Many of you are surely already aware of the crapshow that Ron DeSantis and his fascist minions have caused in Florida around teaching the AP Psychology course — part of DeSantis’s ongoing assault against education in the state, as he tries to insert homophobia, racism, sexism and anti-wokeness (whatever that is) into the state’s education system. Well, the crapshow continues.
As a quick refresher, in June the DeSantis administration demanded that the College Board remove the sections of the AP Psychology course related to sexual orientation and gender identity for the course that is taught in Florida. Learning from its disastrous handling of the AP African American Studies course, where the College Board appeared to be whitewashing Black history to appease DeSantis, the College Board didn’t back down and refused to make any changes to the course for Florida, noting that the Florida Department of Education “effectively banned” the AP Psych course in the state.
The FLDOE disputed the claim that it had banned the AP Psych course. But FLDOE Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. caused more confusion last week when he wrote a letter saying that AP Psychology could be taught in Florida “in a manner that is age and developmentally appropriate.” Diaz’s letter just brought more confusion, and as a result most of the state’s largest school districts decided to drop the AP Psychology course.
But it appears that DeSantis and his fascist klan got an earful from educators, parents and students and has now reversed course. Yesterday Diaz sent out a memo to Florida school districts saying, essentially, nevermind.
In his Wednesday memo, Diaz wrote that he thought he had been clear enough previously.
“But I want to make sure there is no room for misinterpretation,” he continued. “It is the Department of Education’s stance that the learning target 6.P ‘Describe how sex and gender influence socialization and other aspects of development,’ within Topic 6.7, can be taught consistent with Florida law.”
Yeah right, Diaz has absolutely no idea why people thought he wasn’t clear enough previously about this. But it appears that the latest move by Diaz is too little, too late, since the Florida school year starts, um, today. Many school districts have already decided to switch to similar courses taught by Cambridge International or International Baccalaureate (but since these courses apparently don’t include issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity is seems to me that they are “lesser” courses, and AP is still the gold standard).
In what is a clear pattern for DeSantis and other fascist MAGA Republicans, their fever dreams of using racism, homophobia and sexism to gain political advantage run up against the realities of the world we live in and the reality that the majority of the people in this country disagree with where they are trying to take our country. And the mess that results is entirely of their own making.
Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association teachers union, said he was pleased to see the commissioner’s letter appeared to answer the questions that kept districts from continuing with the Advanced Placement course.
“It seems like (the state) is backtracking, and rightfully so,” Spar said. “They shouldn’t have put us in this position in the first place.”
He suggested that any effort by the state to sow confusion over the course and the law relating to instruction about gender identity seemed to be overwhelmed by public discontent over the situation that developed.
“I think (Diaz) started seeing all the pushback from parents and (chose) to be clear,” Spar said. “There was no way to get out of this.”
Lesson for the College Board and everyone else: you can stand up for your values and principles and win against the MAGA mob. It’s really not that difficult.