New Florida Teacher Training Now Ignores Reconstruction Says News Report

Tampa’s News Channel 8 reports that the new curriculum trainings for Florida social studies teachers leaves out the Reconstruction Era. The trainings, organized by the Florida Department of Education (FDOE), reflect recent controversial initiatives by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the so-called Stop WOKE Act that he supports, at changing how American history is taught in public schools. He has been accused of trying to diminish the role of racism in American history. According to the News Channel 8 report:

While the FDOE presentation mentions the words slave and slavery 21 times, it skips through the history of the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era to the 1960s Civil Rights movement. The impacts of slavery during Reconstruction are not detailed in any of the curriculum trainings.

The report says that:

No answering notes or guidance are provided for the discussion question, nor are materials included in any of the presentations, intended for students K-12, to explain to teachers how FDOE wants them to teach the Reconstruction Era.

News Channel 8 says that the history offered by the Department of Education jumps from the abolition of slavery at the end of the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement nearly a century later. Black efforts at equality during the 1860s and 1870s, as well as the violent campaigns to reestablish white supremacy throughout Reconstruction are left out.

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