By Donald Jeffries
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has taken some concrete steps to counter the maddening “woke” agenda that is poisoning our educational system. No other political leader at his level is fighting those who are pushing a diabolical race-based, transgender-saturated curriculum on even the youngest of school children.
DeSantis recently banned an advanced placement high school class on African American studies. An observer might question how any course on such a subjective and politically driven topic could ever be considered “advanced.” DeSantis is catching heat from all the usual suspects. Supposedly, he faces a potential lawsuit from students.
“By rejecting the African American history pilot program, Ron DeSantis has clearly demonstrated that he wants to dictate whose history does—and doesn’t—belong,” Democratic state Rep. Fentrice Driskell charged. “He wants to say that I do not belong. He wants to say that you don’t belong and whose story does—and doesn’t—get to count. But we are here to tell him: We are America.”
On the other hand, Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. called the course “woke indoctrination masquerading as education.” Reportedly, the race hustling “civil rights” attorney Ben Crump is preparing to file a lawsuit on behalf of three black students.
DeSantis already pushed through the so-called “Stop Woke” act, which permits parents to sue teachers and school districts over the overtly biased, anti-white manner in which race is discussed in classrooms. Then there was the Parental Rights in Education Act, smeared by the state-controlled media as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which forbids discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity to young elementary school students.
DeSantis defended his decision by saying, “This course, on black history, what’s one of the lessons about? Queer theory! Now who would say that an important part of black history is queer theory? That is somebody pushing an agenda on our kids.” DeSantis did not touch upon the ludicrous and divisive nature of black history itself.
Going even further to anger the leftist educational establishment, DeSantis introduced a series of proposals, which included a call for partisan elections for school board members, and stricter term limits for them.
“What we’ve seen over the years is you have counties, you know, in like southwest Florida, [who] voted for me by like 40 points and yet they’re electing people to the school board who are like totally the opposite philosophy,” DeSantis stated.
Rather incongruently, DeSantis also supported an extra $200 million to be used on raising teachers’ salaries. This hardly pacified opposition from the aforementioned Rep. Driskell, who declared, “We should have paid our teachers what they’re worth a long time ago. We should have given our districts the control to do what they need to do for teacher salaries a long time ago.”
She called the extra funding a form of “gaslighting” teachers, and continued, “You can’t say, ‘Teachers, I’m going to weaken your ability to have collective bargaining and to pay your union dues. Teachers, you cannot accurately teach history. Teachers, you’re under the gun and we’re going to make you compete with these for-profit charter schools and give away all these vouchers to these private schools that don’t require their teachers to go through the same sort of training and be certified. But here’s some money. We hope you feel better.’”
DeSantis drew the ire of the powerful teacher’s union with his suggestion that the Republican-dominated legislature eliminate automatic union dues deductions from teachers’ paychecks. In such a case, teachers would have to pay their dues separately. He also called for limiting the pay of union leaders.
“If you’re somebody that’s working for a school union, you should not make any more than what the highest-paid teacher is making,” DeSantis stated. DeSantis also has proposed a teachers’ Bill of Rights, offering protections for classroom instructors.
“Teachers should not be at fault if you have kids fighting or being disruptive,” DeSantis said. “You know a teacher has every right to ensure discipline and to ensure a safe learning environment. I think sometimes teachers feel they will end up being the bad guy just by making sure that the kids are behaving.”
DeSantis has called for more conservative school board members, which would be a welcome change to parents who have clashed with bombastic and entitled school board tyrants. Viral videos online have exposed the level of corruption within these consistently leftist-leaning school boards. Parents objecting to Critical Race Theory, or transgender story hour, have been shouted down, armed officers have arrested them, and the public meeting invariably shut down.
An examination of TikTok videos alone reveal the extent to which the schools have been invaded by young teachers whose pro-transgender and anti-white views are openly and loudly voiced. It is refreshing that a politician is finally taking steps to stop the indoctrination of children.
