On Wednesday, the Florida state Board of Education unanimously approved new standards for teaching about Black history.
One standard for middle schoolers requires teachers to instruct on “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
Per the 216-page document, for high schoolers, teachers are required for instructions to include “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans,” when teaching about events like the 1920 Ocoee massacre, which “is considered the deadliest Election Day violence in US history.” It is widely believed to have “started when Moses Norman, a prominent Black landowner in the Ocoee, Florida, community, attempted to cast his ballot and was turned away by White poll workers.”
Statewide teachers union, Florida Education Association called out these standards as a disservice to their students and “a big step backward for a state that has required teaching African American history since 1994.”
In a statement, Andrew Spar, president of the association said, “How can our students ever be equipped for the future if they don’t have a full, honest picture of where we’ve come from? Florida’s students deserve a world-class education that equips them to be successful adults who can help heal our nation’s divisions rather than deepen them,” adding, “Gov. DeSantis 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.”
Democratic state Senator Geraldine Thompson said these new guidelines are “blaming the victims.” Democratic state Representative Anna Eskamani is concerned about teaching young people that slaves “developed skills” that were helpful, stating “That is inaccurate and a scary standard for us to establish.”
These new standards were issued after Florida already passed “a controversial education law that requires lessons on race be taught in an ‘objective’ manner that does not seek to ‘indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view.’ The state also prohibited a pilot Advanced Placement high school course on African American studies earlier this year, saying it violated state law and ‘lacks educational value.’”