Diaz affirms Florida will implement new African American history standards amid criticisms

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (FLV) – Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. sent a letter to Florida superintendents to “reaffirm” the implementation of African American history standards following recent criticism.

Vice President Kamala Harris, among other Democrats, have been criticizing a part in the standards that stated instruction would include “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

Diaz said the vice president and U.S. Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona “have intentionally misrepresented our groundbreaking work.”

“I am issuing this memo to reaffirm that we will be moving forward with implementing Florida’s new history standards,” Diaz said.

Diaz said despite the “partisan and inaccurate criticism” they have received, Florida’s new standards “promote the teaching of accurate, detailed, and nuanced history free from political sanitation or indoctrination.”

The adoption of a standalone strand of African American History standards is a first for Florida, the press release stated.

The rules update Florida state academic standards in social studies for African American history to align with changes from HB 7 during the 2022 Legislative Session.

Diaz said the standards build off of their “continued efforts since 2019 to teach our students unbiased African American history.”

He noted the effort has included the adoption of standards to teach about the Ocoee Massacre, the “brutal injustices of slavery,” and a “robust focus on the civil rights movement.”

The department established an African American History workgroup to draft proposed standards.

The workgroup consisted of 13 Florida education stakeholders, including Florida teachers from around the state, and nominees from the Commissioner of Education’s African American History Taskforce.

Diaz said they utilized a “rigorous process,” and they “couldn’t be happier with the results.”

“The standards are supported by historical accounts of African Americans, including slaves and their immediate descendants,” Diaz said.

Diaz said they are “not turning our backs on the great work of the African American History workgroup.”

“We will implement these standards swiftly, transparently, and honesty,” he wrote. “I recommend you instruct the appropriate administrators and educators in your district to begin reviewing their lesson plans to ensure they build out adequate time to teach these African American History standards. It will accrue to the benefit of our students.”

Following the Board of Education’s vote to adopt new African American history standards, the vice president quickly took a trip to Jacksonville.

“They [Florida leaders] want to replace history with lies,” Harris said during a speech Friday.

“Middle school students in Florida, to be told that enslaved people benefited from slavery. High schoolers may be taught that victims of violence of massacres were also perpetrators,” Harris said.

DeSantis pushed back after Harris’s comments, saying the vice president came down to Florida “very quickly” to “spew this hoax.”

The governor criticized Harris for not traveling to the border. DeSantis recently visited the border in Arizona and announced a coalition of sheriffs that are working to stop the border crisis’ effects at the local level because the federal government “has failed in its responsibilities.”

“She wasn’t going down to the border to actually do the job there to secure it. She wasn’t working on all the cities that are decaying because of Soros-backed prosecutors […] No, she’s here to try to push a fake narrative about what Florida did,” DeSantis said.

The creators of the school standards previously responded and said it’s “disappointing” that people are criticizing the newly-approved guidelines “without context.”

“The intent of this particular benchmark clarification is to show that some slaves developed highly specialized trades from which they benefitted,” the creators said. “This is factual and well documented.”