The Florida State Legislature has passed SB 146 and forwarded it to Governor Ron DeSantis for his signature. Its title Civics Literacy Education sounds innocent enough, but the devil is
always in the details, and this is a very bad bill.
SB 146, Action Civics is the kissing cousin to Critical Race Theory and is intended to advance Critical Race Theory. It empowers activist teachers to indoctrinate their students with practicums designed to teach 8th graders and up in K-12 to become active protesters for left wing ideology.
Our friends at the Florida Citizens Alliance have launched a campaign to urge Governor Ron DeSantis to veto SB 146, and we urge CHQ readers to let the Governor know how badly the Florida legislature misfired on this bill and why he should show the way to other governors by vetoing it before the June 29 deadline.
As Stanley Kurtz, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, explained to Breitbart News the new “education threat” is “a one-two punch that combines Alinskyite community organizing with woke education based on Critical Race Theory.”
In this new “action civics” framework, “teachers organize their students for demonstrations and lobbying on behalf of leftist causes.”
“Action civics also lets students volunteer with leftist community organizations and participate in their advocacy for course credit,” Kurtz noted. “If you layer ‘culturally responsive’ woke education on top of that, teachers are forced to indoctrinate students with ideas like ‘systemic racism,’ ‘white privilege,’ and ‘gender fluidity.’ Teachers also have to go through training sessions to cure them of their ‘whiteness.’”
In 2018, for example, former President Barack Obama, a longstanding community organizer, championed student anti-gun activists, Black Lives Matter Critical Race Theory proponents, and illegal aliens for pushing lawmakers to pass legislation that would promote the left’s desire to overturn traditional American culture.
Kurtz explained that, six years ago, a new civics law in Obama’s home state of Illinois mandated teachers “organize student protests and lobbying expeditions for political causes.”
He elaborated on how such legislation forces a marked shift in what and how students learn:
It also mandated “service learning,” where students work for political advocacy groups for course credit. Then, just this year, Illinois imposed something called “Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards.” These are a set of woke requirements that force teachers to indoctrinate their students with ideas like “systemic racism,” “white privilege,” and “gender fluidity.” Teachers are also encouraged to undergo training to remove their “white fragility.” If you combine these two new mandates, then teachers will be forced to organize protests against America’s supposed “systemic racism.” Between the two mandates, one for action civics and one for “culturally responsive teaching,” students will be forcibly indoctrinated and trained to become radical leftist activists for woke causes.
Kurtz observed the current “Educating for American Democracy” initiative, a “bipartisan” effort reminiscent of the disastrous Common Core standards, is being led by “the very same people who see Illinois as the model of how to teach civics.”
“These people want to see ‘action civics’ and ‘culturally responsive teaching’ in every state,” he warned. “The public needs to see the trick and stop their state legislatures from passing woke action civics mandates under the guise of restoring traditional civics.”
Our friends at the National Association of Scholars (NAS) have announced the formation of a coalition to promote authentic civic education. The new NAS Civics Alliance will oppose attempts to replace proper courses in American government with politicized “action civics.” Most conservatives still haven’t even heard of action civics, where K-12 and college students are required to protest and lobby for (invariably leftist) political causes for course credit. At a moment when the public and legislators are eager to restore long-neglected civic education, radicals are attempting to smuggle partisan leftist activism into K-12 education under the misleading label of “civics.” The new NAS Civics Alliance aims to block these moves and restore genuine civic education instead.
Radical Leftists have been building the movement to replace authentic civic education with leftist political protests for decades. Conservatives are only just now catching on, and the hour is late. However, one battle that looks winnable is to convince Florida’s principled limited government constitutional conservative Governor Ron DeSantis to veto SB 146, we urge all CHQ readers and friends to go to the Florida Citizens Alliance campaign page to let Gov. DeSantis know he can show real conservative leadership by vetoing this bad bill.
Florida
Gov. Ron DeSantis
SB 146
Civics Literary Education
Action Civics
Critical Race Theory
Left wing protests
Florida Citizens Alliance
Systemic Racism
Service Learning
Gender fluidity
National Association of Scholars (NAS)