Opinion: Schools turn on the lights and turn back the clocks

A conservative Georgia Legislature intent on earning street cred with far-right voters has adopted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ playbook, enacting laws that deliver a message to schools and teachers that books, lessons and discussions about race and racism should be avoided. Nor should schools accommodate or even acknowledge students grappling with gender identity.

Florida parents and students were hit with the news Thursday that the College Board would no longer offer AP Psychology in Florida high schools because of the DeSantis administration’s demand that sexual orientation and gender identity be erased from the class framework.

However, on Friday, Florida took a more conciliatory attitude with the state education commissioner writing in a letter to superintendents that the popular AP course could be taught “in its entirety.”

Many students, including 28,000 Floridians last year, take AP Psychology, which gives accelerated high school students college credit and has been offered for 30 years. Florida has had a contentious relationship with the College Board since outlawing a pilot AP African American Studies course in January, declaring it lacked educational value.

Classrooms are becoming minefields where teachers risk the explosion of their careers over assigning books that depict racism and white privilege or that encourage acceptance of different gender norms.

In Cobb County, a teacher is fighting termination for reading a bestselling children’s book that encourages acceptance of gender differences. Katie Rinderle appears to be the first Georgia teacher to face termination under the 2022 suite of laws designed to mute class discussions of anything that would discomfort a 1950s Baptist sewing circle.

Not only is Black Lives Matter taboo in many school districts but now Black history, including the truth about slavery, is under fire. Revised 2023 academic social studies standards in Florida now state on Page 6: “Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

With a floundering presidential campaign, DeSantis is ignoring those within his own party warning his anti-woke antics went too far with these new academic standards. “At the end of the day, you’ve 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 recently in Iowa.

How crazy is it out there? Florida teacher Jenna Barbee, who resigned this spring, showed her fifth grade class the Disney movie “Strange World” following standardized testing. The movie has a gay character, which led to Barbee being investigated by the state and berated by a school board member whose child was in her class.

Barbee says she chose the 2022 Disney film because it deals with ecosystems and the environment, which the class was studying. But parent Shannon Rodriguez, who is in her first year as a Hernando County school board member, said the presence of a gay character in the Disney film stripped “the innocence of my 10-year-old.” A Change.org petition seeking the removal of Rodriguez from the school board has more than 31,000 signatures.

A Miami-Dade school, in response to a parent’s complaint, restricted elementary-age students’ access to “The Hill We Climb” by poet Amanda Gorman, who read the uplifting poem at President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021. In response to the same parent, the school also denied young students access to “The ABCs of Black History,” even though the book is aimed at children kindergarten age and up.

Beloved icons and rainbows are not safe. A Wisconsin administrator nixed the Dolly Parton/Miley Cyrus duet “Rainbowland” from a first grade spring concert, allegedly saying the song could be perceived as controversial. The song’s only offense seems to be its mention of rainbows: “Every color, every hue/Let’s shine on through/Together, we can start living in a Rainbowland.”

After Wisconsin teacher Melissa Tempel vented her dismay on social media over the censoring of the song, the district suspended her and then fired her last month.

Credit: Twitter

Credit: Twitter

Tempel said she plans legal action because she does not want to become a cautionary tale that American teachers must remain silent because of fear of reprisals.

“And I really don’t want that to be the narrative, I want the narrative to be that I spoke out because I knew that this was wrong, and I really want my students to have the best,” she said in a recent statement. “I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with any of the things that I’ve said, or any of the things that I do in my classroom. So, I’m going to fight it as much as I can.”

Let’s hope Tempel wins her fight. Otherwise, schools won’t be safe for teachers or students.