The Minefield of Teaching in Florida

We have all seen the headlines. Florida State House passes "Don't Say Gay" bill, "Florida Governor Signs School Book Bill Into Law" among other laws that are targeting schools and teachers. Florida has become a hostile environment for learning. Sounds dramatic, huh? Well, it's not. 

As we start the 2023-24 school year, we are inundated with new rules about what kids can and cannot read and what teachers can and cannot say. We get "curriculum" suggestions from unaccredited "universities" in Michigan that peddle right-wing propaganda, completely rewriting history to appease the radicals. Indeed, Florida is becoming a laughingstock of the nation when it comes to its education system. Where once we could boast effective schools that could compete with the rest of the nation, now we are a national joke. In Florida, we don't have AP Psychology classes and we don't have AP African American Studies classes. Instead, Florida DOE seems to want to pick and choose each lesson that is in each of the courses, throwing out ones that they don't like. 

All of this is mind-boggling. We are supposed to educate, not indoctrinate. The Florida politicians scream, "Indoctrination!" anytime something appears in school curricula that they don't like. They, in fact, are the ones who are trying to indoctrinate. When you pare down the ideas presented to children so that they only align with your way of thinking - THAT is indoctrination. When you present the complete set of ideas - THAT is education. I understand that many of our state politicians get uncomfortable when talking about some of our nation's blemishes throughout history, but they must be taught. In order to improve on things, we must be made aware of the mistakes that we made. 

I fear that Florida education will become such a joke that the degrees granted by universities here will not be held to the same status as degrees from universities in other states. Will our high school grads get accepted into the best universities in the country with a diploma that leaves out so much of the education that colleges expect kids to have? Our politicians are putting our kids at a competitive disadvantage. Our kids still have to compete with kids from other states for places in the top universities. How will they do that with an education that has so many holes in it?

Even free-thinking New College of Florida has been decimated by politicians. Now, schools in Massachusetts are openly recruiting those students to move up there and get a real education. 

One thing that our politicians here in Florida do not understand is that we are a diverse nation. While they try to turn back the clock and ignore that diversity, more and more of those diverse kids are becoming able to vote. Do these politicians really think that these new voters are going to vote for politicians that want to deny their existence? Good luck with that premise!