomy, even in the case of elementary schoolers.

As if to illustrate the point, several classrooms soon empty into a jumbled mass of pre-adolescent energy, breaking for a 20-minute interval between periods. About two dozen kids are soon sitting on the stairs of the building’s main foyer, chatting or playing quick rounds of chess. 

Two friends, Alex and Nikolas, practice bringing out their knights on a linoleum board while entertaining the question of whether even reigning World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen could outplay a computer. Likely not, they conclude; in this realm, human genius has yielded to the heights of mechanical proficiency. 

Soon after, finishing their own game, they scuttle back to their next encounter with the ages.

With the growing spotlight on school board races in recent years, some Florida GOP lawmakers want to see if voters think local school boards should be partisan — meaning school board members could be Democrats, Republicans, or another signifier of political alignments.

For at least two decades, the status quo has been nonpartisan school boards.

But the issue is important enough — there are 67 traditional school districts and some 2.8 million students in Florida’s public schools — that voters could go to the polls to decide if the boards should be partisan or nonpartisan. The decision would be in the form of a constitutional amendment.

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Republican lawmakers are currently pushing a bill, HJR 31, to do just that.

The legislation is sponsored by Rep. Spencer Roach, a Republican from Southwest Florida. The Senate version, SJR 94, is sponsored by Sen. Joe Gruters, who represents Sarasota and part of Manatee County.

The bill is moving in the GOP-controlled Legislature.

Supporters of the proposition say that local school board elections are already considered partisan, even if their political parties are not listed on the ballot.

“I’ve always taken the position that voters should have all the information available on their candidates and that nothing should be held back,” said Rep. Michael Caruso, a Republican who represents part of Palm Beach County.

“So what this bill does is puts it right out front and educates voters as to more information about those running for school board,” Caruso said during a recent House meeting.

But opponents think that school boards and education issues should be nonpartisan.

Cecile Scoon, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida, said at a recent House committee meeting that Floridians are concerned about “making everything partisan.”

“The way people are behaving today, there’s such an allegiance to party. I’ve literally had people tell me ‘so, I don’t really believe that, but I have to say that because of the party. I want to get elected,” she said.

Scoon continued:

“This is one place where I think Americans really agree, Floridians agree: our public schools are our treasures. This is a place where students learn to deal with each other, different students from different backgrounds. And making school board races partisan is going to degrade from that.”

As of current state law, a constitutional amendment on the ballot would require at least 60 percent of voters to approve the measure. (There is current legislation that might raise that threshold to 66 percent.)

A legislative staff analysis on the issue shows that school board members have been elected in nonpartisan races since 2000, though the races were partisan prior to that.

DeSantis has gotten involved

It’s possible that HJR 31 is intentionally trying to make school board races more partisan — specifically, more right-leaning.

Ahead of the 2022 elections, the political climate and focus surrounding local school board elections had been intensifying over the course of the COVID pandemic and continue to this day.

Gov. Ron DeSantis made waves by endorsing local school board races over the summer, which was generally unprecedented given that school board members campaign in nonpartisan races.

And the governor campaigned to get his endorsed candidates elected. That included financial contributions, social media posts about the races, and speeches at campaign rallies, 

Overall, 25 of 30 school board candidates backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022 came out as winners, pushing a conservative and controversial agenda for Florida’s public school system,

And as recently as January, DeSantis said that he wanted school board elections to become for the elected officials.

Current voting data show that there is a higher number of registered Republicans in Florida than registered Democrats.

No Party Affiliation voters

A sticking point with the legislation comes down to the large number of Florida voters who are not registered as Democrats or Republicans. Those voters are either registered to one of about a dozen minor parties or are considered “no party affiliation,” or NPA.

According to the Florida Division of Elections data as of Jan 31, 2023, the breakout of active Florida voters is as followed: Republican (5,299,351), Democrat (4,882,042), No Party Affiliation (4,026,491) and Minor Party (262,815). There are a total of 14,470,699 active voters in Florida.

Florida is a closed primary state.

Because the state has closed primaries, in partisan races such as for governor, Senate or House of Representatives, only those who are registered for their party can vote for who the primary candidate would be.

Currently, because school board races are nonpartisan, any registered voter can cast their vote for the candidate they think is best suited for the job during the primaries.

So if school board elections become partisan, NPA voters would not be able to vote in the primaries, even though many of the school board races are determined then, unless there’s a runoff.

The Division of Elections says on its website regarding primaries:

“If races for nonpartisan (i.e., free from party affiliation) judicial and school board offices, nonpartisan special districts or local referendum questions are on the primary election ballot, then all registered voters, including those without party affiliation are entitled to vote those races on the ballot.”

Rep. Rita Harris, a Democrat who represents part of Orange County, raised that issue to the bill sponsor this week:

“NPAs would be excluded from part of the voting process if these races are partisan, so I don’t understand how that would be enfranchising them when they wouldn’t be able to be participating in the primaries,” she asked.

Roach replied: “What you said is accurate – they (NPA voters) would be precluded from that primary.”

Rep. Kristen Arrington, a Democrat, did not support the bill this week due to the number of voters in her district who are not registered either Democrat or Republican.

“In my county, in Osceola County, NPA’s are the largest voter pool currently and I truly want more participation in those primaries and want those folks come out and I do think that this will disenfranchise them,” Arrington said.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on and .

Gov. said Monday he will be “heavily involved” in the push for an this legislative session as the idea continues to face an uphill battle in the Texas House.

Abbott, in an interview with The Texas Tribune, said he would be traveling the state to make the case directly to voters, particularly in rural areas. Such a program away from public schools as parents use that money to pay for their children’s private school, online schooling or private tutors. Similar proposals have typically from a coalition of Democrats and rural GOP lawmakers.

“Among Republican rural voters, about 80% support this,” Abbott said, “and I think that Republican officeholders will see that more and more, and I think there may be a change in the perception of what their voters expect of them in Austin, Texas.”

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Abbott addressed that topic and a few others in an interview on the heels of his State of the State address Thursday.

Education savings accounts

One of the emergency items that Abbott announced was “education freedom,” including education savings accounts for every parent. Those would allow the state to deposit taxpayer funds that parents could then use to help pay for sending their kids to schools outside the traditional public education system.

State House Speaker , R-Beaumont, has said he is fine with an up-or-down vote on those kinds of proposals, but he has noted that the House has previously rejected them by wide margins. In rural parts of Texas, public school systems are major employers and a source of community pride. Many rural regions have few private schools.

In the interview, Abbott sought to distinguish between rural Republican lawmakers and their voters, saying “rural Republican voters strongly support this.” Last year, 88% of GOP primary voters approved of a nonbinding proposition saying “parents and guardians should have the right to select schools, whether public or private, for their children, and the funding should follow the student.” Large majorities .

To build legislative support, Abbott said he would be “taking this show on the road across the state of Texas to appeal to voters themselves.” He spoke at a “parental empowerment night” last month in Corpus Christi that was hosted by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the Austin-based conservative think tank. And he headlined a similar event Monday night in Temple, appearing in the backyard of the new chair of the , state Rep. of Killeen.

Buckley has been opposed to vouchers in the past, but advocates have expressed optimism that he is now open to the idea.

“I think that there at least is the opportunity to have this have a better chance than ever before, in part because of the makeup of the committee, but also in part because of the makeup of the constituents of the members,” Abbott said.

Florida and DeSantis

Abbott shrugged off the idea that he is locked in a conservative policy rivalry with Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who is likely to run for president in 2024. Abbott is also a possible White House contender, though he is seen as less likely — and formidable — as DeSantis for now.

“The reality is we really just focus on Texas and working for our constituents here in our state,” Abbott said.

While Abbott did not mention Florida or DeSantis by name, he did boast that Texas “has been a national leader” on restricting abortion and expanding gun rights. He alluded to the laws he signed in 2021 that banned most abortions in Texas and allowed the permitless carry of handguns — two conservative policy priorities in which Florida still trails Texas.

Abbott also argued that Texas has led the nation with its 2021 law that bans large social media companies from blocking users’ posts based on their political viewpoints. He said he believes it is the only such law in the country “that’s been upheld by courts so far.”

Abbott said Texas was even ahead of the curve with a 2021 law preventing local bans on natural gas as a fuel source. That issue became a national controversy recently after the Biden administration that it was interested in outlawing gas stoves, a notion it quickly denied.

Abbott’s remarks come as DeSantis is preparing to make his . He is set to visit Houston and Dallas over the first weekend in March to headline annual fundraising dinners for the county parties in each city.

Paxton settlement

Attorney General has stirred unease in the Legislature with a tentative to end a whistleblower lawsuit brought by former deputies. Phelan said last week that he personally opposed using taxpayer dollars on the settlement, which would have to be approved by the Legislature.

Abbott also has a role in the process as the person ultimately responsible for signing the state budget into law or vetoing it. While he did not voice outright opposition to taxpayer dollars being used for the settlement, he did echo Phelan in saying Paxton will have to convince lawmakers to sign off on the deal.

“It may or may not even reach my desk, but as Speaker Phelan made clear, this is an issue that the attorney general is going to have to fully explain to both the House and the Senate,” Abbott said. “I’m also in the boat of having to learn more about this.”

At the same time, Abbott seemed to downplay any particular controversy over the settlement, saying it is “just like every other budget-type issue I encounter.”

“I need full information on the budget issue to determine if I’m gonna sign it or not,” Abbott said.

Paxton appeared at a legislative hearing on the state budget Tuesday where the settlement was a topic. State Rep. , D-Houston, asked Paxton if he would be willing to pay the settlement out of his campaign funds rather than state coffers. Assistant Attorney General Chris Hilton jumped in to say the whistleblowers are suing the attorney general’s office for retaliation, not Paxton personally. He said there’s no precedent for an individual paying out a whistleblower case from their own money.

“If we lose at trial, the damages exposure would obviously be higher than that,” Hilton said.

Health care for transgender kids

As conservative activists continue to lobby for legislation banning certain health care therapies for transgender kids, Abbott said in the interview that it is a proposal he would sign if it reaches his desk.

Abbott and other Republicans’ rhetoric has focused on surgeries for transgender kids, though medical experts say those procedures are very rare. Abbott suggested such surgeries are “something that a person should at least wait until they’re adult to make a decision on.” LGBTQ advocates have warned that such rhetoric is dangerous for kids’ mental health.

Still, “ending child gender modification” is one of Lt. Gov. ’s top . It is also a legislative priority for the Texas GOP. Phelan has been less clear on the issue, suggesting last month it could be considered by a select committee that he later appointed a Democrat to chair.

Abbott already took on health care for transgender kids last year when he ordered the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate transition-related care for children as . Yet that did not satisfy Abbott’s intraparty critics, who continue to push for a legislative solution. A similar measure failed in 2021.

Abbott declined to put the proposal on any of the calls for the special sessions in 2021, saying its chances of passing in the House were “nil.” However, he did express support for a law at some point in the future that defines transition-related care — like puberty blockers and hormone therapy — as child abuse.

​​“We do need it as a law,” Abbott , “and it would be stronger obviously if the Legislature would pass it, and I want to see the Legislature pass it.”

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After his administration prohibited the adoption of a newly developed AP course on African American studies, the Republican governor last week, openly musing about dropping all AP classes throughout the state. Even with many Florida students and families protesting the decision, governors in four other states that they would also review the content of the new course, warning that it could introduce political content into classrooms. 

Daryl Scott, a professor at Baltimore’s Morgan State University and self-described “anti-public intellectual,” sees enough blame to go around. While lacerating the College Board for acquiescing to DeSantis’s criticism and revising its product, he sees the rising GOP star as an opportunist exploiting white anxieties to build his political brand. 

Scott spent much of his career at Howard University before departing to chair Morgan State’s history department last year. He previously served as the president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, which was founded in 1915 by the pioneering Black thinker and academic Carter G. Woodson. Along the way, he has become a kind of historian of Black studies, acquiring an insider’s view of the field’s leading figures and intellectual tendencies: multiculturalists and Afrocentrics, social scientists and humanists.

His commentary on national affairs and Black historiography bleeds over from to a lively social media presence. In neither venue is Scott known for pulling punches, sometimes excoriating writers and educators for yoking their scholarship to political causes. Over the last few years, one of his most frequent targets has been the New York Times’s 1619 Project, which as “an exercise in African American exceptionalism that elides the question of class.” 

In a conversation with ����Ӱ��’s Kevin Mahnken, Scott turned his focus to the political clash in Florida, where he said conservative backlash is endangering the study of Black history. But he added that historians and teachers alike should be leery of wading into cultural wars that they aren’t equipped to win — and potentially alienating families in the bargain.

“We need to take seriously that white mothers do not want their kids to have their psyches toyed with in K–12, and we can’t tell those mothers to just have their kids toughen up,” he said. “If we’re going to counter this onslaught, we need to take that opposition seriously and find ways to take away their criticisms.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

����Ӱ��: Let’s talk about the content of this AP course. The is that the curriculum, and particularly the sections that focus on more recent history, privileges radical voices and leftist critiques of American society. Do you think there’s substance to that complaint?

Daryl Scott: I’m pretty much a gadfly when it comes to that final curriculum. It’s not so much that I take issue with it. I just want to point out to the people who participated in it that it could have been a much different curriculum.

First and foremost, it’s a college course that’s taught in high schools. This is where some folks on the Right get lost, but again: This is a college course, taught in high schools, potentially for college credit. And it becomes the basis for admission into the better colleges in this country. 

I happen to have been part of the redesign of AP U.S. History, which recognized a whole lot of things that the Right now calls problematic. So maybe we should just stop for a second to see what they’re calling problematic. Half of critical race theory has to do with optimism versus pessimism about the present and future of race in America. The pessimism started in the 1950s, with saying that things weren’t going fast enough: “These obstacles are here! We thought we were going to dismantle the structure of white supremacy and usher in equality, and it didn’t happen. Will it ever happen? Maybe not.”

When did pessimism become something you can legislate against? We’re legislating against pessimism now, and legislating for American exceptionalism? And as I’ve said elsewhere about the 1619 Project, when did racial progress become a pet idea of conservatives? I’m old enough to remember — and we should still have to teach — that it was conservatives who believed Black people couldn’t assimilate; now they’re saying they’re optimistic that Black people should assimilate, and you can’t teach otherwise.

The big point is that academic freedom in a college-level course dictates that we can debate all these things. This is why they’re fundamentally wrong, no matter what’s in the College Board’s curriculum. And this is why the College Board itself was fundamentally wrong when it allowed itself, whether through external pressure or otherwise, to be put in what I used to call “self-check.” If they weren’t being expressly censored by the state of Florida, they self-censored. And they did this for the same reason textbook publishers do it all the time: so they could get their products through state departments of education. That has a negative impact on what is being taught. 

We’re saying that we’re going to create a college course for high school students, and we’re going to limit inquiry? Can we get more backwards and un-American than that? My belief system has always been one of racial pessimism, and here’s what I mean: I’ve been of the belief that the best we could do as a society was to hold racism in check. And we could reach a set of fairly equal opportunities, and likely equal outcomes, if we could hold racism in abeyance. That marks me as a pessimist; in Black studies, there are lots of people who call themselves , and there are critics of Afropessimism, like Cornel West, who now has to defend pessimism [against censorship]. I don’t want to speak for him, but West that the problem with racial pessimism was that it didn’t believe in the Christian notion of human progress and redemption. 

Some people say, “Well, you can’t teach about Black Lives Matter,” but at this point, something that happened between 2013 and 2020 is pretty much a historical topic. If you can’t even teach about the facts of that movement, you’re doing something that used to be done in the Soviet Union — erasing history, saying, “That is not a valid topic of inquiry.” Black studies includes debates around reparations, and anyone who knows I don’t think reparations are going anywhere. But in a democracy, reparations can be debated.

One of the problems with the whole course is that it attempts to be a history course. But Black studies, and many studies, tend to be fairly contemporary. The content of most of these courses, if you were to ask me, should be 21st-century topics. We should be trying to figure out the consequences of assault weapons through these courses, the consequences of a society in which quality healthcare is not widespread. In other words, the need for a studies program at the college level is to be robust in debating the issues before society. What we’re being told in Black studies now is that we can’t debate things because it’s indoctrination, and yet, the people claiming this say that we should be teaching American exceptionalism. That’s an indoctrination program.

The concern of everyone in a democracy should be how we debate matters, not what we debate. Some people on the Right have reached the foregone conclusion that we’re not going to have a debate and that teachers will, of necessity, indoctrinate. They’re pretending that we’ve got madrassas out here. But nobody’s sending their kids to madrassas, and anybody who understands the teaching profession knows that they try their best not to indoctrinate. So no matter what critique I have of the content of the College Board course — and I do have a critique — the bigger issue in a democracy is academic freedom and holding teachers responsible for teaching responsibly. If they’re indoctrinating, it should be dealt with in schools, not at the state level.

You mention a few times that the AP African American Studies course is effectively a college seminar. But it’s still being taught to high schoolers, and academic freedom is strictly limited, if not nonexistent, in K–12 settings. If 16- and 17-year-olds are being taught a curriculum that Florida voters don’t agree with, doesn’t the governor have the authority to intervene?

I hear what you’re saying. But let’s put brackets around the College Board, because we know that the origins of Florida’s law [the Stop WOKE Act, passed in 2022] don’t lie with the College Board. The origins lie in the broader assault that comes in the wake of, and as a consequence of, the New York Times’s 1619 Project. 

Some genius of political persuasion put three words together that are very volatile: critical race theory. It never gets taught like that in K–12 settings, but I’m a good enough intellectual historian to know that nothing stays within its box. So elements of it have been taught in K–12, and the power of this critique is right in the name. By labeling everything “critical race theory,” it brings out three things conservatives don’t like to hear: They don’t like “critical,” they don’t like “race,” and they don’t like “theory.” Critical race theory has become the perfect foil to go after everything you don’t like in a history culture war. So it’s brilliant on their part.

The problem is that they’re effectively telling parents — Black parents, white parents, any parents — that their children cannot be taught Black history if it’s not a good-time story. To survive under this repressive regime, Black history has to shoot for [a tone] somewhere between the old-school, “We all happy negroes here,” and this other idea, “Ain’t we done great lately?” That’s the content they’re allowing to be taught, and anything else is said to be something that makes whites feel guilty.��

Now, I do hear what you’re saying, and I keep telling people to stop acting like we’re talking exclusively about college courses. We should pause and ask the question, “Are white kids being made to feel bad about America? Are white kids being made to feel bad about being white? Are they being made to feel individually guilty for slavery or any other form of racial oppression?” To the extent that is the case, white parents have a point, and they have cause for concern — in the same way that Black parents, historically, had cause for concern that their children were being taught that slaves were happy and didn’t really want their civil rights, or were being told that they were racially inferior. 

Everybody in a multicultural, multiracial democracy has a vested interest in their kids not being taught to have negative feelings about themselves. That should never be the goal of K–12 education. I’m not going to be flippant, like some of my colleagues can be, and say that white kids should just toughen up. No, we’re talking about kids! Everybody’s got ’em, and I don’t want to accept that an eight-year-old boy, or even a 15-year-old girl, should have to “toughen up.” The teacher is supposed to take care that generalizations are not visited upon individuals in a way that makes them responsible for what someone else has done. Children cannot bear the weight of all of society’s ills. We believe that self-image should not be damaged through the educational process. So to the extent that white parents have this concern, we all need to address it.

But that does not make it legitimate to go wholesale into violating what should be free inquiry. You should not reduce the curriculum to something resembling a right-wing madrassa. That is the problem with DeSantis: Rather than just saying that educators have the burden of delivering curriculum that leaves intact the self-image of all students — and most teachers do this — he is creating a fairytale effect for white folks at the expense of all students learning. And race is only one side of the [Stop WOKE] law. The real focus of that law is LGBTQ rights, because there’s a live debate about when these discussions enter education. We need to have that debate in a sane and civil way as well, but not by outlawing things at the state level and exploiting the politics to get elected.

It’s notable that this clash between Florida and the College Board just seems to keep growing. Gov. DeSantis that he’s open to the state just dropping the whole range of AP courses. 

It’s been suggested that the College Board should have told Florida, “Take ’em all or take none!” I’m not a political prognosticator, but it’s also been said that DeSantis stakes out hard positions that he later reverses when no one is looking. For example, he went after Disney, but then later of all the measures he was supporting. So this seems like a feint of some sort, because there would be hell to pay in Florida [if AP courses weren’t offered]. There are so many kids in Florida who need the AP courses to get to the best schools in the country. 

You don’t just get college credit from the AP exams. Some schools use AP scores as a proxy to determine who’s qualified to attend. And politically, it’s not like Florida is Mississippi. People would be up in arms, whether it’s the well-heeled people or the striving people, about the prospect of their kids not having access to AP classes. 

So the College Board might get the better of DeSantis on this, but to me, the College Board should have stood on principle rather than self-censoring. Or they should have had the guts to take a look at this stuff earlier on. In other words, they brought people together, and they were trying to legitimize a class that was going in a direction they were willing to go. If they felt it was going too far, they should have had the guts to stop it before that point. Sometimes, you can feel the College Board giving you the sense of how far they’re willing to go. Having sat on a board, I know that the board is sometimes going to protect the institution. If they were disposed to doing that, the College Board should have been protecting the institution before they ultimately did. 

But once they went down this road, I really believe their decision to cave in to censorship was wrong, because it was a massive cave-in. I’ve kept telling people, “Don’t believe any of the spin they’re putting out.” You could see their spin about this, and the next thing you know, Florida between them and the College Board. There was no smoking gun, but they had a clear sense all along. When the law passed, they didn’t need anybody to tell them. Between the first version of the curriculum and the second, there was that Stop WOKE law, and they must have known which way the wind was blowing.

Is it necessary that there be a widely available course for high schoolers on African American studies? And, if so, should the College Board be the ones to develop it?

Everybody is free to do what they want. I believe in an open market of education.

By the same token, another track for all of this could have been pursued by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. It could have been pursued as well by the National Council of Black Studies. But especially when we’re talking about red states and the CRT debate, one of the issues has been finding consensus about the content for any of these courses. Whoever first took the initiative would have to fight for some kind of market share; schools would probably only adopt your particular version if, and only if, they felt it would be widely adopted. So it was likely that the College Board would be the most successful at this.

But if you know how the College Board functions, you’d know that their process was going to preserve the hierarchy of the academy. They were going to the most elite echelons of the academy and select participants from a cross-section of the discipline. It’s a multicultural strain of African American studies that I tie to the rise of [Harvard professor] Henry Louis Gates; , as a department, as opposed to various programs that had a menagerie of people from different disciplines. 

Something else has happened since then, which I call “Black Studies 4.0,” and which goes beyond what Gates and his generation of scholars signed onto. It’s a development out of the same camp, but it’s a more forthrightly race-conscious group. So it’s not surprising to me that elements of the AP course are different from what most of Gates’s generation would have created. Even though the College Board selected people like [Harvard historian] and Gates himself to be figureheads of sorts, the content looks more like that of a younger generation. They’re in the same multicultural tradition, but this new generation is more race-conscious, more committed to tangible goals like reparations and LGBTQ rights and things like that. 

This was always going to be an issue. For instance, in the College Board’s original curriculum guide, which was leaked, Afrocentric thinkers were just a marginal part of that. You’re not old enough to remember the ’90s, right?

Not really.

Well, this is where it gets interesting. People say that there’s been one continuous war against Black studies. But they’re kind of glossing over the 1990s and pretending that the political configuration is the same as it was then. 

Here was the situation in the ’90s: Afrocentric scholars were placing an emphasis on changing the K–12 curriculum in many places across the country. They had great influence in the Black community and had some success in changing the curriculum to fit their goals. They got close to having great success in New York in changing the statewide curriculum and, in doing so, between political liberals about and about Afrocentrism. It was a fight about education, but it didn’t involve true conservatives; we’re talking about a fight between Afrocentrics — who often said that only Black people could study Black people — and mainstream academics, most often education policy people like Diane Ravitch. The way it played out, on the academic level, was as a debate over the claims of progressive and Afrocentric scholars that the Western tradition came “out of Africa.” I’m probably misrepresenting that clash somewhat because it was never my central concern in life. [Laughs.]

Can you provide a little flavor of how this debate came to be?

When Black studies came to higher education in the late ’60s and early ’70s, it was led by Black Power-ites, who tended to be social scientists and very political. They wanted policy changes, but they never succeeded in winning the mainstream of the academy. In fact, their affiliation with Black Power turned out to mean that Black studies only functioned well at the second and third tiers of the academy. In the elite schools, Black studies was pretty much a set of programs where people really stayed in their original disciplines. No one even conceptualized any notion of Black studies as having any kind of uniform mission. The Black Power-ites at the second- and third-tier institutions did. 

They got slaughtered at the elite colleges, and most of the leading Black scholars wanted nothing to do with a departmental status for Black studies. The big-time Black scholars at elite schools were big-time within their own disciplines, not Black studies. I say all of this because Skip Gates finally moved from that programmatic style of Black studies at Yale to the creation of a proper Black studies department at Harvard, and how he got there was important: He got there by critiquing Afrocentrics. And he made the mainstream academy safe for a new brand of Black studies.

The point I’m making is that this fight in Florida isn’t just a new front in the same war. If you want to say this is the same war, you’re fooling yourself about who was fighting it all this time. 

The conservatives weren’t in that fight! You can point to people like Allan Bloom and , or to [Arthur] Schlesinger’s book, . But remember that Schlesinger was an old-line liberal. Where we are now is a completely different place. Nobody back then was passing laws to invalidate the teaching of certain kinds of Black history. It’s a full-on assault on academic freedom, and it’s quite a different thing from last time.

It sounds as though you’re saying that the debate over how to teach African American history essentially has essentially broken through, from the academy to society at large, with predictable political effects. On the one hand, that’s potentially destructive, but on the other, it’s a marker of the success of the discipline, right?

It’s the success of a certain strand of Black studies, exactly. But there’s a related point: Before anybody ever talks about Black studies, and before it pops up as a field in the 1960s, there had been a Black history movement . Over the years between 1915 and the 1970s and ’80s, what had effectively happened is that the study of Black history made it into the school systems. People like me never felt that it was enough, and I know the criticisms that said, “We only talk about the same five people every February,” but that was an exaggeration. It wasn’t a true assessment of the progress that was made in bringing the study of Black history into the curriculum.

started during the 1960s. They included Black history. You saw textbooks changing to include Black subject matter and Black imagery. Hell, I’ve even seen books out of Bob Jones University Press that had multicultural images in them. In the ’60s, we were fighting a war for rights; but with that war came a notion that, now that Black people were in schools, they were going to be taught something about themselves. That’s how the rights war led to the culture war.

In the United States Army, I had officers who could stand up during Black History Month and lead pretty good Black history conversations. They knew the cast of characters. There was some kind of presence of it anywhere you went in society, even if you were talking about fairly conservative schools. In fact, I could take you to former segregation academies where they’re teaching Black history. The ones that survived did so because they were pretty upscale, and they ended up being integrated and hiring Black folks who would teach Black topics in courses. So let’s not pretend there was no progress being made, and let’s not pretend that conservatives were trying to purge it. Because they weren’t.

Given the existence of these laws about instruction on race and sexuality, what is the responsibility of organizations like the College Board when it comes to creating these curricula? I realize that they disappointed a lot of people by revising this course, but the legal reality in a large number of states meant that they were always likely to cave, right?

The College Board was always going to cave here, because they cannot afford to lose states like Florida and Texas. Even if they wanted to give up the “heartland,” they can’t lose those states. 

Gates was attempting to create a multicultural democracy, and so he was more attuned to people’s feelings. This younger generation of scholars believe that you’ve got to power your way through. There is this sense that the ultimate victory is theirs, and sometimes, they don’t deal with the political realities of what won’t fly in the heartland, or off of college campuses generally. Quietly, there are people in the Black community who don’t want to hear that, and they’re not too interested in that kind of compromise. 

I would have been much more open to debate within the confines of the College Board. But I become a hardcore advocate of academic freedom, particularly with a college course, once it’s been developed. And particularly when it’s supposed to represent the best knowledge we have, however we got to this position.  

But I take the meaning of your question to be: If the College Board was going to cave, should they have been the vehicle for this project in the first place? I would flip it and ask, would anyone have adopted a Black history course from the Association of African American Life and History? Would it have been the gold standard at elite institutions?.

It’s like I said: Everybody is free to do what they want. Me trying to say what the College Board should or shouldn’t do would be akin to saying that McGraw-Hill shouldn’t have a Black history textbook. That violates the liberal principle, which I share with someone like Henry Louis Gates, that inquiry and the presentation of knowledge should be universal. In a democracy, you don’t have a monopoly on studying yourself and your own group; everybody gets a chance to put forward their version. So I support the College Board and its right to create this course. But as big a giant as it is, the fact that it caved is a bad thing for all of us. 

Even with the disappointment you feel over the College Board’s reversal, I’m wondering how you feel about the development of a widely available course on African American studies. You may have designed it differently, but how do you feel about the end result?

Well, that is the shame of it all. There is no legitimacy to any course in African American studies that cannot grapple with the historic reality of the Black Lives Matter movement. Think about what it would be like if you said, “9/11 didn’t happen! Don’t talk about 9/11!” We can feel however we want about Black Lives Matter, but we can’t pretend that that movement — which has lasted for almost a decade — didn’t happen. Would you like for someone to say, “The ’60s didn’t happen”? 

It’s beyond ahistorical. It’s erasing history and saying it didn’t happen. DeSantis wants us to say, so to speak, that Black Lives Matter did not happen. But Black Lives Matter has shaped much of the second and third decades of the 21st century. How do you pretend it didn’t happen, for good, bad, or ugly? Is the next thing to say that the LGBTQ rights movement didn’t happen? You can’t talk about it, so we can’t even study the historical phenomenon now? 

The College Board will tell you, “You can do it, it’s an optional module.” But we know that optional modules aren’t tested and are rarely taught. Could you imagine a course on Western civilization where you can’t teach the French Revolution? [Laughs.]

What do you think of complaints that DeSantis’s win here was only partial — that the course still contains elements of left-wing orthodoxy that need to be expunged?

Here’s what I keep telling my friends when it comes to any of these related issues: We cannot write off the carnage that is already taking place, among both teachers and students, in places that aren’t just red states. There are where teachers are being told they can’t teach Black history in predominantly Black schools, because they’re supposedly teaching it wrong. There was where CRT was used as a pretext to get rid of a principal.

So there is real carnage out here. The big losers are teachers and students. Now, the Left likes to say — and this is a lot of my colleagues — “Hey, we’re selling more books than ever!” Yeah, and that represents a fraction of the children who aren’t learning anything about topics that they were learning the day before yesterday. The impact of the anti-CRT, anti-critical analysis movement is profound. The National Review can pretend that every school district in any liberal state is teaching critical race theory, but you can get fired anywhere in Oklahoma because someone spies on your classes. So it becomes a way of going after people and purging Black history from schools in ways we’ve never really seen before. 

This hearkens back, as some have said, to the Jim Crow era, when Woodson’s disciples used to teach with his book under their desk at the risk of being fired. We won that war. It was a rights war that had cultural consequences. We win rights wars, conservatives win culture wars. But we’ve been fighting this thing as a culture war, and we’ve been so dumb and blind to not care about white kids as students. That’s the biggest mistake we’ve made.

When [Gov. Glenn] Youngkin won in Virginia, this issue of what kids were being taught was a big part of it. The notion that white kids were being made to feel bad was what flipped some people from Democrat to Republican. We need to take seriously that white mothers do not want their kids to have their psyches toyed with in K–12, and we can’t tell those mothers to just have their kids toughen up. If we’re going to counter this onslaught, we need to take that opposition seriously and find ways to take away their criticisms. It’s unethical for teachers to go after kids, and teachers typically don’t do it.

I saw a documentary last fall about how the Civil War is taught around the country. A teacher in a Boston school had a conservative kid in class. Even though he’s a conservative, I can identify a little with him: They went after him, and he held his ground. But the job of the teacher was to make sure that he had a chance to express his decidedly conservative point of view. The job of the teacher is to prevent the conversation from devolving into ad hominem attacks.��

And when we go to even younger levels, teachers have an even greater burden. You don’t let kids gang up on anybody in those settings. That’s teaching, and that’s how we should discuss it — but to outlaw things is political demagoguery. And that’s where we find ourselves now, because we served up this culture war.

If you had a high school-aged child, would you let him or her take this AP class?

I would talk to my kid and let them make the decision. 

My whole idea of parenting is to empower my kid to know how to make decisions, and then live with the consequences of what they decided. My kids are both grown now, but I don’t walk into a room and say, “Intellectually, you can’t do this for such-and-such a reason.” People have to be free, and this is part of it when we’re talking about high school-aged kids.

On the other hand, if I really thought my kids were being taught to hate themselves, or that they were guilty of something — oh hell, I’m getting into the school. Like I’ve said, we need to pay more attention to these parents. I think they’re being sold a bill of goods, but we shouldn’t just dismiss this with a sweep of the hand. “Toughen up?” You’re talking about kids who might be six or eight or 12 years old.

In the last two years, have passed laws or policies limiting if or how race and gender are discussed in the schools. The details of these restrictions vary, but most are . Kentucky law, for example, states that tying racial disparities to slavery is “destructive to the unification of our nation.” Tennessee prohibits public schools from promoting notions of unconscious bias. 

When RAND U.S. teachers about these policies last spring, one in four reported that such limitations have influenced their curriculum choices and instructional practices. Replying to a follow-up question asking for more detail, many described veering away from any discussion of race and gender, regardless of whether a topic was specifically banned by law. 

“The past two years have made me nervous about teaching Frederick Douglass because I don’t think the people in my community know the difference between teaching [Black] history and teaching critical race theory,” one teacher told us. Another teacher wrote this: “While it was never explicitly stated by my district not to discuss gender or race-related topics in the classroom, I know that my district would not have my back should I choose to add instruction on these important issues.” 

For students of color, the psychological phenomenon to be concerned about is called identity threat. This is defined as feelings of fear and danger that can arise from the of one’s group through stereotypes, marginalization or discrimination.

Stanford social psychologist Claude Steele has studied identity threat for decades. In he undertook with colleagues, college students watched videos advertising a STEM leadership conference: one version had three times as many men as women, while the other showed gender parity. Sensors attached to the viewers’ wrists captured significantly faster heart rates, blood pressure and sweating among female students who viewed the video with fewer women, while men’s physiological reactions were the same in both cases. The women also reported less desire to attend the leadership conference than the men. led by Columbia psychology professor Valerie Purdie-Vaughns found similar heightened anxiety among African American professionals after viewing recruiting materials from various corporate workplace settings showing predominantly white people.

When a school eliminates courses, lessons or books featuring women and people of color, it sends a similar message of identity threat. Ruby Bridges’ “,” Angie Thomas’ “” and Ashley Hope Peréz’s “,” all stories about students of color, were banned in public schools across the U.S. this year. Girls and children of color could take this as a cue that they aren’t valued or don’t belong in school — and that can create stress that harms their ability to learn. 

The most direct way to mitigate identity threat, of course, is to integrate learning material that sends messages to students of color that they matter. of at-risk ninth-graders in San Francisco, for example, showed that taking an ethnic studies course increased attendance by 21 percentage points, grade-point average by 1.4 points and credits earned by 23. That, however, is exactly the type of course that could generate the negative attention many schools and teachers wish to avoid in this turbulent moment.

Although race and gender bans are leaving many teachers uncertain about what is safe to teach, their hands are not completely tied. There are other ways to support students of color and offset identity threat.

have demonstrated that specific classroom interventions — invoking high standards, prompting students to reflect on their own core values and helping them develop optimism in the face of adversity — can give children experiencing identity threat the encouragement they need to succeed at school and beyond. The effects of these interventions include a greater sense of belonging, improved and .

Self-affirming activities, like asking students to choose their most important values from a list and explain why they are essential, can by 12 percentage points among students who complete this exercise three to four times in one year. In one , African American college freshmen were given narratives that portrayed social adversity as common but transient and short-lived, and they were then asked to write an essay—and then make a video—that considered their own experiences alongside those narratives. The experiment raised participants’ grade point averages, relative to a control group, and cut the achievement gap in half.  

By conveying to girls and students of color that they are individually capable of overcoming adversity — and that who they are matters — educators might soften the blow of public laws and policies that send the opposite message.

Hundreds of Floridians, civil rights activists and religious leaders from across the state marched Wednesday from Tallahassee’s Bethel Missionary Baptist Church to the Florida Capitol building complex in protest of efforts to “whitewash” Black history by rejecting an Advanced Placement course in high school on African American studies.

The large crowd also included students and older folks and many Black activists and advocates — including civil rights leader Al Sharpton — who rallied against the DeSantis administration over what students can learn in school regarding Black history and other topics.

At the historic church, Ben Frazier, with the advocacy group Northside Coalition of Jacksonville, said that the DeSantis administration is attacking the rights to tell the truth about slavery, racism and white supremacy.

“Folks, the policies and the practices of this racist DeSantis regime, are in fact a vile and poisonous form of indoctrination. Simple and sweet: it’s political propaganda. I call it ‘hogwash,’” Frazier told the crowd gathered inside the church. The pews were nearly filled.

“By his efforts to whitewash American history, this governor is trying to turn back the sands of time,” Frazier added. He led the crowd in a chant: “Allow teachers to teach the truth.”

The crowd later left the church to start the march to the Florida Capitol building. There were signs and chants along the road, which led up to the Florida Senate side of the complex outside.

Metaphorically addressing Gov. DeSantis, Bishop Rudolph W. McKissack Jr., a senior pastor of the Bethel Church in Jacksonville, said that:

“We are not saying you don’t want Black history, but what we’re saying is we won’t let you have it your way. We will not let you tell our story from your perspective.

“We will not let you redact our history so that your children are comfortable. The reality is your children, and other generations can be comfortable now, because our ancestors were uncomfortable,” McKissack continued.

The rally gathered largely in response to an ongoing battle between the DeSantis administration and the century-old nonprofit College Board, which created a new AP African American studies course for high schoolers who can earn college credit.

The Florida Department of Education rejected the then-pilot course, according to a letter sent to the College Board in mid-January, causing a nationwide outcry and concerns that the move diminishes the importance of Black history and Black culture.

But the scope of the march and rally Wednesday spanned far beyond the AP African American studies course. The comments from faith leaders and Florida lawmakers touched on policies impacting the LGBTQ+ community, women, and immigrants.

The Rev. Al Sharpton spoke to the potential of Gov. Ron DeSantis running for president. Sharpton called DeSantis “baby Trump.”

“Black, Latino, women, LGBTQ — we beat Big Trump. We’ll beat Baby Trump,” he said.

“After Disney one day, after Blacks the next day — he’s like a baby,” Sharpton said. “Give him a pacifier and let some grown folks run the state of Florida.”

After his dig at DeSantis, Sharpton brought it back to teaching Black history to young Floridians.

“You ought to tell the whole story… Our children need to know the whole story. Not to know how bad you were, but how strong they are. We come from a people who fought from the back of a bus to the front of the White House. Tell the whole story,” Sharpton said.

He warned: “If we can’t protect education in Florida, it will jump to Alabama, it will jump to Texas — this is a national crime.”

Sen. Shevrin Jones, a Democrat who represents part of Miami-Dade County, said Wednesday, also spoke to teaching history centered around minority communities.

“Black history is American history. Queer history is American History. Black immigrant history is American history,” Jones said.

He added: “What we are dealing with here in this moment — the structure of a system that continues to perpetuate racism across this country, not just in the state of Florida,” Jones said at the Capitol. “The fight is never just about AP history. The fight is against this strong uprising of racism from people who are seeing the shifting of America.”

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As Gov. Ron DeSantis continues to chastise the century-old College Board and its related programs — from honors-level Advanced Placement courses to college entrance exams — eliminating those activities could create a dramatically different school experience for Florida high schoolers.

In just 2022, nearly 200,000 students in Florida took the college entrance exam called the SAT, and tens of thousands of high school students have participated in Advanced Placement courses that could lead to earning college credits ahead of schedule.

If those programs are eliminated in Florida public high schools, it’s not clear how families would react if DeSantis makes changes. The debacle arose last month over an AP African American studies course that has become a national controversy.

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DeSantis reiterated his skepticism of the College Board at a press conference Tuesday while responding to  media questions. He said that high school students should still be able to earn college credits, but the Florida Legislature may look into other vendors.

“Are there other people that provide services? Turns out there are. IB courses, they’re actually more rigorous than AP, and the colleges accept it. You have the Cambridge, which is also more rigorous,” DeSantis claimed at the press conference in Jacksonville. He did not provide any data or metric for comparisons.

DeSantis is referring to International Baccalaureate (also known as the IB program) and the Cambridge  Assessment. He did not provide information about those other two programs.

In addition, Florida also offers what’s called dual-enrollment courses, which allow high school students to take a college-level course at their own schools or at a community college.

It’s not clear how well any of these programs would serve as a replacement for AP courses.

DeSantis continued: “So, Florida students are going to have that ability (to earn college credit). That is not going to be diminished. In fact, we’re going to continue to expand it. But it’s not clear to me that this particular operator is the one that’s going to need to be used in the future.

“So college credit: yes. Having that available to everyone: absolutely. Does it have to be done by the College Board? Or, can we utilize some of these other providers — who I think have a really, really strong track record. So I don’t think anyone should be concerned about, somehow, our high schoolers not having opportunities for that. They absolutely will. I just think it’s a matter of what’s the best way to do it,” DeSantis said.

Currently, not every student takes AP classes in public high schools. And not every school provides an IB or Cambridge program.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten issued a statement Tuesday after DeSantis threatened Florida students and families with the elimination of all Advanced Placement classes:

“AP classes have become an avenue for American students to get a head start to college. They provide enrichment and rigor and engage the curiosity and ambition of the young scholars who choose to enroll. Threatening to ban all AP courses because the governor is in a political spat with the College Board is the behavior of a bully, not a statesman. Gov. DeSantis has chosen to put his political ambitions over the aspirations of Florida’s students—ironically, in the same state that, to date, has incentivized educators to teach AP.

“The alternatives floated by DeSantis—the International Baccalaureate and Cambridge Assessment— don’t provide the same breadth of course offerings and are not widely accepted by other colleges and universities. As a former AP government teacher, I would hope he would stop these threats and uphold his duty to help children, not ransom their hopes and dreams for a better life.”

The rift between the DeSantis administration and the College Board started over a new AP African American studies course. The Florida Department of Education rejected the course, according to a letter sent to the College Board in mid-January, causing a nationwide outcry and concerns that the move diminishes the importance of Black history and Black culture.

“As presented, the content of this course is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value,” the Jan. 12 letter said.

The College Board has since pushed back against the department’s comments on the African American studies course, calling it “slander” in a

Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Shevrin Jones Wednesday morning and a press conference about the governor’s comments regarding AP African American studies. Jones represents part of Miami-Dade County.

He was joined by civil rights activist Al Sharpton, a handful of religious leaders, students and parents to discuss the DeSantis’s administration rejection of the AP course.

Here is some data for readers, which was not included during DeSantis’s press conference.

As to Advanced Placement courses:

According to a College Board report from April 2022 on data from the year prior, there were 2,548,228 students who took at least one AP exam in 2021 across the United States. Because many students take multiple AP courses at a time, the College Board reports that there were 4.5 million AP exams taken in 2021 in a variety of course options.

In terms of the SAT college entrance exam:

In 2022, there were 190,427 Florida students who took the SAT, according to data from the College Board.

The data refers to what the College Board calls “readiness benchmarks” which means a “section score associated with a 75% chance of earning at least a C in first-semester, credit-bearing, college-level courses” in either math or English and writing courses.

In Florida, only 31 percent of students who took the SAT in 2022 met the benchmark score for the math portion of the exam and 59 percent met the benchmark for the Reading and Writing portion.

But compare that to the 1.7 million students who took the SAT nationally in 2022. Of the 1.7 million, 45 percent of students met the math benchmark score, and 65 percent met the benchmark score for the Reading and Writing portion.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on and .

Gov. Ron DeSantis has touted a plan to earmark $1 billion towards raising public school teacher pay, calling it a “big win” for Florida’s teachers. But a statewide teacher union was skeptical about the amount of the pay hike — $200-million across school districts — which may not help the lives of struggling teachers.

The other $800 million would focus on funds for previous pay raises, primarily for teacher starting pay.

Even so, Florida continues to have one of the lowest average teacher salaries in the nation.

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DeSantis quickly discussed the teacher proposal during a Wednesday press conference in the Capitol in Tallahassee, where the governor was discussing a proposal for a state budget in 2023-24.

The governor’s budget is a starting point on the proposals. Lawmakers are the ones who will craft the 2023-24 state budget during the spring legislative session. The governor approves the budget and can veto items in that budget.

The governor’s proposed budget adds an additional $200 million to last year’s efforts. According to the governor’s proposed budget: “one hundred percent of the $200,000,00 in additional funding…for the teacher salary increase allocation shall be used by school districts to increase the salary eligible classroom teachers and other instructional personnel.”

Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association said in a written statement following the press conference, is skeptical about how effective those funds will be.

“While the governor touts $1 billion for teacher pay and blames teachers for their own low salaries, the actual increase in his budget is $200 million, which would work out to be less than $20 per week for each teacher in our public schools,” Spar said in the written statement. “That’s not going to do much to move the needle, given that Florida ranks 48th in the nation for average teacher pay. Pay in the third-largest state can and should rank in the top 10 nationally.”

Spar added that the increase is going to do little to address the financial needs of Florida’s teachers, including rent, homeowners insurance and healthcare costs.

At the Wednesday press conference, DeSantis was asked by reporters whether his efforts to abolish diversity, equity and inclusion offices would be reflected in his proposed budget. DeSantis said that it would be dealt with within legislation.

“There’ll be a statute that the legislature will pass, that will basically abolish, you know, those offices,” he responded.

“We don’t dictate whatever university spend on certain things like, I don’t agree with with with everything, but we don’t micromanage every little thing. But there are certain things where you can say ‘Okay, here’s a red line. you’re not allowed to go there’ and that’s something they’ll have to respect,” DeSantis added.

He also had few details on how his proposed budget would incorporate a massive expansion on who can apply for a so-called “voucher” for students to attend private schools on public dollars. A bill filed for the 2023 legislative session would open the door for any student, regardless of income, could apply, but there are little details on how that would work out in the state budget.

DeSantis didn’t provide much clarity to reporters either: “We didn’t necessarily factor the entire thing, I think we factored in some increases … but I’m supportive of school choice.”

“The money should follow the student. I think that that is a good approach,” he added.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on and .

All six of his endorsed candidates, who advanced from an August primary to runoffs in the general election, won their races, according to unofficial results. That means that of the 30 candidates the governor supported this year, 25 won.

Three of the candidates are incumbents who won re-election— Stephanie Busin in Hendry County, Jacqueline Rosario in Indian River County and Jamie Haynes in Volusia County. Three more captured open seats — Sam Fisher in Lee County, Cindy Spray in Manatee County and Al Hernandez in Pasco County.

Hernandez was from the ballot when a circuit court judge ruled that he didn’t live in the region he sought to represent when he qualified. But his appeal to a district court was successful, with a three-judge panel ruling that he had . 

DeSantis has held considerable sway over school board politics this year, not just endorsing candidates but also members. Those concerned about the direction conservative board members are taking schools oppose his involvement, while others who want greater say in their children’s education support the shift.

“That is our mission and the reason we endorse,” said Tina Descovich, a co-founder of Moms for Liberty, a conservative advocacy group. Ballots, she said, should identify the party affiliation of board candidates. “It gives voters more information to work with. A more informed voter makes better decisions.”

But critics say the movement benefits parties more than students. 

“The only letters that a school board member should have after their name is EE — for education and equity,” said Joaquin Guerra, political director for the Campaign for Our Shared Future Action Fund, which organized to counteract efforts by groups such as Moms for Liberty. “We have enough politics in our lives.”

Alicia Farrant, who won election to the Orange County school board, was among the candidates Moms for Liberty endorsed. Her victory over Michael Daniels, a college administrator whose wife teaches in the Orange County schools, “means that we need to do a better job of engaging families in Florida and educating them about the importance of school board elections,” Guerra said.

Some experts say it’s a matter of time before the offices become officially partisan, not just in Florida, but other states as well. Moms for Liberty endorsed 270 candidates nationally, including 45 in California and 50 in South Carolina. Another group that works to elect conservative school board members, 1776 Project PAC, also endorsed candidates in multiple states. But ultimately, the results .

For years now, elections for judges, school board members and city council members have been nonpartisan “in name only,” said Susan MacManus, a politician science professor at the University of South Florida. “The partisan affiliation of the candidates has been laid bare for all to see.”

Long considered a swing state, Florida voters fell this year, including in Miami-Dade County, which has long been a Democratic enclave. Just this summer at an education conference in Orlando, former Miami-Dade schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho joked about the state of Florida politics: “The further south you go in Florida, the more north you find yourself.”

But this year, in a political climate defined by social and economic anxiety, DeSantis skated past Crist in Miami-Dade to become the first GOP gubernatorial candidate to secure the county since 2002. In doing so, he positioned himself for a possible 2024 presidential run and a looming showdown for control of the GOP with former President Donald Trump.

“We not only won election,” DeSantis said during his victory speech Tuesday night. “We have rewritten the political map.” 

DeSantis — who rose to national prominence for mask mandates, from participating in girls’ athletics and cracking down on — secured nearly 60% of votes. During his victory speech, he boasted about his response to the pandemic, which , and grievances about schools.

“We chose facts over fear, we chose education over indoctrination, we chose law and order over rioting and disorder,” said DeSantis, who first squeaked into office in 2018. “We fight the woke in the legislature, we fight the woke in the schools, we fight the woke in the corporations. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die.”

The extent to which DeSantis leaned into education as a political motivator was seen in his decision to endorse 30 candidates in local school board races this year. All six of the DeSantis-backed school board contenders won their runoffs Tuesday, meaning 24 of the 30 candidates the governor supported were victorious, .

The Florida governor’s growing stature hasn’t been lost on Trump, who could announce his third presidential bid as early as next week. During just three days before the midterms, Trump highlighted favorable poll numbers that showed him at the head of the pack in a race for the GOP nomination in 2024. 

“There it is, Trump at 71,” the former president said before laying into the governor with a jab. “Ron De-Sanctimonious at 10%.”

Trump’s name was never invoked by DeSantis on Tuesday who hinted at his larger political ambitions.��

“I believe the survival of the American experiment requires a revival of true American principles,” he said. “Florida has proved that it can be done. We offer a ray of hope that better days still lie ahead.”

From historic test score declines to fractured learning recovery efforts, a teen mental health emergency, a high school absenteeism crisis and imploding college enrollment, the foundation of our education system has been rocked. Amid these trends, polls show parents more motivated by education to vote — and willing to cross party lines over school issues. 

Over the last several months, we’ve looked ahead to the Nov. 8 midterms and previewed the pivotal races that could reshape schools systems and priorities: New governors that could change course on local policies, new state superintendents that will oversee city and district initiatives, new ballot propositions that will prioritize education funds and potential Congressional shakeups that would affect broader learning recovery and accountability efforts. 

With education driving the political debate in a way it hasn’t for a generation, here are 16 key races we’ll be watching Tuesday night through the lens of how it will affect students: 

Florida Governor — As Kevin Mahnken notes in his race preview: “From Gov. Ron DeSantis’s early battles against mandatory COVID safety measures in schools to this year’s dramatic intervention in local school board races, the pugnacious conservative has embraced fights about what, and where, students learn. If he is known for nothing else in the VFW halls of Iowa and New Hampshire, DeSantis will always be cheered among conservative activists for his efforts to curb what he calls teacher indoctrination on controversial subjects like race, gender, and sexuality. In so doing, he has both locked Democrats into a battle over classroom instruction and redefined what it means to be an education governor in the 2020s.

“If anything, Democrats have been happy to pick up the gauntlet that DeSantis threw this year. Former Gov. Charlie Crist and the state party followed the governor’s lead on school board endorsements, backing a group of their own candidates. The Democratic challenger has also directly attacked the Stop WOKE and Parental Rights in Education laws, unveiling a ‘freedom to learn’ policy platform and vowing to make the state’s commissioner of education an elected office. To top it off, Crist chose as his running mate Karla Hernández-Mats, the head of Miami-Dade’s teacher’s union. The selection distilled an already-polarized debate — between committed education reformers and defenders of traditional public schools — even further. Experts called it an understandable political calculation, though not without potential downsides.” Read the full preview of the race in Florida. 

Texas Governor — Education policies and school choice initiatives have factored prominently into the top Texas contest. As the reported earlier this year: “A battle over school vouchers is mounting in the race to be Texas governor, set into motion after Republican incumbent Greg Abbott offered his clearest support yet for the idea in May. His Democratic challenger, Beto O’Rourke, is hammering Abbott over the issue on the campaign trail, especially seeking an advantage in rural Texas, where Democrats badly know they need to do better and where vouchers split Republicans. O’Rourke’s campaign is also running newspaper ads in at least 17 markets, mostly rural, that urge voters to ‘reject Greg Abbott’s radical plan to defund’ public schools. Abbott, meanwhile, is not shying away from the controversy he ignited when he said in May that he supports giving parents ‘the choice to send their children to any public school, charter school or private school with state funding following the student.’” . 

Georgia Superintendent — As Linda Jacobson reports in her preview: “Among the six candidates the Georgia Association of Educators endorsed for statewide office, all were Democrats, save one: Republican schools Superintendent Richard Woods. The two-term incumbent’s support of a controversial new ‘divisive concepts’ law that restricts what teachers can say about race and diversity in the classroom was apparently less worrisome to the union than the platform of Alisha Thomas Searcy, his Democratic challenger. ‘His opponent, regrettably, has a long history of advocating for taxpayer funding of private schools that we cannot overlook,’ President Lisa Morgan said when announcing the union’s slate of candidates. Searcy was elected to the state House at just 23 and consistently advocated for school choice legislation during her 12 years in office. She co-authored a law that allows students to transfer to other schools within their district, voted in favor of the state’s tax credit scholarship program and championed a constitutional amendment creating the State Charter Schools Commission. Groups seeking to start a new charter school can apply directly to the commission instead of their local district. Woods also supports charter schools, but expanding choice has not been the focus of his campaign.” Read the full preview of the race in Georgia. 

Arizona Governor — As Kevin Mahnken lays out in his race preview: “Amid debates this summer around parental rights, the teaching of controversial subjects, and LGBT issues in schools, Arizona politicians resolved the state’s longest-running education dispute. Republican Gov. Doug Ducey and his allies in the state legislature pushed through an expansion of education savings accounts to all of the state’s 1.1 million students. The shift was the latest, and possibly the last, development in a lengthy war over school choice in the state. And as a political event, it may signify more than the hotly contested state elections this fall. Those campaigns are headlined by the gubernatorial bout, viewed as one of the closest in the country. But even though that race will serve as a bellwether on Election Day, delivering a rare battleground verdict on how well Democrats staved off Republicans’ midterm ambitions, its result likely cannot change the trajectory of school policy in Arizona, which will now feature more direct competition between public and private schools. Such sizable growth in ESAs has the potential to reshape the K-12 environment in one of America’s few remaining competitive states. The change was cheered by Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, a charismatic former news anchor who has been dubbed the ‘leading lady of Trumpism’ for her right-wing views and growing national profile. It was reviled by Democratic hopeful Katie Hobbs, who has captured her own national headlines over the last few years as the state’s top elections official. The contest between the two women will decide who leads the way for a newly altered school system.” Read the full preview of the race in Arizona.��

Wisconsin Governor — As Beth Hawkins reports in her preview: “Like many states, Wisconsin is awash in the newly charged politics over teaching about race and LGBTQ student rights. But the issues at the heart of what has become the most expensive gubernatorial race in the country are decidedly old school. A Democratic incumbent with long ties to traditional public education faces a GOP challenger who promises a dramatic expansion of the state’s private school voucher program, the oldest in the country.��As of late September, some $55 million had been spent on advertising, with the race between Democrat Tony Evers and Republican Tim Michels a toss-up. If Evers wins, residents can expect him to continue to push for more funding for the state’s traditional schools — and for the Republican-dominated legislature to push back. Those same lawmakers have already signaled support for Michels’ marquee proposal — making vouchers available to all Wisconsin students — even as it is unclear how they would pay for it.” Read the full snapshot of the race in Wisconsin.��

California Superintendent — As Kevin Mahnken reports in his preview: “California’s race for state superintendent is in its final days. But according to some local observers, the outcome has been in hand for most of the year. Incumbent Superintendent Tony Thurmond might have avoided campaigning entirely, in fact, if he’d picked up just a few extra points of support in the June primary. Instead, he settled for 46 percent of the vote — just a few points shy of the majority threshold to avoid a runoff — and the mantle of clear favorite heading into the fall. Thurmond’s opponent in the nonpartisan election, education advocate Lance Christensen, finished 34 points and more than two million votes behind him in the last round.” Thurmond was the slight victor over education reformers’ favored candidate in 2018; Christensen is an obscure former Republican staffer in the state assembly who has attacked the teachers’ union and quixotically pushed to bring private school choice to the deep-blue state. “And while the next superintendent will confront significant educational challenges, from pandemic-related learning loss to curricular reforms around math and English, the debate over the future of education policy has largely remained quiet.” Read the full preview. 

Oklahoma Governor — As Linda Jacobson writes in her preview: “Don Ford, a veteran Oklahoma educator who leads a rural schools network, initially thought state Superintendent Joy Hofmeister didn’t ‘understand the workings’ of schools outside the state’s major cities. But then Hofmeister, a former teacher and onetime owner of a Tulsa tutoring company, put half a million miles on her car traveling throughout the state. She listened as educators spoke of the challenges facing small-town schools. ‘She was willing to listen and learn by getting out into our districts,’ Ford said. Educational options in those communities are now center stage as voters prepare to choose their next governor. Incumbent Gov. Kevin Stitt is campaigning on a statewide ‘fund-students-not-systems’ platform and promises to ‘support any bills … that would give parents and students more freedom to attend the schools that best fit their learning needs.’ A voucher plan that died in the Senate earlier this year would have opened them to children in families that earn roughly three times what it takes to qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, with most awards ranging from $5,900 to about $8,100. Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat, a Republican, has pledged to introduce a similar bill if Stitt wins. But Hofmeister, who switched parties to challenge Stitt as a Democrat, has called the proposal a ‘rural schools killer’ because it would pull funding from traditional districts.” Read the full Oklahoma preview. 

California’s Arts Education Ballot Measure — As Linda Jacobson writes in her preview: “Parading down a busy street in Los Angeles’ San Pedro neighborhood, students waved signs over their heads and urged passing cars to support their cause. ‘Honk for 28!’ they yelled. ‘Say yes on 28.’ The shouting referred to California’s Proposition 28, a ballot initiative that aims to pump at least $800 million into K-12 arts and music programs, and one that comes with a pleasing selling point: It won’t increase taxes. That’s one reason no one is raising money to defeat the measure — a relief to former Los Angeles schools chief Austin Beutner, who led the effort to get the question on the ballot and donated over $4 million to the cause.” Read the full preview.

Colorado’s ‘Healthy Meals’ Ballot Proposition — As Linda Jacobson reports: “The Healthy Schools Meals for All program would fully reimburse districts for offering students free breakfast and lunch, regardless of family income. It would also increase pay for school nutrition staff and offer training and equipment to make meals from scratch. To pay for the program, the initiative would cap income tax deductions for those making $300,000 or more. There is no organized opposition to the measure, but one lawmaker who voted against putting it on the ballot said he had a ‘fundamental problem’ with subsidizing meals for students whose parents can afford to pay.” Read more about the Colorado proposal. 

Senate Education Leadership — As Linda Jacobson reports: Senator Rand Paul would eliminate the Education Department if he could. Senator Bernie Sanders would triple funding for poor students and send them to college for free. Depending on which party controls the Senate after the election, one of these men could be the next leader of the education committee. The other could be the ranking minority leader — setting up a scenario in which some of the most divisive issues in education get frequent airtime. Paul first has to defend his seat in Congress, which he’s expected to do in solidly Republican Kentucky. Sanders would have to give up chairmanship of the budget committee. Both men are next in line to influence legislation that not only governs the nation’s schools, but also health care policy and workforce issues. Read the full story.

Maryland Governor — As Asher Lehrer-Small reports in his preview: “Throughout the Maryland gubernatorial race, GOP candidate Dan Cox has done his best to keep education culture wars issues front and center. The state legislator named a right-wing parent leader as his running mate after her group lobbied to remove a Queen Anne’s County schools superintendent who expressed support for Black Lives Matter. And in his only public debate against Democratic challenger Wes Moore, the Trump-endorsed candidate railed against ‘transgender indoctrination in kindergarten,’ a problem he blamed on books that ‘depict things that I cannot show you on television, it’s so disgusting.’ The approach takes its cue from several recent GOP campaigns, most notably that of Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin. The Republican’s 2021 win over high-profile Democrat and former governor Terry McAuliffe was propelled largely by controversy over K-12 curricula and COVID school closures … But so far the strategy has not traveled well across state lines. As of late September, Moore led Cox by a 2-to-1 margin with a 32-percentage point advantage, according to a poll of 810 registered voters carried out by the University of Maryland and The Washington Post.

“Democratic candidate Wes Moore is a Rhodes Scholar, combat veteran, anti-poverty advocate and best-selling author. Sporting an endorsement from the state’s largest teachers union, he says he plans to boost educator pay, reduce the number of youth that schools send into the criminal justice system and fund tutoring initiatives to help students recoup learning they missed during COVID.” Read the full preview of the race in Maryland. 

Los Angeles School Board — As : “LAUSD school board president Kelly Gonez is headed to a runoff against teacher Marvin Rodriguez in district 6 — a surprising outcome for the five year board member who was backed by the powerful Los Angeles teachers union. In the other top board race, Maria Brenes and Rocio Rivas are also heading to a runoff for the district 2 seat on the seven-member board. As an LAUSD teacher, Rodriguez has taken votes from Gonez because he had “credibility as someone who knows the system from the inside. Teachers have a lot of sway with the public right now,” said Pedro Noguera, Dean of USC Rossier’s School of Education. Gonez, the board member for the East Valley and the frontrunner heading into the election; has led the board on crucial decisions, including pandemic recovery and expanding school choice. “I have a track record of successfully fighting for our students and delivering for our community,” she said. “I thoroughly understand what the position entails.” Read more about .

Michigan Governor — As Alina Tugend reports, driving the race between Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and GOP challenger Tudor Dixon is a school choice measure few residents have heard about: A proposal that would create one of the country’s largest voucher-like systems, with the potential to give students more than a half-million dollars in public funds to attend private schools. More than 90% of the electorate in a recent statewide poll said they knew little or nothing about the proposal, which has been enthusiastically backed by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her family, who have donated $4 million to the cause. Whitmer and Dixon differ sharply on measure; last year, both houses of the Michigan legislature passed bills that would have created ESAs but Whitmer vetoed them, saying they would “turn private schools into tax shelters for the wealthy.” Read Tugend’s preview of the race in Michigan. 

West Virginia’s Amendment 4 — As Linda Jacobson writes in her preview: “The state legislature would get final say on any rules or policies passed by the Board of Education if voters approve Amendment 4. Republicans in the legislature pushed for the measure, arguing that regulations governing schools should be left to those elected by voters, not an appointed board. But opponents, including former state Superintendent Clayton Burch and Miller Hall, former state board president, argue the proposed amendment would subject education to more partisanship and would lead to inconsistency in learning due to changes in the legislature.” Read our full preview. 

Pennsylvania Governor — As Jo Napolitano writes in her preview: “The Pennsylvania governor’s race — a face-off between a well-funded ambitious young climber already eyed as a future presidential contender and a radical right-wing election denier whose own GOP party leaders refuse to support — is among the most watched in the nation for its 2024 implications. The winner could wield significant power over how votes are counted in the next presidential election, one in which Donald Trump seeks to elevate an ally like Republican Doug Mastriano, in a key battleground state. Education is a leading issue in political contests across the country with Republicans pushing to remove discussions of race and gender from the classroom while leaning into greater parental control. But the script has flipped somewhat in Pennsylvania, with Mastriano’s stance so extreme he’s mobilized school board opponents to take unusual steps to block him while Democrat Josh Shapiro has embraced a school choice avenue usually reserved for conservatives. Both advocate stronger parent influence in schools.” Read the full preview of the race in Pennsylvania. 

New Mexico’s Amendment 1 — As Linda Jacobson notes in her preview: “The amendment would set aside roughly $150 million annually from the state’s Permanent School Fund for early-childhood education and about $100 million for teacher compensation and programs serving students at risk of failure. The fund comes from oil and gas revenues and capital investment returns. The measure seeks to increase the distribution of the fund from 5% to 6.25%. If voters approve it, the measure would need final approval from the U.S. Congress because early-childhood education was not one of the approved uses written into the federal law. There is no organized opposition to the measure, but a Republican lawmaker who voted against placing it on the ballot said withdrawing more from the fund would leave fewer resources for the state’s children.” Read our full preview of the measure. 

Other key reporting and analysis on what awaits education-minded voters this Election Day: 

Florida: DeSantis-Backed Candidates Rack Up School Board Wins Across Florida (Read the full story)

School Boards: There Are Just 90 LGBTQ School Board Members. Half Were Threatened, Harassed (Read the full story) 

Polling: Survey Shows Majority of Parents Would Cross Party Lines to Vote For Candidates Who Share Education Agenda (Read the full story) 

Parent Groups: Moms for Liberty Pays $21,000 to Company Owned by Founding Member’s Husband (Read the full story) 

Future of Education: How Do Americans Truly Feel About Public Education, & What Do They Want to See? (Read the full analysis) 

Campaign Politics: PACs Get Attention, but Teachers Unions Still Dominate School Board Elections (Read the full analysis) 

Civic Engagement: Educator’s View — My Schools Are Helping Parents Become Voters. Yours Should, Too (Read the full essay)

GOP: Heading into Midterms, Republicans Find All School Politics is Local (Read the full article) 

Watch: Video Roundtable — School Leaders Debate How Education Politics Will Shape Midterms (Watch the full conversation) 

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