Florida bill bars ‘identity politics’ from educator prep programs

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – A Florida Senate committee passed a bill Thursday aimed to make sure educator preparation programs do not teach “identity politics” or “distort historical events,” among other items.

SB 1372 is being carried by Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, in the Senate. A similar bill, HB 1291, is being carried in the House by Rep. John Snyder, R-Stuart.

The bill modifies requirements for courses and instruction in initial teacher preparation programs, educator preparation institutes, and school leadership programs.

The bill says that the programs may not “distort historical events, teach identity politics, violate Florida law regarding discrimination, or base such courses or instruction on specified theories,” according to the bill’s analysis.

The courses must afford teacher candidates the opportunity to “think critically, achieve mastery of academic content, learn instructional strategies, and demonstrate competence.”

Ingoglia said the bill does not forbid colleges and universities from teaching educators how to teach to diverse populations.

“In fact, that is very important,” he said. “Understanding kids come from different backgrounds is very different from teaching theories on why a set of children are not succeeding, while others are.”

Ingoglia said it is “crucial” to provide educators with “the chance to think critically and learn effective instructional strategies and techniques that will prove the education of all children and make it better for them and not perpetuate the idea that any one child is any less capable than their peers.”

Ingoglia said some of the course reading materials focus on the importance of teaching critical race theory.

“We all sit back and we wonder how do we get to this place where you had an uprising of people pushing back against some of these teachings in schools, and a lot of people saying it didn’t exist, but the course curriculum, the syllabus themselves, prove that it exists,” Ingoglia said.

Ingoglia was asked for examples of educators teaching identity politics and showed a binder which he said has at least 80 or 90 examples of course goals or reading materials on the topics.

Multiple people spoke against the bill during public comment, including a representative from the American Civil Liberties Union.

“This government censorship bill, like several other unconstitutional censorship bills from prior sessions, prohibits the teaching, discussing and learning about topics related to identity politics, systemic racism, sexism and oppression in teacher training programs,” the ACLU representative said.

The ACLU representative said the bill “extends the same unconstitutional ‘stop woke’ prohibitions to teacher preparation programs.”

The bill has one more committee stop in the Senate.