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Florida has released a new U.S. History course for high school students that aims to provide a conservative alternative to Advanced Placement courses — the latest attack on public education in the state by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Though students across the country take Advanced Placement courses for college credit — with over half a million U.S. high school students doing so last year — Florida is now developing an alternative, state-based framework called the Florida Advanced Courses and Tests (FACT). These courses can provide students with college credit in Florida colleges and universities.
Over the last three years, DeSantis and his administration have railed against Advanced Placement courses, arguing that academic exploration of racism and inequality in U.S. history pushes a “woke” political agenda. In a statement on the new U.S. history course, the Florida Department of Education wrote that FACT courses “are designed to provide alternatives to existing options like Advanced Placement that consistently embed Critical Race Theory and DEI into materials.” In reality, critical race theory is a legal framework that is predominantly taught in law schools, not Advanced Placement courses for high school students.
Ryan Petty, DeSantis’s appointed chair of the Florida State Board of Education, said the “FACT U.S. History framework provides a thorough and balanced study of our nation’s past” and “represents an important step toward restoring academic integrity in the classroom after years of uneven and, at times, ideologically driven instruction.”
But the U.S. History course, which will begin in the fall, will put forward a specifically patriotic version of U.S. history. Its sole recommended textbook, “Land of Hope,” by conservative Wilfred McClay, has been described as an “antidote” to Howard Zinn’s seminal A People’s History of the United States. Zinn’s A People’s History provides a bottom-up approach that focuses on the struggles of Indigenous, Black, and other marginalized groups throughout U.S. history; it is used in many classrooms across the country but is effectively excluded from Florida schools due to DeSantis’s regulations. In an interview about his textbook, McClay described Zinn’s People’s History as “simplistic melodrama.”
The new Florida U.S. History course focuses on “American civilization, as well as its deep roots in English and, more broadly, Western civilization.”
The curriculum framework claims that the founding fathers were “opposed to slavery and wished to see it abolished,” and discusses how enslaved people “contributed” to “building historic homes” and “constructing thousands of miles of railroad tracks” as if they were not forced to under the punishment of the whip. It makes heavy references to the Bible and Christianity and refers to a U.S. tradition of “progressive imperialism” that is “destined to uplift barbarous peoples and help them develop into functioning civilizations.”
The creation of this course is only the latest maneuver in DeSantis’s attacks on public education.
On May 1, DeSantis signed two education bills targeting teacher unions in Florida and encouraging the use of his new Florida Advanced Courses system. Senate Bill 1296 requires a larger share of union membership support and activity to maintain public sector unions, enabling the decertification of unions that lack this — affecting teacher unions but also nurses and other government workers. House Bill 1279, while giving school districts flexibility in rewarding high performing teachers in low-performing schools outside of the collective bargaining process, also ensures that teachers of Florida Advanced Courses can receive the same bonuses as those teaching Advanced Placement courses.
DeSantis wrote on X that “time and again partisan school unions have shown that they do not act in the best interests of the teachers they purport to represent, let alone the best interests of students,” and said that he “was proud to sign legislation to hold unions accountable and to reward the educators who go above and beyond to inspire students across Florida.”
Last year, Florida put forward a new curriculum that requires Florida middle and high school students to study the history of communism, adopting a framework put forward by the right-wing Heritage Foundation. The curriculum expands on Florida’s annual “Victims of Communism Day,” established in 2022, which requires schools to instruct on “the horrors of communism” annually. The Heritage Foundation also developed restrictions of topics for Florida’s education system, prohibiting teachers from teaching about systemic and institutional racism, sexual orientation, gender identity, or related topics.
Florida has championed a right-wing educational agenda, and, without significant pushback, its policies could serve as a model for other states.
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