Florida Board of Education Releases New Rules For the State’s African-American History Public School Curriculum

The Florida Board approves new standards for teaching African-American history

America has watched the unfolding of education laws in Florida in the past year, and Governor Ron DeSantis has continued to modify how history is taught in the state, from the conflict with the College Board over AP African-American Studies courses to the Individual Freedom Act (also known as the Stop Wrongs To Our Kids and Employees Act or Stop WOKE Act) to suing Biden’s Education Department. In recent news, the Florida Board of Education unanimously in Orlando on July 19th approved new teaching standards for public schools around African-American history. The Board reasoned that they want to support parent’s rights and “safety” of K-12 students. In a statement, the Florida Board of Education said on Twitter that the rules are intended to “let kids be kids, let parents parent and let teachers teach.” However, to critics, the new standards can be seen as an attempt to water down marginalized histories.

According to critics, there were a number of standards reported that appeared to be changing the narrative on African-American history. One of the standards that the Board passed seemed to equate massacres and lynchings, which were used to instill fear in African-Americans challenging white supremacy, with “acts of violence perpetrated by African-Americans.” This paints the narrative as though Black people brought the white violence onto themselves. Critics further state this blurs the narrative in anti-Black violence in U.S. history and who was truly behind the violence. For instance, this would possibly change the narrative of the 1920 Ocoee Massacre, where white people killed Black “individuals, burned homes and schools and lodges” when they attempted to vote. Democratic Senator Geraldine Thompson sees the standards as “blaming the victims now.” Thompson actually worked towards passing an act during 2020 that made school discusses histories like the Ocoee Massacre.

A historical marker in Orlando for the lynching of July Perry during the Ocoee Massacre

Another approved standard was to discuss how enslaved people learned valuable and useful skills during the institution of slavery. Critics say this downplays and whitewashes the horrors and cruelty of enslavement and seeks to find the ‘benefit’ in it. Democratic Representative Anna Eskamani said the new standard is “inaccurate and a scary standard for us to establish.” Though the Board will recognize prominent African American poets and leaders, like Maya Angelou and Rosa Parks, and their positive contributions, critics think the curriculum will not discuss Black struggles in the context of the times (like the Jim Crow era) they lived in, or even discuss eras post-Reconstruction in elementary and middle school classrooms. The new curriculum fails to discuss Florida’s role in the Confederacy during the Civil War and tries to keep the institution of slavery alive, as well as the systemic terror and resistance that came with Reconstruction in the state afterward. Genesis Robinson, director of Equal Ground, a community organization dedicated to voter education and empowerment, criticizes the Board’s standards because they designed the curriculum to not discuss the people and systems that inflicted discrimination and prejudice on African-Americans.

Instead, the new curriculum will only be surface level memorization of prominent African-Americans with slim acknowledgment of racism. Some facts have been omitted, like that Florida seceded from the Union, and others have only been mentioned broadly, like the service of Black nurses and soldiers during the Civil War. While there is a focus on the contributions of African-American musicians, astronauts, politicians that contributed to American society, there is not enough detail about the white people and systems in power that tried to hinder this Black progress in society. One Florida teacher expressed their disapproval with the new standards, saying they “present only half the story and half the truth. When we name political figures who worked to end slavery but leave anyone who worked to keep slavery legal nameless, kids are forced to fill in the blanks for themselves.” To not share the full history with Florida students is a disservice to them.

Orlando, Florida where the Board unanimously passed the standards

However, the Board members insist that all sides of history are being discussed. From the side of and supporters of the Board’s decision, Manny Diaz Jr. says that the way African-American history will be taught will be in a more “robust” way and that other states will follow Florida’s example. Director of Communications for the Florida Department of Education Alex Lanfranconi tweeted that Florida is teaching “the good, bad and the ugly of American history” appropriately for kids so that they do not feel responsible for those wrongs. Those in support of parents’ rights, a movement which allows parents to have a more direct voice in their student’s school life. Parents have pushed to have a say in assigned bathroom use to approved textbooks in the library, and most support the history standards too. Board member MaryLynn Magar pushes that all aspects, including the challenging parts, of African-American history is included and recognized as American history.

Governor DeSantis at a 2021 press conference supporting parent’s rights and the Stop WOKE Act

Yet, there is extreme disapproval and critiques from teachers and civil rights organizations, believing this is a dangerous precedent on how marginalized histories are discussed in classrooms. Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar issued in a statement that Florida students should have an education “that equips them to be successful adults who can help heal our nation’s divisions rather than deepen them.” A curriculum has the potential to change people’s reasoning and reflection on America’s history on a societal level. People worry that because America has dark moments in its history, some others do not want that history to be taught. Though, it can be argued that it is a disservice to the students to learn about their country’s history and how it relates to the present. Spar additionally stated that the Board’s move is a “political agenda guaranteed to set good people against one another.”

History, critics believe, is to be taught truthfully in order for the future generation to be better in confronting problems of the present that relate to the past. The President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (the NAACP) responded to the Board, saying “actions by the Florida state government are an attempt to bring our country back to a 19th century America where Black life was not valued, nor our rights protected… our children deserve nothing less than truth, justice, and the equity our ancestors shed blood, sweat, and tears for.” The Board seeks to paint a narrative that celebrates the perseverance of African Americans and their contributions to American society. However, it risks making a one-sided narrative that is romanticized and leaves out horrific conditions, as well as omits those who tried to keep-and continue to keep-African-Americans oppressed and disadvantaged.

Black people protesting the prohibiting of the AP African-American Studies course in the state

In recent years, America has been dealing with the question of who has the power to create a narrative that will be taught to school-age students. The country is at a point where people are reinterpreting the past to be more accurate and inclusive of marginalized histories, and there has been some pushback to better control what is being told at the surface. Supporters of an anti-racist education want students to have access to materials and perspectives that investigate the past to understand why the world is at this point, and develop critical and interdisciplinary thinking. The way a story is told can change based on including, discarding, or downplaying certain facts. Evidently, the U.S. will still be trying to find ways to include and discuss difficult histories in the classroom, and this problem will not be going away anytime soon as other states may, in Florida’s footsteps, change their education laws and policies in how they grapple with America’s history.