I have made the case that Ron DeSantis is moving toward a more modest foreign policy similar to the Weinberger doctrine and that GOP governors are leading an economic revolution resulting in lower unemployment and job creations.
Now the next stage is revolution in education. Yes, there are two sides to this revolution, beginning with what is being taught in the classroom and the second is school choice. The fight over DeSantis curriculum in Florida is significant since the curriculum was designed by bipartisan group of scholars including many Black scholars tell the truth about the evil of slavery while eschewing the less accurate 1619 projects and Critical Race Theory. It is the most significant and if DeSantis is forced to retreat or the GOP fails to defend this, the leftist will be allowed to indoctrinate American children about our history. In Florida, the teacher union were invited to participate in its development but refuse, leaving them open to outright lie about the final product along with many Democrats. Meanwhile, many in the GOP using this issue against DeSantis and are simply surrendering to the leftist agenda and questioning their mettle in combatting the administrative state and the left.
Charles Cooke noted about the curriculum, “ If you are able to read it and conclude that the single reference to slaves developing skills (which I’ve bolded) is indicative of the narrative direction of the course, rather than a tiny (and correct) part of it, then you are beyond saving and you deserve to live your life as an ignoramus. There is simply no way of perusing this course and concluding that its “gaslights” people or whitewashes slavery. Among many, many other things, it includes sections on “the conditions for Africans during their passage to America”; “the living conditions of slaves in British North American colonies, the Caribbean, Central America and South America, including infant mortality rates”; “the harsh conditions and their consequences on British American plantations (e.g., undernourishment, climate conditions, infant and child mortality rates of the enslaved vs. the free)”; “the harsh conditions in the Caribbean plantations (i.e., poor nutrition, rigorous labor, disease)”; “how the South tried to prevent slaves from escaping and their efforts to end the Underground Railroad”; the “overwhelming death rates” caused by the practice; the many ways in which “Africans resisted slavery”; “the ramifications of prejudice, racism and stereotyping on individual freedoms”; and “the struggles faced by African American women in the 19th century as it relates to issues of suffrage, business and access to education.” Many of these modules apply to Florida specifically.” Cooke is right that this course does not teach that slavery was good for Black people but the complete opposite. I want to know how many critics of this curriculum have actually read the curriculum. I have.
To defeat this curriculum is the left goal so they can move on indoctrination of students as opposed to truth. John Hinderaker recently showed how many students have a false impression of America as he noted, “A case in point: American college students think their country is going downhill. Not in the ways it actually is going downhill, but in the ways it is not.
This was the question:
Based on what you have learned in college so far, do you think that life in the United States has generally been getting better or worse over the last 50 years (considering issues such as life expectancy, income per person, and level of education)?
The students obviously have not learned any history:
The survey finds nearly 60% of students think life in America has gotten worse or stayed the same over the last 50 years.
Only 41% correctly understand it has overall gotten better over the last five decades.
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Let us look at those metrics.
In 1973, 50 years ago, US life expectancy was 71.4 years, per the World Bank. In 2020, it was 77.3 years. By any objective measure, which is a huge improvement.
In the same vein, average income per person has significantly improved since 1973.
To accurately compare across time and account for inflation, we can look at income with all figures adjusted to reflect, say, 2015 dollars. When we do that, we see income per person in America rose from $28,114 to $66,866 over the last 50 years.
Yep — it is more than doubled.”
John Hinderaker concluded, “No doubt these students also have no idea that billions of people worldwide have been lifted out of poverty by the transition from socialism up to free enterprise. I seriously think the country would be better off if fewer of our young people went to college. And it would be much better if young people were getting a decent basic education through high school, as they once did, in which case the remedial function that most colleges now play (badly) would be unnecessary. But that is looking like a pipe dream, for now.”
The second revolution was in promoting school choice as a state just as Iowa has promoted school choice. So far, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, and Utah have joined Arizona and West Virginia in making families eligible for education savings accounts. This revolution was given momentum during the Pandemic as many public schools were closed and many parents simply moved their children out. Another aspect is the radicalization of the teacher unions. For many Republicans, the teacher union has a leading supporter of the Democratic Party in both manpower for get out the vote campaign and donations. Allowing parents more of say where their children go to school or have a say in what is being taught in the classroom is the revolution that many Republican governors are leading.
The Donelson Files 