Former educator: DeSantis' impact on education as dangerous as dreaded citrus disease

As a retired Florida public school educator and an advocate for strong public schools, I am alarmed at the harm our governor is causing to our education systems. His strong impact is eroding trust and respect for our dedicated, professional educators. He rails against the teaching of diversity and social-emotional learning, even though it was a required component that he and the first lady touted when he first took office in the wake of the Parkland school shootings.

He also wants to shut down our teacher unions and ultimately dismantle public schools, under the guise of “school choice."

Our teachers help students learn to be critical thinkers and consider multiple historical (factual) perspectives, essential skills for an informed citizenry. Florda’s ban on progressive practices politicizes social justice and rejects historical accuracy. By promoting this ban, Ron DeSantis is misleading teachers, schools, parents and citizens.

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It isn’t critical race theory as he proclaims. It doesn’t pit different races against each other or make young people feel responsible for racial oppression. Contrary to the governor’s premise, educators aren’t teaching students to hate. However, it is important to teach all our children about our state and nation’s history — the good, the bad and the ugly.

In fact, before Florida was touted as the Sunshine State, it had a dark, painful past that’s been whitewashed, marginalized and buried intentionally. Examples: Over 300 black people were lynched here between 1877 and 1950. The Groveland Four were on trial for rape in the 1940s and Thurgood Marshall (then attorney for the NAACP) played a significant role in that historic civil rights case.

DeSantis’ prestigious education included Yale and Harvard, so he has been given the opportunity to be a seeker and purveyor of truth. But instead, he seems to be willfully ignorant as he pursues more power and political clout. As governor of our diverse state, he would be wise to learn about the work of University of Florida professor Paul Ortiz — author of “An African American and Latinx History of the United States.”

Did DeSantis and other Florida political leaders ever learn about World War II veterans not being eligible for the GI Bill, being banned from labor unions, redlined housing, land grabs and other injustices? They may have learned about slavery and civil rights, but what about the many hidden historical figures, not only African American, but Hispanic and others, whose contributions to math, science, literature and the arts have been immense?

With his present book bans, many of these figures may once again be hidden.

Unfortunately, historical textbook censoring leads to many uninformed, biased people in our state and nation. We’ve buried some of our racist history and it’s haunting us.

If we are such a great state and nation, then we are strong enough to face our own history, flaws and all. I urge Gov. DeSantis to do everything he can to support our children becoming well-rounded, open-minded and well-educated about our country’s rich, complicated history.

As the governor respects our Founding Fathers, he would be wise to heed Thomas Jefferson: “Honesty is the first chapter in the book of Wisdom." Otherwise, he is like our dreaded citrus canker or black spot disease — in desperate need of quarantine.

Phyllis Erney, EdS, retired Alachua County educator

This guest column is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of the Times-Union. We welcome a diversity of opinions.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Florida governor's impact on education as dangerous as citrus canker