🇺🇸 Curriculum Controversy

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EDUCATION

Curriculum Controversy

The State of Florida and its Governor Ron DeSantis are making waves for controversial social studies guidelines that would teach middle school students that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for personal benefit.”

Reporting from the Left: ‘No silver lining in slavery': Scott slams DeSantis on Florida curriculum comments (POLITICO)

Reporting from the Right: DeSantis on why he's standing his ground against VP Harris (FOX News)

From The Flag: DeSantis and Florida have received intense scrutiny and opposition from the left and right, including GOP presidential candidates Senator Tim Scott and Representative Will Hurd. Vice President Kamala Harris has been especially vocal in her criticism, and DeSantis subsequently invited her to debate the educational standards — an offer she turned down. Here’s more from both sides.

LEFT-LEANING SENTIMENT

This Curriculum is Dangerous Revisionism

• It’s inaccurate to suggest slaves benefited from slavery, as it was virtually impossible for them to use their skills for personal betterment.

• This curriculum sanitizes the realities of slavery by rewriting and reframing the factors that fueled American slavery to be more palatable.

• By denying the true ills of slavery, DeSantis is working to release the government from the obligation of fixing inequality today.

Gov. DeSantis is wrong. Slavery did not benefit Black people. Janice Armstrong, The Philadelphia Inquirer: “My ancestors didn’t benefit from slavery. Slavery was an especially ugly chapter in American history and is still a painful era to revisit. … But it should not be whitewashed or downplayed by teaching students that some of the enslaved ‘developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit,’ as the new Florida standards specify. The vast majority of enslaved Africans never reaped the benefits of anything they may have learned toiling in cotton and tobacco fields under a blazing sun. Most died in bondage, never owning anything, much less themselves. … America will never be able to move on from its history if we are still fighting about what that entails and how it gets taught. … Despite the odds, we are still here. We not only survived as a family but thrived. That happened in spite of everything our ancestors faced during slavery — not because of it.”

Florida curriculum on slavery is an obscene revision of Black history Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post: “To pretend my ancestor was done some sort of favor by being taught a trade ignores the reality of race-based, chattel slavery as practiced in the United States. He was sold like a piece of livestock at least twice that I know of. To say he ‘developed skills,’ as if he had signed up for some sort of apprenticeship program, is appallingly ahistorical. … I have looked through the new Florida curriculum to see whether that sentence about ‘personal benefit’ might be a singular aberration, and it is not. … The problem with all of this is that it seeks to contextualize American slavery as something other than what it was: a unique historical crime, perpetuated over 2½ centuries. Slavery was practiced here on an industrial scale, based on race and the belief in white supremacy, with not just individuals but also their descendants consigned to lifelong servitude.”

One more opinion piece from the Left: Why Ron DeSantis’s Florida slavery curriculum is so dangerous Saida Grundy, The Guardian

RIGHT-LEANING SENTIMENT

The Left’s Criticism is Disingenuous

• The left and Harris are lying about the actual curriculum, and are criticizing it without full context to score political points.

• The curriculum aims to show slaves were not completely helpless, and other curriculums on Black History have taken a similar approach but haven’t been criticized in this way.

• Were DeSantis and the state of Florida not part of the conversation, this curriculum would not be receiving the attention and criticism it is.

Florida’s History Curriculum Is Better Than the Lies about It The Editors, National Review: “What is not helpful is lying to the public about what is taught in schools. That is what Vice President Kamala Harris and others have been doing about Florida’s new curriculum … Harris, apparently taking her cues from the NAACP’s press release, went into full-demagoguery mode, claiming that ‘middle school students in Florida’ are now required ‘to be told that enslaved people benefited from slavery.’ Numerous supposedly respectable media outlets ran with headlines suggesting that Florida was attempting to teach that slavery was actually good for slaves. This is nonsense. …There is extensive instruction on the history and economics of the development of slavery, as well as abolitionism, slave revolts, and the Underground Railroad. Many examples are offered of the resistance and accomplishments of enslaved and free black Americans during the period of colonial and American slavery.'“

Why are Republicans aiding the left in stoking racial animosity? Steve F. Hayward, New York Post: “Read in context, as honest-minded people would do, it is clear the intent of this guideline to emphasize that freed slaves were not utterly helpless that victims but possessed resources to build their own self-sufficiency and resilience. … To appreciate the bad faith of Harris’ attack, consider this guideline from the national AP History curriculum that Democrats in other states insist be used: “In addition to agricultural work, enslaved people learned specialized trades and worked as painters, carpenters, tailors, musicians, and healers in the North and South. Once free, African Americans used these skills to provide for themselves and others. … If Florida had repeated this longer clause in its curriculum guide, Harris could have said the same thing — though don’t hold your breath for her to attack states that use this statement in their curricula.”

One more opinion piece from the Right: Truth is the first casualty of liberal media’s war on DeSantis Editorial Staff, Washington Examiner

FLAG THIS

Black Voters Disapprove

Earlier this year, DeSantis had also made moves to block the teaching of Black history in Florida high schools by limiting Advanced Placement African American Studies.

According to a survey from HIT Strategies, nearly two-thirds of Black voters, 65%, said they disagreed with DeSantis' actions. More than half, 51%, said they “strongly disagree," while only 14% said they agreed with the decision.

The survey also found Black voters believed there was minimal Black history taught in public schools. 70% of Black voters said K-12 public schools teach “too little” about Black history (USA Today).

FLAG FINDS

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