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Seminole parents are right to fight book bans
Attendees in a crowded chamber room wave cards of support for a speaker during the public comment portion of a meeting of the Seminole County School Board in Sanford on Tuesday evening, September 19, 2023. Many of the speakers were commenting on the subject of book bans. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)
By Robin Dehlinger |
September 24, 2023 at 5:30 a.m.
I was encouraged as I listened to the many individuals who attended the Seminole County Public Schools Board meeting last week to provide their supportive comments against book bans. Parents and residents of the county, along with people from other parts of the state, rallied to support our public schools, teachers, and leaders, as they spoke out. Their remarks were in stark contrast to the organized effort by Moms for Liberty to challenge books they do not like. My hope is that our community will continue to publicly speak in support of our public schools. They recognize a good thing when they see it, and Seminole’s schools consistently rise to the top in the state of Florida and the United States.
The Florida Constitution states the education of children is a fundamental value of the people of the state of Florida and Florida statutes require the opportunity for students to obtain a high-quality education. This is realized by the professionalism and expertise of Seminole’s teachers, and school and district leaders, and evidence of their commitment to helping all students achieve their potential.
Regardless of any narrative suggesting otherwise, parents have always played a critical role in their children’s education, including their right to supervise and monitor their children’s academic and social experiences in public school. The idea that “parental rights” is a new thing is ludicrous.
But no one individual should make decisions about what another person, including students, should read. Parents who do not want their children to have access to a particular book through their school or classroom library can opt out of that access. This has always been the case. However, every parent should have the same freedom to allow their children to access books based on what they deem appropriate for their children.
No one believes that every book, regardless of content, should be available to children. Material that is not appropriate for K-12 students should be carefully evaluated through a transparent process, such as was explained by the director of instructional materials in her presentation at the School Board meeting last week. The process for a parent or resident to challenge materials or books is outlined in policy, as required by Florida statute. School districts should closely follow their board approved policy and not defer to the demands of any one individual or group choosing to operate outside of the policy.
Diverse texts serve an important academic role. With guidance from their teachers, they allow students to engage in conversations that require critical thinking. If age-appropriate books that would expose students to challenging topics are prohibited, students miss opportunities to understand the perspectives of others and to think deeply about ideas that have relevance to their lives. Seminole County Public Schools is known nationally for the achievements of its students. Parents and residents should remain outspoken in support of the school board and superintendent as they continue the work that has made Seminole County Public Schools an A rated school district 22 times.
Robin Dehlinger is the retired assistant superintendent of Seminole County Public Schools.
The Florida League Speaks About the Assault on Public Education
The Florida Sun Sentinel just published this article written by the co-presidents and Education Chair of the Florida League of Women Voters. When the Board speaks, you know there is reason for everyone to be concerned. There is a “Deliberate assault on public education and minorities” by our legislature.
What appears to be regular school operations — adopting instructional materials from state-approved book lists, updating standards and reviewing library and classroom materials — is anything but routine. Behind the scenes, political operatives (our legislators) are busily transforming Florida’s public education system from an institution committed to educating all students to their fullest potential, to one where racism saturates the very core of instructional practices, where only white children will be respected and encouraged.
There are deliberate and systematic efforts to use Florida’s public education system to undermine
Black and brown marginalized populations. Consider the evidence:
- Approving the African American History Strand in Florida’s 2023 Social Studies Standards that includes numerous false narratives. One particularly troublesome to historians is the curriculum guide’s statement that children will learn “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” Another teaches students that some racially motivated massacres were “perpetrated against and by African Americans.” Forbidding accurate history by banning school lessons that make people “uncomfortable” about the actions of their forefathers. History will be whitewashed. White children cannot learn about or discuss their ancestors’ wrongdoings.
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Retracting AP African American History for students because the governor thinks it “lacks value and historical accuracy,” again keeping Florida’s students from truthful accounts.
Eliminating programs dedicated to achieving diversity, equity or inclusion. These further one’s ability to communicate and collaborate with individuals from different backgrounds, show empathy, or recognize personal biases. Elimination implies minorities don’t have to be understood or respected. -
Mandating removal of books from classrooms and school libraries discussing the cultures of nonwhite persons. When literature recounting experiences faced by marginalized groups is unavailable, their challenges can be minimized or even trivialized.
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Removing Social Emotional Learning (SEL) from Florida’s approved curricula, a program that develops self-awareness and resilience, thus improving marginalized persons’ chances to succeed.
Considered individually, each of these minority-targeted restrictions might be seen as simply ill-conceived. But in their totality, they are better understood as a deliberate assault on goals of public schools and minority children attending them, who represent 64% of Florida’s public-school population. We must ask: What happens when a state builds its public-school system on a foundation of racist misrepresentations? -
When possibilities are blocked, despair and distrust can replace optimism. With DEI training banned, teachers know less about the experiences and culture of minority populations that would facilitate positive interactions. Cultural misunderstanding abounds, and Black students, representing only 22% of public-school enrollment in 2019-2020, comprised 37% of in-school suspensions and are disproportionately subject to out-of-school suspensions and expulsions.
Although legislation denied their children culturally relevant literature, parents may have believed that history lessons would compensate and introduce their children to powerful minority role models who fought for justice. But textbook publishers have revised their content to satisfy Florida’s efforts to whitewash history. The 2023 Social Studies Standards omit Florida’s role in slavery. They mention racism and prejudice but not Floridians’ Jim Crow laws. Concerned about public schools’ treatment of their children, many African American parents are transferring their children out of public schools, accountable for student achievement, and into private schools not answerable to Florida’s Department of Education. In 2023, 47% of Florida’s private school attendees were minority students; more than 33% of these were of African American descent. -
Racist public-school legislation is also economically costly for many public-school children, their communities and the state. Marginalized public-school students whose families have taught them honest history, rejecting ideas that slavery wasn’t so bad or that their ancestors were partly to blame for the 1920 massacre in Ocoee, won’t be motivated to learn from texts that are irrelevant or untruthful, where characters don’t look like them or where experiences depicted bear little resemblance to their own lives, and this will have a cascading effect.
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Many of these students will be unprepared for standardized tests based on these racist standards, triggering reductions in Florida’s public-school ratings and declines in home values. Fewer minority Floridians will seek advanced degrees, thus diminishing talent pools for critical jobs, dissuading businesses from Florida. They won’t be motivated to vote, believing it would just further empower their oppressors, or know the potential power of their vote to strip racism from public schools. They will not believe that losing their right to vote will make any difference in their lives. Through truthful history and literature, they will learn otherwise. This is what we must teach.
Cecile M. Scoon and Debbie Chandler serve as co-presidents of the League of Women Voters of Florida. Jill Lewis-Spector serves as the organization’s second vice president and statewide education chair.
Betsy DeVos was a disaster. Erika Donalds could be worse.
Remember when the first Classical Charter school in Florida was founded in Collier County? Now there are several, but their reach is expanding nationwide. Their founder, Erika Donalds, was recently extolled by Donald Trump at a Moms for Liberty rally. Mother Jones magazine, founded in 1976, has put the spotlight on Donalds. You can learn about her history, issues, and associations here. Donalds is likely to be a major spokesperson for abolishing the Florida constitutional provision requiring the separation of church and state in the public funding of religious charter schools. The attacks on public education have been relentless. Do we really want our schools to be dominated by particular ideologies? Shouldn’t public schools welcome children of all faiths and ethnicities? Should public tax dollars fund private, religious schools?
Charter School Achievement: Fact or Fallacy?
The Network for Public Education’s (NPE) review of the latest CREDO report on charter schools is a must read. Here’s the NPE introduction:
‘In Fact or Fallacy? An In-Depth Critique of the CREDO 2023 National Report’ is an honest, well-researched response to the CREDO report that digs in and unearths the bias in CREDO methodology, reporting methods, and conclusions. NPE also traces the history of CREDO, which is housed in the conservative pro-school choice Hoover Institution, a connection that CREDO no longer reveals.
Below you can watch CREDO Director Margaret Raymond, the study’s author, praise Betsy De Vos while acknowledging her own role at Hoover.
In our NPE report, we dig into CREDO funding and summarize past critiques by scholars. And we prove that in the past, CREDO referred to the same average results in the growth of test scores as “inconsequential,” “small,” or “possibly the result of error” when the differences of the same size favored public schools.
Perhaps most important, we demonstrate the large error in their CMO list, identifying some large low-quality for-profit chains that were left off.
Please be sure to read and share our report on social media. It is time for the media and policymakers to ask:
Whose interests does CREDO really represent? The public or its funders? Read our report and decide for yourself.
Click here for a short video overview of the report.
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