New academic standards for teaching Black history in Florida draws fire from teachers, others
MIAMI -- A decision by the State Board of Education to approve new academic standards for instruction about African American history has ignited a firestorm of criticism about the changes, including from numerous teachers who have objected to the revisions.
"We're very outraged and angered about the attacks that continue to attack Black people and the future of our children in Florida," said Miami-Dade NAACP President Daniella Pierre.
She did not hold back while talking about the Florida Department of Education's new academic standards for teaching about African-American history in Florida schools.
"We need to teach the truth, not re write history to make some feel comfortable," she said.
Under the new standards, "Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit."
"To say that there was a perceived benefit from those who were enslaved is an unfair and unjust thing to say, people who, during that time suffered, horribly. They were brutalized, attacked," Pierre said.
"(It) seems to dilute the moral repugnance of slavery with some real specious argumentation steeped in some facts," said Richard Judd, who has taught social studies in Broward Schools for the last 23 years. "It's actually harkening back to a way history was told and slavery explained really through the late 1800's in the process of rebuilding in America after a civil war that was divisive."
Meanwhile, Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. pushed back on assertions by groups such as the Florida Education Association teachers union and the NAACP Florida State Conference that the standards "omit or rewrite key historical facts about the Black experience" and ignore state law about required instruction.
Diaz defended the standards, while commending a workgroup involved in developing the curriculum and the Department of Education's African American History Task Force."
"As age-appropriate, we go into some of the tougher subjects, all the way into the beginnings of the slave trade, Jim Crow laws, the Civil Rights movement and everything that occurred throughout our history," Diaz said.
The new standards are designed to guide lessons from kindergarten through high school.
For example, the kindergarten standards focus on teaching students about important historical figures.
"Recognize African American inventors and explorers (i.e., Lonnie Johnson [inventor], Mae C. Jemison, George Washington Carver)," the kindergarten standards require.
One part of the high-school standards directs students to describe "the contributions of Africans to society, science, poetry, politics, oratory, literature, music, dance, Christianity and exploration in the United States from 1776-1865."
"These new standards 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," said Carol Cleaver, an Escambia County science teacher.
State Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, pointed to part of the middle-school standards that would require instruction to include "how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit."
"I am very concerned by these standards, especially ... the notion that enslaved people benefited from being enslaved. It's inaccurate and a scary standard for us to establish in our educational curriculum," Eskamani said.
Rep. Rita Harris, D-Orlando, pointed to the same part of the standards and called it "such an insult."
Sen. Geraldine Thompson, D-Windermere, referred to her time as a teacher and college administrator as she criticized the proposal.
"If I were still a professor, I would do what I did very infrequently - I'd have to give this a grade of 'I' (for) incomplete," Thompson said.
The NAACP said it will continue to fight against these new standards with petitions and legal challenges as well as working with local school boards.