Teach No Lies Tour

Ron DeSantis is poisoning our schools. The racist, extremist, almost Nazi trash his policies are pushing into the schools in Florida will leave millions of Florida students, Black and White, educationally crippled. The incursion of rightwing indoctrination extends even to the smallest learners. The DeSantis agenda has brought Prager University, the extremist producer of right-wing educational materials, into Florida schools with indoctrination for first-graders. For example, Preger has produced a video that has Christopher Columbus telling children that slavery was “better than being killed.”

Another Prager video has Frederick Douglass telling small children that change must be gradual and warns them not to become “radicals,” a term that is used repeatedly in the trash they disguise as educational. Preger University has clearly stated that they are in the business of “changing minds,” yet DeSantis decries “indoctrination” in schools. Apparently, the governor is perfectly satisfied with indoctrination as long as it is right-wing indoctrination. In short, his policies amount to gangsterism in education.

Florida teachers are horrified and for good reason: They don’t know what can get them fired. Now they must second guess the extremist Moms for Liberty of this new world. A book that a teacher has been using for years mentions the word “racism.” Must she toss it? Must teachers remove every reference to Black Lives Matter because the Little Dictator in Tallahassee wants no mention of the movement in Florida schools?

I know how teachers feel. I have been travelling with a busload of them for two days. We just returned Sunday night from the Teach No Lies tour on which I took 30 Miani-Dade teachers to Ocoee and Rosewood on an all-expenses-paid, overnight trip to teach them the truth of what happened in those places.

Realizing that they could be fired, what are Florida teachers to do? Resist secretly. My grandmother used to tell the family how her grandmother, who was enslaved in Georgia and was the master’s cook, would spit in his morning coffee if he was mean to her, which was often. What are teachers to do? I think it’s time to “spit in some coffee.” Find creative ways to teach the truth without getting caught. I know you can do it. My enslaved great-great grandmother did, and the master never knew