The Florida Department of Education (FDE) has presented new guidelines on curriculum topics included in social studies in kindergarten through twelfth grade which are detailed in Florida’s State Academic Standards.The main conflation among those in the education system pertains to the benchmark clarification for African American History for grades 6–8. It states the teaching is to include “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
In an interview with NBC News, Andrew Spar, the president of the Florida Education Association teachers union (FEA), stated that the new standards were a, “disservice to Florida students and an inversive move in a state that has required the teaching of African American History for nearly 30 years.”
Spar directly holds Gov. RonDeSantis responsible, stating that, “DeStantis is pursuing a political agenda guaranteed to set good people against one another, and in the process he’s cheating our kids. They deserve the full truth of American history, the good and the bad.”
Naomi Pietz, a history education student at West Chester University (WCU), stated that the exclusion of the treatment of enslaved people in certain benchmarks is, “an incredibly dangerous standard that would only serve to minimize the horrors of slavery.” She states that not including correlating details about how they were treated is very misleading.
When asked for comment, Professor Elizabeth Urban, who teaches many courses here at WCU about the subject of slavery, including Global History of Slavery, had this to say about the 2023 FDE guidelines.
“[T]he entire framework of this so-called ‘benefit’ is unjust: the rules of what counts as ‘benefit’ here was defined, determined and policed by enslavers. These enslaved people only find ‘benefit’ from certain trades and occupations within a system of enslavement.” Professor Urban worries that this way of teaching centers too much on white comfort and not the voices of those enslaved or the oppressive system and legacy of American slavery.
These course guidelines come months after a decision to completely reject a proposed AP African American studies course in Florida high schools. In Jan. of this year, DeSantis and Florida State Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. rejected an AP African American Studies course from the College Board. Included in their rejection was a diagram of six areas of concern that the FDE had with the course. The topic of intersectionality is a part of the course, and the FDE’s stated concern with the teaching of intersectionality is that it is a foundational teaching in critical race theory, and it, “ranks people based on their race, wealth, gender and sexual orientation.”
DeSantis and Diaz Jr. argue that the course is a, “Trojan horse for indoctrinating students.” Other concerns include the teachings of queer identities within Black history and the basic teaching of any historical figure that had or has leftist beliefs or writings.
These decisions led by DeSantis and enacted by the FDE come during a time when Florida’s teacher turnover rate is accelerating. According to the FEA union’s website, a tallied 6,006 teacher vacancies were counted in Aug. of 2022, just four months before DeSantis and the FDE’s AP course rejection and public school guidelines. This is over one thousand more vacancies than the previous tallied year in 2021, which saw 4,961 vacancies for teaching positions in the state.
Gaven Mitchell is a third-year History major with a minor in Journalism. GM1001024@wcupa.edu