Of course it's Flor-i-daaaaaaaaaaa

Florida sticks by social studies standard teaching ‘benefit’ of slavery

The updated standards include new required instruction surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks and the history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, as well as several other more subtle changes.

By ANDREW ATTERBURY

The Florida Board of Education approved several tweaks Wednesday to the state’s standards for teaching social studies, but left intact controversial pieces on Black history that sparked widespread backlash last year.

The updated standards include new required instruction surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks and the history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, as well as several other more subtle changes. Opponents, though, including Florida’s largest teachers union and free speech advocates, slammed the state for sticking by its “warped” telling of Black history.

Black history: Florida’s new teaching standards include the same language that scored national blowback last year for requiring middle school students to learn “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

Critics, including Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), urged the state to reconsider that language. And others criticized the state’s phrasing on crucial lessons surrounding the 1920 Ocoee massacre and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, which are labeled as violence perpetrated “against and by” African Americans.

But these lessons went unchanged, triggering further objection Wednesday from the Florida Education Association teachers union and free speech advocacy group PEN America, among others.

“It still refers to slavery as having a potential benefit,” Andrew Spar, president of the FEA, said during the state board meeting in Miami. “And that is a concern, as well as making sure that our students have a complete and honest history around both the African American experience and all experiences in our country.”

Civics: In one change, the state is requiring students to learn about the influences of ancient Jewish traditions on the founding of the United States as a constitutional republic.

While the tweak adds only one word — the study of “Jewish” civilizations alongside Greek and Roman history already entrenched in the lesson plan — it is giving pause to some religious freedom groups.

One organization, the Florida Freedom to Read Foundation, claims the addition could lead to schools teaching about the Ten Commandments, and that standard is “mandating that teachers expound on the Founding Fathers’ Christian faith and how that might have played into their framing of the Constitution.”

Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. defended how the state teaches civics during Wednesday’s meeting, saying students need to “understand clearly how the country was founded” and the issue is “not to be confused with religious freedom.”

“We are not going to back away from the founding of this country and the principles that it was founded under,” Diaz said.

More changes: Florida schools under the new standards are required to teach students specific lessons about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in middle and high school.

For high school, the standards call on students to “compare global responses to terrorism” after the attacks and examine other terrorist attacks like the Oklahoma City bombing. These lessons are meant to lead students to “recognize terrorism as being politically or ideologically driven acts of violence.”

Another change requires high schools to teach about the history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, giving specific attention to the history of Japanese internment camps and the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.