Florida Board of Education passes new standards, requirements for African American History
ORLANDO, Fla. (FLV) – The Florida Board of Education passed new rules and standards for African American History in schools Wednesday.
Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. noted the standards include “tougher subjects,” along with beginnings of the slave trade, Jim Crow laws and more.
“If anyone takes the time to actually look at the standards, you can see that everything is covered,” Diaz said.
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.
“From elementary school where we start talking about those who have been prominent African Americans and as age appropriate, we go into some of the tougher subjects, all the way into the beginnings of the slave trade, Jim Crow laws, civil rights movement, everything that occurred throughout our history,” Diaz said.
HAPPENING NOW: Florida State Board of Education is meeting to pass new rules and standards for African American history
— Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceNews) July 19, 2023
"If anyone takes the time to actually look at the standards, you can see that everything is covered." – @SenMannyDiazJr pic.twitter.com/EwhoA5iAgn
Diaz said the standards are a “robust curriculum” that had a process, including a public comment that produced over 90% positive comments, and a lot of the comments were about “typos.”
The proposed standards also included identifying African Americans who demonstrated “heroism and patriotism,” and those who made “positive contributions” in Florida.
Some examples of those who have demonstrated heroism and patriotism according to the standards included Booker T. Washington, Jesse Owens, Tuskegee Airmen, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, President Barack Obama, 1st Lt. Vernon Baker, Sgt. 1st Class, and Melvin Morris.
The standards also noted African American who were pioneers in their field, which included former President Barack Obama, Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Justice Clarence Thomas, Representative Shirley Chisholm, Arthur Ashe, and Ronald McNair.
Instruction includes the ramifications of prejudice, racism and stereotyping on individual freedoms (ex. the Civil Rights Cases, Black Codes, Jim Crow Laws, lynchings, Columbian Exposition of 1893).
Other instruction includes acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans but is not limited to 1906 Atlanta Race Riot, 1919 Washington, D.C. Race Riot, 1920 Ocoee Massacre, 1921 Tulsa Massacre and the 1923 Rosewood Massacre.
To see a full list of instruction and topics, click here.
“We really pride ourselves on the high quality state academic standards that we have for our students, and the rigorous process that we used to develop these standards,” said Dr. Paul Burns, deputy chancellor for educator quality.
Many members of the public spoke out in opposition of the rules, some citing lack of “fullness” of standards.
Elizabeth Albert, an elementary school teacher from Volusia County and president of the Volusia United Educators, asked the board to amend the rules.
“I’m here today to speak up for the freedom of Florida’s children to learn the full and complete history of Florida and the United States,” Albert said.
Albert said Florida’s current social studies standards do a “good job,” but she believes that’s not the case for the current African American history standards.
“These standards kindergarten through fourth grade simply ask our students to recognize and identify -which as a teacher we focus on the verb in the standards and these are the lowest level of cognitive rigor,” Albert explained.
Albert said the standards “do not build on each other, nor do they become more complex as students move through each grade level in the same way that the civics, American history, geography and economic standards do in our elementary schools.”
State Reps. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, and Rita Harris, D-Orlando brought up concerns of part of the standards.
“I am very concerned by the standards, especially some of the notion that you know, enslaved people benefited from being enslaved, is inaccurate and a scary standard for us to establish in our educational curriculum,” Eskamani said.
On page six of the document, Clarification 1 states instruction includes “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
Dr. Burns spoke before the vote and addressed the comments and said the standards “do not teach that slavery was beneficial.”
“I do want to just be clear that our standards do not teach that slavery was beneficial. Our standards don’t do that. Our standards are as I stated of the offset, our standards are factual, objective standards that really teach the good, the bad and the ugly, and so I just wanted to make sure that I clarified that this morning before the board took a vote,” Dr. Burns said.
Following the 2022 law, HB 7, 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.
The vote also included an additional rule updated the health education standards to align with recent state initiatives.
The department also created four new social studies courses in financial literacy to meet the new graduation requirements from SB 1054, from the 2022 legislative session.
