A year ago it seemed like every month we learned about a new assault by Ron DeSantis on Florida’s education system. Six months ago it seemed like the assaults came on a weekly basis. These days Florida’s miseducation horrors seem to be coming almost daily. The latest: the Florida Department of Education has approved classroom materials for Florida’s K-12 schools produced by PragerU, an unaccredited conservative non-profit organization known for its anti-immigration theories and downplaying of systemic racism. The curriculum is touted as “PragerU Kids.”
Despite its name, PragerU is not is an accredited academic institution, nor does it issue degrees. It was founded by conservative radio host Dennis Prager. PragerU espouses white conservative Christian nationalist themes. With Florida now becoming the leading state in the country for attacking and degrading education, it should come as no surprise that Florida is the first state in the country to allow this crap in the classroom.
As reported by the Miami New Times:
In PragerU's universe, "there is no gender wage gap" and "the nuclear waste problem is a myth."
With titles such as "Playing the Black Card" and "Blacks in Power Don't Empower Blacks" and a roster of hosts that, in addition to [Candace] Owens, features right-wing personalities Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, and Charlie Kirk, PragerU's videos have tallied more than a billion views.
The Miami New Times notes that PragerU’s lesson on slavery closely mirrors what the DeSantis administration now wants to teach in Florida schools: downplaying the horrors of slavery, claiming that slavery provided “personal benefit” to enslaved people, and “including narratives that emphasize avoiding any specter of racial guilt.”
Introduced in the fifth grade, the very first section on slavery in Florida's Black history curriculum closely mirrors a PragerU segment in which conservative pundit Candace Owens, who is Black, reminds viewers that "slavery was not invented by white people."
"No one, regardless of skin color, stands guiltless," Owens says.
Marvin Dunn, a professor and Black history author, tells the Miami New Times that the approval of PragerU as an educational vendor in Florida is in line with the state's ongoing efforts to infuse public education in Florida with Christian nationalist themes.
In Dunn's view, Florida's new Black history standards are an "invitation to disaster in the classroom."
"We are being told that slavery wasn't that bad, that it was everyplace else, that the slaves didn't have it all that bad," Dunn tells New Times. "I just see this as being extremely chaotic going forward because Black parents are not going to stand for this."
I would hope that ALL parents in Florida would stand up against DeSantis’s attempts to indoctrinate Florida’s students with white Christian nationalist ideology, which also happens to be full of lies and misinformation. So far it’s been crickets, but here’s hoping that changes, or the state could be a goner for good.