The Florida Department of Education has issued new standards for teaching Black history in public schools that have again drawn national media attention.
As part of the new approach, Florida educators will now have to teach middle school students that enslaved people in America derived “in some instances…personal benefit” from slavery through the skills they learned.
On Friday's South Florida Roundup show, WLRN’s Tim Padgett discussed the contentious history lesson with Florida state Sen. Rosalind Osgood, a Democrat who represents much of Broward County in her 32nd District; and Mayade Ersoff, a history teacher at Palmetto Middle School in the City of Pinecrest in Miami-Dade County.
“We feel insulted,” said Osgood, who is Black. “I've sent down an email blast from my office and I've gotten an overwhelming response from people both Black and white, that are really hurt by this kind of rhetoric.”
Osgood said she will co-host a town hall to encourage community members to voice their concerns about the new Florida teaching guidelines on African-American history. It will take place Aug. 10 at 7 p.m. at Antioch Baptist Church, one of the largest churches in Miami Gardens — a majority Black city.
“We know that history is where we get empirical evidence of things that work well, and it also gives us our horrible lessons learned that we should never repeat,” said Osgood, a former Broward County school board member.
Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz has agreed to attend the forum.
Diaz has commented that the new rules are meant to teach kids “the good, the bad and the ugly” about that part of U.S. history. But teachers especially here in South Florida are asking: what in the world could have ever been “good” about slavery?
“That's fake history intended for political use only and the kids, the students in middle school and high school and elementary school have the right to learn about the truth,” said Ersoff. “The facts only, not twisted history.”
Florida, especially Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, was already under intense national scrutiny for recent efforts to modify how Black studies are taught in the state — moves that critics say water down if not strip away the necessary discussion of systemic racism in America.
DeSantis, a 2024 presidential candidate, has repeatedly defended the new languagewhile insisting that his critics, who include Vice President Kamala Harris and two leading Black Republicans in Congress, are intentionally misinterpreting one line of the sweeping curriculum.
“At the end of the day, you got to choose: Are you going to side with Kamala Harris and liberal media outlets or are you going to side with the state of Florida?” DeSantis told reporters as he campaigned in Iowa. “I think it’s very clear that these guys did a good job on those standards. It wasn’t anything that was politically motivated.”
Ersoff said the infusion of politics in education has driven many of her “colleagues or former colleagues from different schools” out of the teaching profession.
“Teachers have enough to deal with and now we have to deal with these political white supremacy guidelines,” Ersoff said. “And that's just totally unacceptable and totally unacceptable for the Black children in my classes.”
Other topics discused on the South Florida Roundup show: the tragedy of Miami-Dade’s police director, the triumph of Miami Beach’s new police chief and who was the real José Martí.
Listen to the full conversation here and wherever you get your podcasts.
