TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida Board of Education approved a ban on classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in all grades on Wednesday, expanding the law critics call “Don’t Say Gay” at the request of Gov. Ron DeSantis as he gears up for an expected presidential run.
The proposal will take effect after a procedural notice period that lasts about a month, according to an education department spokesman.
The rule change would ban lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity through 12th grade, unless required by existing state standards or as part of reproductive health instruction that students can choose not to take. Florida currently bans such lessons in kindergarten through third grade.
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I guess if you suppress info about things it will no longer exist?
And that high school students should be naive until they graduate?
I feel for LGBTQ kids and their families/friends in FL.
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I don’t understand the procedures here. I know a law went into effect that banned teaching through 3rd grade, but the Florida BoE can arbitrarily expand it to 12th grade? It seems like another law would be needed to expand it to 12th grade, or maybe the original law wasn’t necessary if the BoE could have implemented the ban through 3rd grade by themselves?
So instruction regarding human sexuality, sexual orientation and gender ID is going to be taught in health/sex Ed classes and probably biology? That’s controversial? Information is being suppressed?
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Just curious what is taught at Hillsdale College? I don’t know - but that’s the goal here in HS, College, everything.
In fact, in TN, we were going to allow Hillsdale to take over the charter schools until the Hillsdale president insulted teachers saying.
REVEALED: Teachers come from ‘dumbest parts of dumbest colleges,’ Tenn. governor’s education advisor tells him
Video reveals Gov. Bill Lee never disputed those comments in joint appearance, instead offering only praise for Larry Arnn’s ‘vision’
It’s relevant to the Florida High Schools - because Desantis is remaking the New College into Hillsdale - and no doubt wants the same with the schools.
Larry Paul Arnn is an American educator and writer. He has served as the twelfth president of private college Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, since May 2000.
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I wonder how US History (or Government?) classes will be able to even mention some SCOTUS cases like Obergefell or Bostock. They are not official reproductive health courses.
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So this ban would mean that teachers can’t have kids line up boy-girl-boy-girl, right? Or is it just some gender identities that are an issue?
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Lots of high school US history courses run out of time around World War II…
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I never heard of those cases before law school
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What about AP Gov? There are at least 10 post-WWII cases on the required learning list, including Brown v Board, which was decided based on the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. When they discuss that in class, they can’t give Obergefell as a recent example of the same legal basis? That just seems to dumb down Florida High Schoolers.
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Sorry, are you referring to Obergefell (2015) and Bostock (2020) cases?
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I think very very few high school courses get around to discussing current cases. There is plenty to say about Brown without discussing this year’s docket 60 years later.
I really don’t care what public schools teach, but given that most 8th graders are not meeting basic reading or math proficiency standards, it would seem best to focus on foundational skills at all grades until we get a baseline level of skills.
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I don’t think they do it now in fear to offend someone who doesn’t feet the profile.
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And yet, there are 2 cases from 2010 on the required list for AP Gov (Citizens United and McDonald v Chicago.)
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As they are 13 years old, I wouldn’t say those are exactly current. Given the importance of Citizens United, I am not surprised to find it in a government course.
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I don’t disagree with the proficiency issues in general, but it seems to go off on a tangent to my point, which is AP Hist and AP Gov teaching. These are not taught to 8th graders. And they are very unlikely to include students with basic reading proficiency issues.
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That seems to imply that students are not proficient in reading because schools are not focusing on foundational skills. Despite the political theater around education, the lack of proficiency is a much more nuanced issue.
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Up a bit by 12th grade. Still well under half. And presumably some of the improvement resulted from low performers dropping out rather than actually learning to read.
I am glad that better performers get additional challenges in the form of AP courses. Those courses can’t cover every imaginable topic. I would rather schools spend their limited political, financial and social capital on less controversial topics that seem way more urgent to me than engage in this fight.
We ask too much of public schools to serve as educators, counselors, nurses, nutritionists, social workers and now gender identity specialists.
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How is this action anything other than deliberately targeting certain children and families for pain, when these children and families do absolutely no harm to the people around them? It makes me sick to my stomach.
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The cruelty is the point.
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