Florida education leaders on Thursday approved a set of principles that would teach a conservative-backed vision of the United States.
The State Board of Education, which also approved social-studies changes intended to highlight ideological evils of communism, signed off on Florida becoming the first state to adopt the Heritage Foundation’s “Phoenix Declaration: An American Vision for Education.”
The declaration is a statement of principles described as fostering “a love of country,” teaching children to “seek the good, true and beautiful” and aiming for students to “achieve their full, God-given potential.”
Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas said the declaration establishes an “affiliation” with the Heritage Foundation and promotes what the board supports rather than what it opposes.
“We often call out what is problematic in education, pushing an ideology over indoctrination, whether that's the instruction of sexual orientation and gender identity in elementary schools or divisive concepts like critical race theory and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) that treats people differently based on the way God created them,” Kamoutsas said. “Well, this talks about what we want to see. We want to see parents empowered. We want to see curriculum, transparency, we want to see academic excellence in all of our students.”
'Indoctrination' or being 'for something'?
The Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation has a stated mission of building and promoting conservative public policies. Critics addressing the education board Thursday described the Heritage Foundation declaration as promoting indoctrination.
Marihelen Wheeler, a retired teacher from Alachua County, said the state should increase teacher pay before adding to their work.
“Talk to teachers about what you're discussing now,” Wheeler said. “I don't know how often you include teachers, but you've got to do it because you're not going to be able to keep Florida teachers with this kind of addition to the teacher’s load.”
Board of Education Chairman Ryan Petty suggested the declaration can unite people and that “it’s important to be for something.”
“We shouldn't allow ideologies to take over and replace their version of truth with objective truth,” Petty added.
The declaration lists a series of principles such as parents being the primary educators of their children and public education money always following the children.
The principles also call for:
- Schools to be fully transparent with parents.
- Schools to prioritize proven teaching methods “rooted in foundational subjects over fads or experimental teaching methods.”
- Education to be “grounded in objective truth, free from ideological fads,” while also being focused on “America’s founding principles and roots in the broader Western and Judeo-Christian traditions.”
- Students to be prepared for challenges and responsibilities of adulthood and taught “the whole truth about America -- its merits and failings -- without obscuring that America is a great source of good in the world.”
Anti-Communism instruction
Also Thursday, the board approved new standards tied to a 2024 law (SB 1264) that requires instruction on the history of communism.
Among other things, students will be asked to compare the Communist Manifesto and the Bill of Rights; communist and socialist thought; the effects of anti-communists on American communism between 1917 and 1956; the harm done by communist espionage; and the roles of anti-communist politicians, including the late President Harry Truman, the late President Richard Nixon, the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee, and the late U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
While at the Freedom Tower in Miami last Friday to mark Victims of Communism Day, Gov. Ron DeSantis said that, while America won the Cold War, the communist ideology hasn’t gone away.
“It comes back and it's repackaged, and they try to do it under various different banners. And so you have to understand what's at stake here,” DeSantis said.
“I think it's important to talk about it in a very clear-eyed way, the destruction, the lives of 100 million dead at the hands of Marxism, Leninism,” DeSantis said. “But I think it's also important that we just recognize the whole absurdity of it all, of the whole idea of communism and Marxism, Leninism.”
