Florida's K-12 education framework charts the course for eradicating woke ideology from classrooms nationwide: Report

Florida's K-12 education framework is paving the way for other conservative states by creating a blueprint for eliminating woke ideology and prioritizing core academics, according to a new report.

Dr. Scott Yenor, a Washington fellow at the Claremont Institute and a political science professor at Boise State University, and Anna K. Miller, the director of the Center for American Education, recently released a report highlighting Florida's education successes and how its policies could serve as a framework for leaders in other red states to reform public school systems.

The report, "Florida's Blueprint for K-12 Education," details how Republican Governor Ron DeSantis and his administration have exposed critical race theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives within the state's education system and implemented new policies prioritizing academic excellence and competence.

Miller told TheBlaze, "We did an in-depth evaluation on Florida's K-12 system and to what extent the policies [of] DeSantis' administration have been working or not. We found that they, overall, have been successful. The spread of corrupt ideology in the system is slowing down; it's weakening."

"After our review, we think that the Florida model is the blueprint that every other red state should start pursuing as well," Miller added.

As far as which policies have moved the needle the most, Miller noted that the DeSantis administration's Parental Rights in Education bill has successfully pushed school districts to eliminate so-called racial equity policies and harmful gender plans that forced teachers and school staff to hide a child's gender transition from parents.

Miller and Yenor explained that Florida officials have been successful with their strategy to completely revamp the state's education standards, including abandoning Common Core state standards and rebuilding English language arts, social studies, health, mathematics, and civics standards to reorient the entire system around a new set of values that strives for academic excellence instead of DEI, CRT, and other critical social justice initiatives.

The Sunshine State also opened up additional certification options for educators besides the standard college of education curriculum, which Yenor noted should also help overhaul the state's school system.

"You have to stigmatize the bad things that schools are doing and try to help them build good things. The thing that really makes Florida stand out is that it did both of those things at the same time. The education policy folks knew that you can't build anything good if the environment around what you're trying to build — good standards — is bad. They realized they had to go after DEI, racial plans, gender plans," Yenor told TheBlaze.

"I think every state should be doing that," Yenor continued. "I think they should be taking both of those steps within the general context of destroy and replace the parts of the system that are bad."

Florida also implemented universal school choice through its Education Savings Account policy, which allows parents to choose alternative education options for their children if they are unsatisfied with their school district. Participation in Florida's ESA program has grown exponentially in the past year, Yenor reported.

The key aspects of Florida's effective strategy to reclaim traditional academic excellence included implementing universal school choice, revamping the state's education standards, and decreasing the power of the teachers' unions.

"They also have passed a paycheck protection law, and that is decreasing teachers' union membership and causing many teachers to be less on the side of the union and more on the side of reform and excellence," Miller added.

Additionally, the state requires unions to represent at least 60% of employees instead of the standard 50%. Miller explained that there is "a big misconception" that teachers' unions hold less power in conservative states than in left-leaning states.

"That's not necessarily true," Miller added. "I'll just use Idaho as an example. Governor Brad Little of Idaho, he oftentimes sides with the unions' position when it comes to education. Not on all policy issues, but when it comes to the issue of education, he generally sides with the unions. And the unions have a lot of special privileges in law and statute here in Idaho, and that's the case for many, many red states. The pressure that they're able to apply at every level of government is a huge reason why states don't pursue reform and why leaders are often hesitant to seek reform because the unions control a huge portion of their constituents."

Parents in Florida have also spearheaded efforts to regain control of the school system by getting involved in their child's school or removing them from poor-performing public districts.

"Those are two things that parents in every single state should be doing, getting both involved in the system and trying to reform it by either running for school board or testifying at hearings, whether at the school board level or at the state level. But also, really paying attention to your kid's education and getting them into an alternative system that suits them better if you can," Miller noted.

Yenor credited DeSantis and his administration for the state's successful education reform but noted that other states with larger Republican majorities could easily replicate Florida's framework and eliminate leftist ideology from K-12 classrooms.

"We're hoping that this is just a knowledge problem, that governors just don't know how to do it. By looking at Governor DeSantis, they may learn how to do it," Yenor said.

Yenor and Miller will release a similar report next month analyzing California's left-leaning school system.

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