A proposed rule that will be weighed by the State Board of Education aims to control the way history is taught in Florida classrooms and not allow teachers to “indoctrinate” students, as part of what state Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran called a “constant, vigilant fight.”
The proposed rule seeks to put strict guidelines on teaching U.S. history.
“Instruction on the required topics must be factual and objective and may not suppress or distort significant historical events, such as the Holocaust, and may not define American history as something other than the creation of a new nation based largely on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence,” the state Department of Education’s proposal said.
It also would require that any classroom discussion is “appropriate for the age and maturity level of the students,” and teachers facilitating discussions wouldn’t be able to “share their personal views or attempt to indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view” that is inconsistent with state standards.
The Board of Education will consider the proposal at its June 10 meeting at Florida State College at Jacksonville.
Corcoran touted the proposal during a recent speaking engagement at Hillsdale College, a private college in Michigan that regularly invites conservative speakers.
“You have to police them on a daily basis. It’s 185,000 teachers in a classroom with anywhere from 18 to 25 kids,” Corcoran told the crowd gathered at the event, titled “Education is Freedom.”
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The Florida Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, opposes the proposed rule.
“Florida isn’t going to equip students as critical thinkers by hiding facts. Students deserve the best possible education we can provide and the truest and most inclusive picture of their world and our shared history,” Andrew Spar, the union’s president, said in a statement Wednesday.
Spar also suggested that other aspects of U.S. history aren’t addressed in the proposal.
“If giving kids a good education is the goal, the rule could be amended to say in part: ‘Instruction on the required topics must be factual and objective, and may not suppress or distort significant historical events, such as the Holocaust, slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction and Jim Crow.’ Those who don’t learn history are destined to repeat it,” Spar said in the statement.
During his Hillsdale College speech, Corcoran fielded a question from an audience member about how he intends to address progressive ideas in textbooks and instructional materials. Part of Corcoran’s response indicated he expects the proposed rule will be adopted.
“We’re passing a rule this coming month that says, for the 185,000 (Florida) teachers, you can’t indoctrinate students with stuff that’s not based on our standards, the new B.E.S.T. standards,” Corcoran said, referring to standards adopted by the state during his tenure.
The “Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking” standards were adopted after Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order in January 2019 to eliminate vestiges of politically unpopular “Common Core” standards.
Speaking at Hillsdale, Corcoran characterized the new standards as part of the “fight” to ensure progressive ideas aren’t pushed in the classroom.
“We rewrote all of our standards, we did all of that stuff, and then we do a book adoption,” Corcoran told the crowd. “And the publishers are just infested with liberals. And so we would have to say to them in our bid specs, we are not going to approve your bid unless … a certain percent of our reading list has to be in your text.”
Corcoran’s comments and the proposed rule came amid a push by DeSantis to eliminate what is known as critical race theory from classrooms. Critical race theory is based on the premise that racism is embedded within American society and institutions.
The governor criticized critical race theory during a media appearance in March, while rolling out a “civics literacy” proposal.
“It’s basically teaching kids to hate our country and to hate each other based on race. It puts race as the most important thing. I want content of character to be the most important thing,” DeSantis told reporters.
At Hillsdale, Corcoran also said he is working to weed out critical race theory from instructional materials.
“They hide it in … social-emotional learning. So, it doesn’t say critical race theory, but you could definitely have a teacher who teaches critical race theory,” Corcoran said.
–Ryan Dailey, News Service of Florida
BigBill says
Thank God someone has some sense
Rick G says
I am so glad this imbecile was not made FSU President. What a blockhead… The only people who are indoctrinating students would be you and people of your ilk. One does not need to sugar coat American History to make sure we citizens will still love our country… warts and all.
Concerned Citizen says
As a History Major.
Our whole History is contraversial. One of the reasons we live in Florida today is because of the murder and forced relocation of indigenous people(Read Genocide). And for no other reason than greed and expansion. And it hasn’t been just the U.S. Vs Florida. All throughout our history we have treated Native Americans poorly. And then there’s the 100 plus years history of slavery and segregation. The list goes on and on
No amount of “sanatizing” will ever correct the worngs made. Instead we need to be teaching it. Our newer generations don’t have half the awareness of what has happened to get us to where we are today. Hiding it won’t help us to keep from repeating it either.
It’s time for us to stop being politically correct. Time to own up to the fact that yeah we Fd up. How do we make society better from here on out
LB2KOOL says
Is it possible that some in our government will want to repeat that history for their own political gains?
Jacy Ward says
Thank you for mentioning indigenous/Native Americans like me from the Chippewa Nation as a group that also will be taken out of the history books in Florida. It’s my understanding that when White Europeans decided to expand into North America (which includes Canada) there were about 100 million indigenous peoples. But by the early 1600’s there were only 10 million left due to Eurasian diseases such as influenza, pneumonic plagues, and smallpox, in combination with conflict, forced removal, enslavement, imprisonment, and outright warfare/genocide with Europeans to take land away from the indigenous people.
Jane Gentile-Youd says
OMG OMG OMG. Did all our ‘real’ ancestors have white skin, blonde hair and all attend the same church? OMG
flatsflyer says
I sure hope it includes any all and forms of religious indoctrination, the Comic Book so often refer to as the Bible needs to be banned from the classroom and burned, it’s the single source of most problems facing mankind.
Justsayin says
What public school is having this comic book study you speak of?
Maybe teaching morals and values would be more beneficial to society. Justsayin
Harley Mann says
So – you mean starting with the trump family? Then following up with Mitch and Cruz and Getze
LB2KOOL says
Fortunately our morals don’t come from any holy books. Teaching about all religious beliefs and non-beleifs would be beneficial to all.
Dennis says
About time. Thank you. The racist crap by the liberals needs to end. They were and are the party of the KKK, Jim Crow, and the party who started the civil war to keep their slaves. This racist teaching in America must end.
Jon says
Perhaps a greater understanding of US history would inform you that the political parties of which you speak shifted in thinking during the early years of the 20th century. Neither party is the same as it was at the time of the Civil War, and Lincoln would be embarrassed by the authoritarian rhetoric of today’s GOP.
Nunyo Bizness says
The goal is NOT to teach history…it is to ensure that the students graduating from their schools are as uneducated as possible. Ignorance is the goal because if you’re ignorant you fear who they tell you to fear, hate who they tell you to hate, blame who they tell you to blame and do as you’re told. You worship them as they sip champagne and do nothing while you work 3 full time jobs and still your family goes without. Because NOW you’re too stupid to know any better.
Agkistrodon says
And to those who wish to push the 1619 fallacies, slavery was on both the North and South American continents before that. The indigenous peoples of Both those continents captured and made slaves of other tribes. This occurred throughout the america’s. Europeans did not invent slavery, nor did the white man……….that is fact, that is history.
Pierre Tristam says
China didn’t invent interchangeable parts, but it sure as hell became a juggernaut of mass production, so what’s your point? That the European “culture” of slavery should be indemnified and not taught for the multiple Holocausts it was?
Concerned Citizen says
I would also point out that the “African Culture” of slavery has been around alot longer.
As a matter of fact Africans have been selling each other into slavery long before Europeans got involved. But somehow that fact has been lost. Or doesn’t fit the “You must apologize for your ancestors wrong doings movement.”
Pierre Tristam says
Timelines and geography are no absolutions for a genocidal crime that remains so whoever conducts it, whenever they do or did. The Atlantic slave trade made all its predecessors look like amateur hour in comparison, both in breadth and brutality. This argument that “so and so did it before” is like degrading our standards to the most abject denominator there is. The argument, or defense–if it is one–is ethically untenable.
Concerned Citizen says
The point was not to defend anything. But to simply educate. Again It’s the wrong narrative to fit an agenda but equally deplorable/
You say it’s not an absolution and I agree. However you contradict yourself by saying the Atlantic slave trade was far worse. Why not do some research on the African Slave Trade. And see how well they treated their own people. Or better yet were you aware that Europeans were enslaving each other for centuries?
I understand that my view on this sbuject does not matter as a Caucasian male. And that you will come to whatever conclusion you want. I owe no apologies to anyone as my ancestors did not own slaves. And some even came over as indintured servants. (Read slaves). I’m half Irish half Scottish But I suppose our mistreatment by the British over the years doesn’t count because we are white.
Before judging though know that I am married to an African American woman and fully understand the atrocities of slavery and discrimination. And fully understand what my wife and her family have overcome to make it to where they are today.
Slavery and human trafficking in any form is horrible and has no place in our society. Likewise discrimination of any sort needs to be wiped out. But it’s going to be hard to do either without proper education.
Allison Elledge says
Only the Atlantic Slave Trade was slavery racially-based, hereditary, and permanent. The African Slave trade was not like this at all, and was based on war captives. It was also not permanent, hereditary, or racially-based. The United States is the only nation who fought a war over it. Europeans were not enslaving each other for centuries. Indentured servitude was not equivalent to slavery, as it was contractual, not hereditary, not permanent, and not racially based. There is no comparison to the American model.
Reader says
Unfortunately, slavery in America drew deeply from the Roman model and law. Slaves were not people, they were chattle. Children of slaves were slaves for life, unless they were emancipated. Initially slave could not give testimony in re their masters, etc. As to racially based enslavement think of Julius Caesar’s treatment of the Gauls (Celts).
As deplorable as it was, I my opinion it was unfortunately not unique. Think of the Uyghurs today.
You might find this site interesting: https://www.worldhistory.org/article/629/slavery-in-the-roman-world/
Allison J Elledge says
The 1619 Project was researched and written by scholars who have been researching in their fields for decades, and have a lot more knowledge of the nuances of the arguments. The two that upset conservatives are that the position that the United States’ true founders were African (Americans)– though they do not deny the claim of foundation to those who were here at the same time, only that African Americans should be included in the story. The second is that the Founders had economic reasons for declaring independence, namely protecting slavery. At that time, it was a serious concern. The British had already denied slavery from Britain and there was a very strong and active abolitionist movement there. The British had repealed their policy of salutary neglect, which obviously alarmed the colonists. Further, there was a court case involving an enslaved man who was brought to Britain by his owner, and he sued for his freedom when he was there. It’s the Somerset v. Stewart case, 1772. The judge ruled in the enslaved man’s favor, because he was now in a country that did not allow slavery. The judge was warned that this could have colonial implications but he didn’t change his ruling. The newspapers in the American colonies ran rampant with concern over this case, worrying that it might spell the death knell to slavery here. In addition, scholars have been writing for decades (Charles Beard was the first, 1913) that the founders both declared independence and creation the Constitution for economic reasons, namely to protect what they had. In other words, the 1619 Project was not necessarily new. All it did was ask Americans to view their past from another historical perspective and understand that there is more than one narrative. To argue that there’s only one way to view history is completely absurd.
Yes, slavery has been around since the development of agricultural societies, more or less. But here, it was hereditary, permanent, and racially-based. And the Americas lay exclusive claim to that. The United States is the only nation to have fought a war over it. That is fact, that is history.
Trailer Bob says
All I can say right now is that I am 65 years old and have never seen the amount or level of “racism” that I read about occur in my lifetime.
I am appalled by racists and racism, and think it is way past the time that we all understand that. Nothing good comes from feeling superior to others.
But what concerns my lately is that amount of energy, anger, and hate that appears to be getting worse, not better.
There is racism that comes from the words and actions of multiple groups of people…not just whites against blacks.
I don’t believe we will ever make racism a thing of the past, as long as we continue to do so in a dramatic and overstated fashion. That only creates more animosity, and apparently more racist.
Let’s do this right the first time.
palmcoaster says
This land’s real history:
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&ei=UTF-8&p=Lawrence+Odonnell+this+is+nit+your+land&type=E211US91088G0#id=1&vid=f8189616b01652c1abf3ae64b94d7d39&action=click
Stephen J Smith says
It does not surprise me that the board of education is considering this. For some time now Florida and other conservative states have been trying to bury their heads in the sand when it comes to American History. They have been trying to rewrite it for a long time in order to present a view of America that fits their sanitized ideals. This country was founded on principles of freedom and truth. Let’s face it the historical truth of our country has some dark moments. We need to understand these dark moments and what we have done in the past and need to do in the future to move away from these moments. Some of which are still with us today.
It’s beyond time to look at our history in terms of reality. Yes. We are a great nation and have done some great things. Some of which are to correct the errors of the past such as women voting or the civil rights amendments. We should all be aware of what happened in history and what we did and how we changed in order to fulfill the American dream. Teach the true history of America not the Pollyanna version that hides the causes of many of the issues we face today.
Steve says
White wash Sanitize lie. History is destined to repeat itself unless it is put out their for all to see and reflect on. Not only is He a moron He goes on record as such. wow
Pogo says
@These things are knowable
corcoran is a Republican party tool that was assembled by church schools – including pat robertson’s law school/bait shack. Look at his bio. He literally has spent his entire adult life as a professional “christian” and hack for elected Republicans. Correlate his age with graduation dates, etc. I wouldn’t hire him to be an usher at a flea circus – would you?
Moreover, do the same for every elected Republican in floriduh:
https://justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/biography/17353/richard-corcoran
Be sure to visit their official campaign sites too. They’re the most vacuous imitation of a dollar store clothing ad you’ll ever see. But far less useful – or honest.
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.
— Kurt Vonnegut
Sad Times says
Stupidity continues to reign supreme!
The Republicans continue, slowly, to dumb down USA citizens….so that they end up with an ignorant and pliant citizenry who are uneducated and not capable of analyzing or even understanding what or whom they are voting for. Folks….it’s been slowly happening over forty decades….and is happening right this minute.
My hopes and dreams…that Republicans actually decide that they want to help the people….rather than just themselves. However, every day…they continue to give us the finger.
Wise up voters! It will continue….unless you get smart….and pay attention to the truth.
Rebecca says
OMG! They have gone completely out of their minds!! Lets “sanatize” Desantis right out if history. “Sanatize” every debate ever had in politics! Criticism is part of life. Did that cop get critized fir killing G Floyd? Criticism exists! Stop trying to make everything “pretty” because it is NOT. Americans critize other countries.
Our history is what it is. There are documents from all time periods proving what happened to make America the place people all over the world want to live.
Criticism can provide a context for recognition of change.
I taught American and world history in high school and middle school for years. People have to know ALL sides of a situation to understand it. Without understanding the British reasons, you cant possibly understand the American reasons for wanting independence. The Americans did sime pretty rotten things in the Am Rev and in the Civil War. How are they going to “sanatize” that?!?
Americans brings criticism on themselves when they wont stop with the battle of racism. Some people need to stop using that as an excuse and a crutch and just get on with life as human beings.
History is not pretty. Present politics are not pretty. Even a field of beautiful wild flowers has bees.
Hasn’t the govt got anything more important to give attention to?
Steve says
They are busy with Gambling, taking money from Public Schools, Changing Election Law and Process, and a myriad of other issues to benefit them not all.
Allison Elledge says
As a trained historian and now history teacher, I am greatly disturbed by the trend to force teachers to leave out important parts of the American past so as to inculcate students with a glorious rendering of American history. It’s impossible to discuss the past without acknowledging, discussing, and reading about racism and its ill effects, as it has been a long and indisputable part of our history. If we only honor the men (and slaveowners) who created the Constitution and Bill of Rights, for example, we create a narrative of half-truths. In order to create a more perfect union, we must learn from our faults, not brush them aside as if they have no meaning. The proposals mentioned in this article are nothing more than state propaganda, the stuff of authoritarian regimes.
The reaction against critical race theory has been purely emotional and not at all scholarly, and is shouted down from the rooftops by the same people who argue against women’s history, gender history, LGBT history, Native American, Latino/a-American, and Asian-American history. The United States has more than one historical narrative. It’s foolish, and at this point dangerous, to only teach one perspective.
JUSTSAYIN says
Do you support the removal of statues that were part of our history ?
Pierre Tristam says
The question has the ring of a trap, but an interesting one: if it’s legitimate to remove the statue of a confederate general (I can’t bring myself to capitalize the abject) then why isn’t it legitimate to remove that of, say, Jefferson in DC? The simple answer being that the confederate general’s legacy to that abject part of our history was entirely beholden to furthering the slave-owning “peculiar institution” of the South, whereas Jefferson, beside writing the Declaration that has never ceased undermining every bigot’s claim to any kind of supremacy, presides over a legacy to which slave-owning was incidental and in his own view fated to die, and for which we owe, to name one example, the freedom to say what we think of purveyors of falsehoods, bigotries and political follies (viz., the example of the last four years) without fearing irons or worse. None of which can be said of confederate goons who not only defended a slave state within a state, but a police state at that even as it swooned through its last lost cause. Their descendants lost the slaves, if more recently than we assume, but they still lust for the police state, of which mass incarceration and cop shootings of civilians, at the overwhelming expense of minorities, are but two examples, unrestricted to the South though they are. As Peter Applebome argued in “Dixie Rising” some years ago, we’re all, alas, Southerners now. Anyway: remove some statues, yes, but be prepared to explain why. And no, this isn’t sanitizing history, as our Floridian education confederates would like to do. It’s recalibrating whom we admire and consider worthy of immortality. Not to worry: the scabrous memory of those removed will live on, as it ought to, in history taught tautly, without fear or fawning.
MOM says
For the longest time I could not figure out why history wasn’t being taught as it was when I went to school in the 70s 80s. Now I know! You people want to dictate our history because your afraid of it! Children deserve to know their Country’s history! They deserve to know what,when how things happen. Not just bits and pieces. You were educated with full history. Why take that away from the children? The teachers? Does historical events scare you morons? The people who are crying today because of their history it’s in them. They chose to live in the past rather then learn from it. They continue to blame. These people who are boohooing were not even born during that time. They want their 15 minutes of Fame. These people choose to make the choices they make. they feel entitled! They are the ones causing problems, they are not the solution. ALL History needs to be taught properly not bits and pieces. The school board makes me sick! I’ll homeschool next year, I’ll go to the library and get the books on history and teach it as it should be taught in school. History effected us all, and the changes made back in the day were to better the future for this Countries Americans. We all choose our own path to lead. We all have the right to make our own choices. It’s not histories fault. You choose to be mean to others regardless of their color that’s on you! Not history. We are ALL EQUAL!