Public schools in Florida are dealing with a teacher shortage while trying to help kids who’ve fallen behind due to the pandemic, so educators are pretty busy. But the state just dropped another arduous requirement on their heads anyway. From Popular Information:
Teachers in Manatee County, Florida, are being told to make their classroom libraries — and any other “unvetted” book — inaccessible to students, or risk felony prosecution. The new policy is part of an effort to comply with new laws and regulations championed by Governor Ron DeSantis (R). It is based on the premise, promoted by right-wing advocacy groups, that teachers and librarians are using books to “groom” students or indoctrinate them with leftist ideologies.
…School principals in Manatee County were told Wednesday that any staff member violating these rules by providing materials “harmful to minors” could be prosecuted for “a felony of the third degree.” Therefore, teachers must make their classroom libraries inaccessible to students until they can establish that each book has been approved by a librarian.
In response to the policy, some teachers packed up their classroom libraries. Others covered up the books students are no longer allowed to read with construction paper.
The threat of prosecution affects all public school teachers, not just those in Manatee County, so similar conversations are probably taking place from Pensacola to Key West. This is what happens when far-right Republican operatives from astroturf outfits like “Moms for Liberty” make the rules.
Teachers have to keep books that aren’t on a district library list away from kids until a school librarian has time to personally review and approve them. In Manatee County, this included obviously smutty titles like Dragons Love Tacos and Sneezy the Snowman.
It’s mind-boggling to me that a majority of the voters in this state are okay with this bullshit, but it’s hard to interpret the results of the November election any other way. It’s not like DeSantis and company soft-pedaled their hard-right agenda. That’s what the asshole majority wants, apparently — a dumber, meaner and less literate future. What a shame for the kids, teachers and librarians.
This all sucks for Floridians who aren’t right-wing nutjobs, but maybe there’s a silver lining for the country. By the time the DeSantis 2024 campaign gets underway, the ugly consequences of his reactionary politics will be on full display, book banning included. In a general election, he’ll have more than a mosquito-whine voice and putrid personality to overcome — he’ll be the mean jerk who cancelled Sneezy the Snowman.
Open thread.
ETA: Breaking from CNN — classified documents found at Pence’s Indiana home. I’m going to go search my house and see if I find any here.
Baud
kindness
DeSantis seems to want public schools to lose all their students to charters and private schools. Such is the Republican way in this day and age. What is it about public schools that drives them nuts I wonder?(/s)
Cameron
@Baud: OK Groomer.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Edit made because duh, that’s PERFECT! ;-)
NanaR
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/philadelphia/ron-desantis-union-league-award-protests-philadelphia-20230124.html
DeSantis due in Philly this Thursday to receive gold medal from Union League.
Join the protest if you’re nearby.
mrmoshpotato
WTF? This is some ridiculous bullshit – on top of a shitload of other ridiculous bullshit.
Y’all need to burn DeathSantis at the stake already.
Cameron
Thanks, Ms. Cracker. Not surprised about Sneezy. I don’t think a gritty tale of a stone-cold tweaker on the mean streets of the North Pole is good children’s fare.
The Moar You Know
My wife’s a teacher, as most of you know, and I don’t think it’s going out on a limb to state that most Americans despise education. Period.
They like the benefits, which is the only reason they send their kids. They despise the actual process and things taught.
dmsilev
From that link:
So, basically on one side we have Biden and Pence, who had staff discover classified documents where they shouldn’t be and then immediately turned them over to the proper authorities. On the other side, we have Trump, who …didn’t exactly do that.
Somehow, this is too complicated for Our Media Betters.
Rusty
@kindness: This is the game plan in NH. The Commissioner of Education of New Hampshire is hostile to the public schools (he’s a right wing nut and home schooled all his children). Last year he tried to gut the requirements for what is considered an adequate education and has been redirecting money out of the education budget for home schooling and charter schools. We now seem to have one entire side of the political spectrum opposed to public education.
JPL
This is a feed on the hearing taking place in Fulton Cty about release of the grand jury transcripts.
link
It sounds like nothing will be released today even if the judge agrees too.
WereBear
The Pence thing is like the rule of three in comedy.
sab
I am not surpr8sed they found classified stuff at Pence’s house. Somebody in that admin had to do the work.
mrmoshpotato
@JPL: Grand jury transcripts concerning what?
Brachiator
Good one.
I suspect that every former president and vice president since Eisenhower has a few classified documents lying around somewhere.
Gravenstone
Cue the rabid Republicans demanding Obama (and anyone named Clinton for good measure) properties be searched for any confidential docs. We’re entering tit for tat hell.
Sure Lurkalot
@The Moar You Know:
It hasn’t always been thus. My parents had no animosity vs the teachers or the system in the 60’s and 70’s. However my sister, who taught for 40 years beginning in the mid 70’s definitely experienced a sea change in attitudes, from her students, parents and general public. We talked about it a lot while it was happening.
Baud
@dmsilev:
Hard to believe that Pence is now one of the better Republicans.
I’m starting to warm to the idea of checking Ivana’s grave.
dmsilev
@Brachiator: I demand an immediate forensic investigation of the Reagan library.
dmsilev
@Baud: I trust you’re familiar with the concept of “grading on a curve”.
Urza
@Brachiator: You are probably correct. Probably most of them are things like speeches that are marked classified till given, at which point they should be unclassified but the copy at their house probably never got returned to be marked that way.
JPL
@mrmoshpotato: trump interference with GA election.
Interesting the judge is now stating there doesn’t seem to be a reason for a juror to speak out to the press. hmm gettting interesting.
Argument says since it hasn’t been publicized the judge could prevent a juror from talking.
emmyelle
There are teacher shortages every where. Now, up here in New England we have to deal with snow and slush and 5-way intersections that are basically paved cowpaths and restaurants that put flour in soup, but we are generally able to keep the whack jobs at bay and our teachers are allowed to have books and things. So, maybe we, I dunno, charter a bus or a plane and move some of those FL teachers up here, give them a nice raise, and pay to have their books shipped as well?
Cameron
Endgame: a population of masters and servants. Masters go to private schools,then out of state to an Ivy. Servants attend some sort of public indoctrination facility; then, if they’re lucky,trade school/technical school, although only as many as needed for skilled labor. Perhaps a few will pursue a higher education at Shit Creek Christian Patriot University.
Matt McIrvin
This line in the article bothers me since it seems to be missing an implication:
No. The “groomer” accusation is that they are pedophiles and they have the books because they want to fuck the students. That’s the whole libel driving the panic!
Saying it’s just about leftist ideology is taking their polite version at face value.
Baud
Re DeSantis, this popped up on Reddit. Not sure what this is, or if it’s authentic.
https://i.redd.it/v7ght3nnu1ea1.jpg
Ken
@Brachiator: And in most cases it will be because they didn’t notice that the “White House Staff Phone Directory (Fall 2006)” is classified Confidential.
JPL
Lawyers is it true that jurors are not bound to silence after the special grand jury has ended.
Gravenstone
They seem to despise paying for it too. At least in those areas that fund schools via property taxes and levys.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Agreed. That’s some whitewashing.
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
I can’t look for classified documents in my place right now. I’m still trying to get the visitor log hardware and software set up.
Baud
You have a classified document, you have a classified document, everybody has a classified document!
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: The problem is that of course that sounds completely crazy, it doesn’t make any sense. So they phrase it in a form that is a belief a reasonable human being might hold. But that’s not what it is.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Media have been softening Republican images since forever.
Gin & Tonic
@emmyelle: The chowder in RI has neither flour nor (yuk) tomatoes. As the good Lord intended. My sympathies to those in more benighted states.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Open thread ?
Baud
I want to know what classified documents Cheney has.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Might be the same goons who marched around the Turning Point USA conference in Tampa with DeSantis flags, Nazi flags, etc. DeSantis refused to condemn them, though other FL pols did, including Rick Scott. DeSantis gets really huffy if anyone suggests he should denounce Nazis, which is…interesting
ETA: Link to article with a photo of said goons.
Kent
Teacher here from the blue state of Washington.
I gotta wonder what the end game of all of this is. This sort of thing might win DeSantis some sort of wing nuts with the base GOP voters in the primary. But I can’t see how this level of overt crazy is going to win general elections. Most people are actually reasonably happy with their kids schools and teachers and are not interested in undermining them. And the crazy types who are like that are by definition NOT swing voters. They are already hard core MAGA types.
I gotta thing (or hope) that this is going to be similar to the election denial bullshit that voters soundly rejected in every place not already bright crimson red.
I guess we shall see.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: It’s kind of like how the Scientologists won’t tell you about the spirits trapped in the volcano and the wingless DC-8s from the planet Teegeeack until you’re in deep and they already have a whole lot of your money.
Bill Arnold
Need actual “DeSantis book locks” for Forbidden Books, with images of his snarling face. Or maybe little book safes, one per book, with the book title showing and the book safe displaying a DeSantis face.
pacem appellant
A co-worker of mine grew up in Florida and laments what is happening there. He remembers the education in his youth being top-notch.
DeSantis is DOA nationally. His fascist play works in FL, but he lacks the charisma of Papaya Pinochet. He’s not going to win over MI or WI voters with witch burnings and flag waving.
Redshift
@dmsilev: Hopefully this will help shift the story from “OMG Biden is like TFG (read to paragraph 8 to lean why not)” to “Okay, there’s a problem with our classification procedures and high-level officials.”
Not holding my breath, though…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: last time an agent asked Dick just smiled coldly (is there any other way he smiles?) as the agent’s blood began to boil in his veins
Geminid
@JPL: My Atlanta friend was on a jury* for a civil trial that Judge McBirney presided over. Warren has a critical eye, and he was impressed.
*Georgia does not exempt attorneys from serving on juries, or at least retired ones like my friend.
Betty Cracker
@Bill Arnold: Excellent idea!
Greg
It will get teachers to leave Florida. That is a feature, not a bug. Fewer teachers, lower performing schools, stronger case for charter/for profit schools. And “those kids” don’t get educated. From his perspective, it’s all good.
Matt McIrvin
@Kent: The election of 2016 killed any sense I used to have of what you can and cannot do and win a general presidential election.
What I worry about is the same whole game that happened with Trump where a bunch of media people say “sure, he plays crazy for the rubes, but if you’re as clever as I am you can see that on another, deeper level he’s actually a moderate.” Another form of that whitewashing Baud and I were talking about.
Anyway, the 2024 nominee may well just be Trump again, in which case it’ll be interesting to see how they play HIM for a third go-around. I am dreading all the “Trump has been vindicated by history!” hot takes just because Biden’s term hasn’t been perfect. But DeSantis is young and can pop up in many many more cycles in the future.
different-church-lady
Christ fuckin’ DUH. Now that this genie is running around unfettered by a bottle they’re going to find them everywhere. And the media is going to continue to miss the point: it’s not that anyone has them, by accident or even on purpose, it’s that TRUMP WOULDN’T GIVE THEM BACK.
different-church-lady
@Matt McIrvin:
It’s more like, “sure, he plays crazy for the rubes — and you know what, he actually is crazy — but we’re going to pretend he’s actually a moderate because our revenue streams improve when we do that kind of bullshit.”
Kent
@Greg: Honestly I don’t think they really want to destroy schools so much as destroy the teaching profession which is one of the most solidly blue voting blocks in any state Florida included.
And of course they want to culture war schools for votes which is what all the CRT bullshit is about.
If the schools are destroyed that is just an “unfortunate” (but predictable) side effect.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: From what I’ve read, DeSantis decided last year that he would win the 2024 nomination by running to the right of Trump, and that is what conditions his extremism. I’m not sure that strategy is very smart, but I’m not sure DeSantis is either.
Kay
@Kent:
Polling on public schools is remarkably stable. It held up even during the pandemic, when all elite commentators were insisting parents were “fleeing” public schools – public schools are just a very resilient institution. I think it’s the universality and the commonality of experience with most people in the country. The vast, vast majority attend public schools. There’s this giant mountain of peoples actual experience conservatives have to surmount in order to lie about public schools.
They’re so resilient I worry we take them for granted and thus will lose them.
GrueBleen
“It’s mind-boggling to me that a majority of the voters in this state are okay with this bullshit” Why ? Large portions of the human race have been like that throughout all of recorded human history.
The difference now though, is that many of them are really starting to think that they’re losing.
prostratedragon
@Matt McIrvin:
@Baud:
I think the idea is to get people associating “leftist” and sexual predation of children. Very economical.
zeecube
@Gravenstone: I think Colbert said something to the effect on last night’s show that Obama just put out a statement that his house accidentally burned to the ground yesterday…
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: Don’t get him mad! Don’t make him break out…the White Boots!
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Gravenstone: Everyone forgets W…except to note that he wasn’t so bad compared to the most recent Republican occupant of the WH. Although he was so lazy he probably doesn’t have many docs lying around. But his VP, Cheney, I’m guessing has a whole library of classified docs squirrelled away somewhere.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: I think DeSantis isn’t stupid, he’s a profoundly evil demagogue. And that this is just about the only strategy that conceivably COULD beat Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination. But DeSantis has a huge strike against him, which is that he’s not a national celebrity in the way Trump was even before he was President.
Bex
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Has a special counsel been appointed yet?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@zeecube: It would not surprise me if classified documents were found in Obama’s papers (to say nothing of the boxes out in the unused barn down at the Lazy Potemkin in Crawford, or the boathouse up in Walker’s Point), but it would also not surprise me if there were not, because by inclination and necessity BHO is probably a little more careful than his peers
@Bex: seems like the letter of the law would push in that direction? would/could the Pence investigation be folded into Smith’s inquiry?
JPL
@Cameron: Oh no that is so gay.
apologize to gay people btw
prostratedragon
@Baud: I cracked myself up a few minutes ago thinking, “They should check all the recent ones, like Bush and …. gee, who was his Vice President?” I’m even forced to share a birthday with the guy.
Kent
@Matt McIrvin: But if you rewind to the 2016 election it wasn’t really about the crazy. Trump didn’t really run that hard-right except on immigration. He kind of did the “let a businessman run the government like a business” thing and a whole lot of people didn’t really take much of his hard right demagoguing that seriously. Plus Democrats were overconfident and did stupid shit in that campaign. Which I don’t think is a mistake they will make again this generation.
Most of the non-MAGA types who voted for Trump more or less thought he would be like Bush and just kind of leave the country on cruise control while he did things like cut taxes.
Miss Bianca
@The Moar You Know: I remember, way back when I was a substitute teacher I’m Delta County, CO, being told by a school board member: “Education may be respected in Delta County, but it isn’t well-liked.”
Made an impression on me that remains, 20-odd years later.
different-church-lady
@prostratedragon:
Oh, that’s absolutely overt now.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: I’m not saying DeSantis is stupid. I’m saying he might not be that smart a politician.
different-church-lady
@Bex: Yes — for Obama.
lowtechcyclist
@Rusty:
And something like 88% of school-age children are in public schools.
Kay
@Kent:
And it’s really not true that public schools are “liberal”. They mostly reflect their community. So for “normie” Right wing parents who live in a Right wing area the local school is fairly conservative. This is true where I live.
It’s about Right wing activists and commentators not actually living in Right wing areas, but instead living in blue cities and suburbs. They ARE an ideological minority where they choose to live, that is true, but there are 17,000 school districts. A good portion of them are conservative because theyre in conservative places.
Meghan McArdle thinks all public schools are “woke” because like all conservative commentators, she chooses to live in a majority liberal area and then whine about how she’s a political minority.
FastEdD
It is always interesting to me (retired public school teacher) that polls show public schools in general aren’t rated highly, but parents have a good opinion of the individual school their kid goes to. Maybe they appreciate the “babysitting” aspect? The pandemic accelerated that. Parents were really happy to pack their kids off in the morning to … somewhere else.
I can feel the frustration of FL teachers. They have no say whatsoever about which students are placed in their class. They have very little say about what or even how those kids are taught, being ordered around and micromanaged by a bunch of know nothing, public school hating wing nuts. Yet they are 100% responsible for the outcome, and get paid like crap for their efforts.
Kent
Honestly, the way to run against and beat DeSantis is to turn him into “Florida Man” who is too crazy for the rest of the country. Most states already dislike Florida and he certainly has the crazy going for him.
Anyway, if I was running some Democratic social media campaign against DeSantis I’d run endless “Florida Man” memes and turn DeSantis into the picture boy for that. Sort of like how Fetterman did to Oz. Ridicule is the hardest thing to defend against as Oz found out. Turn him into a ridiculous object of ridicule. And be fucking nonstop relentless about it. To where everyone is waiting for the next Florida Man DeSantis meme to drop every day.
UncleEbeneezer
Looks like we are gonna need a
bigger boatnother Special Counsel!!Will the House be holding hearings and demanding Pence come testify? I kid…
different-church-lady
@Kay:
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and crime, and foreign policy (“gonna bomb the shit out of them”), and abortion (“there has to be some form of punishment”), and even opioid addiction– we just have to “get tough”. “get tough” was pretty much the ethos, and often slogan, of the trump campaign. He just flat out lied about his tax policy and didn’t much care about the safety net, which is why Chris Hayes and Brian Beutler and a few other galaxy brains could claim that trump was “outflanking Hillary from the left!”
prostratedragon
@different-church-lady: Umm-hmm.
Kent
According to current Twitter, Germany has caved and decided to release the Leopards.
I guess we will know for sure when they finally start arriving in Ukraine because Germany has been doing Lucy and the football for a long time on this.
FastEdD
@Kent: Define your opponent before he can define himself.
Burnspbesq
Texas is sitting on an unprecedented fiscal surplus, and is well known for criminally underpaying public school teachers, so my rep in the House, a genuinely good guy named Jim Talarico, has introduced a bill calling for an across the board $15k/yr salary increase.
This proposal should be wildly popular. It’s likely to never even get a committee hearing, much less a floor vote. Why, you ask?
Well, Jim’s a Democrat from the Austin area.
Elizabelle
@Kent: That’s a good tack.
Although, Oz was clueless, whereas DeSantis is actively malicious.
But ridicule works, if done well.
Kent
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Right. My sense with Trump in 2016 was that he was more or less just holding up his finger to the wind and channeling back what he was hearing from the masses (or thought he was hearing). So yea, immigration, crime, the economy, etc.
2024 is a different landscape. Now we know exactly how crazy they can be. And we also know that every damn election is going to be a brutally close dogfight no matter who is the nominee.
The recent mid-terms gave me some hope that the crazy has peaked out at about 48% or so of this country. The election of Marie Gusenkamp Perez here in the WA-3rd over a very deep pocketed MAGAt has give me a bit of hope.
JPL
@Geminid: The hearing is engrossing and that is because of the judge. If your friend listened, I’d love your friend’s thought on it. Willis going after timing and I read that is because she doesn’t want to taint the jury pool. That doesn’t make sense to me because evidence would be released before hand. Maybe she is trying to protect a witness.
Bostondreams
@kindness: That’s ok, you see, because legislation has been introduced in the legislature to allow public money be used for private schools for ALL students, not just those with a specific need.
Kent
@FastEdD: Exactly. If I was some deep pocketed Democratic donor I’d drop a few million into a “Lincoln Project” sort of effort to relentlessly mock and ridicule DeSantis. Don’t argue the policy, just mock him and turn him into an object of ridicule. Like Fetterman did with Oz.
dmsilev
@Kent: Will any faces be eaten by the released Leopards?
UncleEbeneezer
@Kay: I’m sure you know this already but Conservatives have been whining about public schools since the very beginning. And the pressure campaign to fight against “woke” curricula really went into overdrive as a response to racial integration. It’s really well highlighted in Mothers of Massive Resistance: White Women & The Politics of White Supremacy, which I’m about 3/4’s through reading now, and is really superb. The whole “parental rights” posture and messaging was always deeply tied to protecting White (Christian, Male) Supremacy.
The recent SouthLake podcast (about a school district in N. Texas) also gives a very good window into how so much of the current hysteria over CRT is really about the fact that parents resent any expectation that their children treat marginalized students with even the barest minimum of respect. The outraged parents really want their kids to be able to bully, misgender and throw around epithets without suffering any consequences.
Kathleen
@dmsilev: oh no! Now rhe media will be forced to write a script to explain why Pence’s action wasn’t suspect or worth talking about, unlike Hunter Biden’s laptop I mean Joe Biden’s criminal adjacent behavior.
Redshift
@FastEdD:
I think it’s more likely the same effect that results in most people saying they like their congressperson but they hate Congress. It’s easy to convince people that stuff they don’t like is widespread (because bad news leads), and the one they know and like is the exception.
VOR
IIRC Florida is facing a shortage of teachers and this will not improve things. Maybe the retired people in The Villages don’t care about education, but some people do and this will hit close to home. Okay, not a deal breaker in itself, but it’s another straw on the camel’s back.
Cameron
@VOR: Yes, it’s a massive shortage. I think something like 4-5000.
rikyrah
@Kay:
She can take her mediocre azz to a right right-wing utopia😠
Daoud bin Daoud
TBF, Sneezy the Snowman definitely sounds like a porn title 🤔
rikyrah
@UncleEbeneezer:
If non-White children have to subjected to racism, then little Whyte Billy and Kirsten can learn about it😠
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I wouldn’t be so sure this is just all about attacking public schooling. Historically the Piss Ignorant, Bible Bothering Know Nothing nativists have been on the attack on private schools too. If anything it will just get worse because those privates schools, who know what the Other is teaching there.
mrmoshpotato
@Matt McIrvin: DeathSantis is also being a shitstain in government before he gets to 1600 Pennsylvania. Dump wasn’t a shitstain in government beforehand.
Betty Cracker
@Kent: I don’t know if a “Florida Man” campaign would be the way to go because shitting on one of the 50 states in the context of a national campaign might not be a good look for the opponent it’s supposed to help. Fetterman took advantage of the NJ-PA rivalry to bust Oz’s balls, but Fetterman was running to represent PA, not PA and NJ. It would have landed differently if he were, I suspect.
That said, the idea of ridiculing DeSantis as a campaign tactic has merit because he’s a humorless prig and would not react well. There’s a lot about DeSantis to ridicule without dragging the whole state into it.
emmyelle
@Gin & Tonic: Rhode Island Chowder is the best chowder. I only discovered this seven years ago. As much as I love me some milky, floury, buttery chowder from the other side of the Bourne Bridge, it rips up my insides. But that Rhode Island chowder is a wonderful treat that goes down easy. I need to spend more time in Rhode Island.
Kent
Exactly. Except that as a teacher I think it is really more that THEY want to be able to do it and the schools are really the only place where they can push back against the “woke”. Most of them honestly really don’t give a shit about their kids. It is about THEM. It is analogous to the teen cheer moms who are trying to re-live their youth through their kids and don’t really care that the daughter doesn’t even want to be in cheer.
They want permission to let THEIR racist free flag fly. And are acting out through their kids.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Kent: I got the impression Trump’s 2016 campaign was like Yongkins and Santos, be ambiguous was possible so the voter can imagine anything they want about them. Basically, the Abrams Mystery Box of politics.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Baud: “Pence is better than most Republicans” is like the same as saying “a solid turd is better than diarrhea.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kent: somebody linked to a long interview with MGP the other day, and I meant to go back and read it but now I can’t remember which outlet it was, pretty sure it was national, not local
anybody see that?
Kent
@Betty Cracker: Well, of COURSE you are going to say that because you are from Florida! And I do fully get your objection. But honestly that is what the GOP does all of the time with the “San Francisco liberal” bullshit. And it is effective.
But if you are going to run against DeSantis the way to do it is to say that we don’t need his brand of Florida Crazy for the rest of the country. I don’t know how else you do it because he is a governor with a record. So you hang every bit of Florida crazy around his neck.
But then again, there is probably a reason why I’m not a highly paid political consultant..heh.
mrmoshpotato
@Kay: There’s a reason she’s called Meghan McArglebargle. :)
Baud
@Qrop Non Sequitur: Well, isn’t it?
Qrop Non Sequitur
That’s where the money is. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.
UncleEbeneezer
@rikyrah: Agreed. But that’s what they are afraid of. Teaching accurate history could lead to:
• white kids understanding that Racism is more than just the interpersonal variety and includes Systems/Institutions
• white kids might start asking questions about their parents’ roles in maintaining those Systems
• white kids might start listening to non-white students, treating them as equals and forming solidarity with them
Kent
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Probably Politico. At least there was a long-form interview of MGP there recently:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/01/19/marie-gluenskamp-perez-democrats-middle-class-00078215
She quotes Arrested Development: “It’s a Banana Michael, what can it cost? $20?” So what’s not to like.
mrmoshpotato
@Kent: And now I want an antipasto salad.
UncleEbeneezer
@Kent: Yeah, as a coach of kids, I agree.
I think most kids are okay with being respectful to other kids. They might feel like it’s so unfair to them being expected to do so, but most will get over it quickly and will be cool going forward. The problem is the ones whose parents get upset about it and double-down/dig in. And then the Right weaponizes and organizes them.
Daoud bin Daoud
@Cameron: Eloi versus Morlocks are the future they want.
Kent
Here in Blue Washington our school librarians have put up a big beautiful “Banned Books” display with every book in the library that is blacklisted in some other part of the country up in front outside the library to catch the eye of students and available for checkout. “Read what they don’t want you to see” is the sign.
The librarian told me, hey, if I can at least get some of them to read SOMETHING it will be an accomplishment! So thank you Florida for giving our librarians a reading list.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Exactly. She doesn’t get to live in DC and moan about how she’s discriminated against. I live in Right wing nut land. I accept that I’m a political minority. My daughter and the daughter of a libertarian were once the only two who “believed in” evolution in an advanced high school science class. Chickenshit teacher just sort of left them out there to fend for themselves. If I were a winger I would start a national grift organization because these two girls were “cancelled”.
MisterForkbeard
In their defense, Dragons Love Tacos is an obvious LGTBQ plant. I mean, “tacos”? We all know what that’s about.
More seriously, I’ve read that book to my kids a few hundred times. It does have obvious liberal values, like preparation, consideration of others, and dealing with consequences. It is very light on conservative values of tax cuts for the rich and trying to kill gay people. I can see why they’re threatened by it.
ETA: Also, the dragons are all different colors and sizes, and this is clearly grooming kids about multiculturalism.
Cameron
@Kent: If they tried that in Florida,they’d soon be occupants of the new Raiford Educators Facility.
Ruckus
@kindness:
Anyone can and shall attend.
And this is a problem for them because conservatives want a world that looks like what they think they see in a mirror. Everyone else is inferior and can’t sully their world view. Their world is very small, because their brains are very small and have the intellectual capacity of cottage cheese.
MisterForkbeard
@Brachiator: Or at least, documents with classified markings on them.
So far, it looks like the average for ‘accidental’ take homes is maybe 5-10 per term. And then there’s Trump, with a few hundred and then refused to give them back.
Steeplejack
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
In his man-sized safe!
Paul in KY
@kindness: No owner to get the sweet, sweet profit that private schools get.
Ruckus
@Baud:
better Republicans
What is this strange thing you speak of? I’m in my mid 70s and yes there are lots of examples around that show that we need better republicans, I’m trying to remember when I’ve ever seen one in the wild in the last 30-40 yrs. I mean I can name a couple in the house that didn’t do so bad in some hearings not long ago, but absolute minimum examples don’t really make all that good a case that there is much of a group. Two out of 200 isn’t a very large percentage.
Betty Cracker
@Kent: Hey, if it works, I can live with it! ;)
sab
@Kent: I love that idea of a national banned book reading list.
I snooped into our neighborhood Little Library box and they had a couple of learn Spanish textbooks. I am tempted. Are old people allowed to use those books?
Paul in KY
@Kent: I’m very happy with not having to pay beaucoup in tuition for my son’s fine public school.
Ruckus
@Cameron:
By George I think he’s got it.
Paul in KY
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I’m sure he does….but they won’t be found by anyone not under his thumb. Darth Snarly is nobody’s fool.
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
I know what you wrote sounds harsh, but as someone related to a person with an over half a century of involvement in Scienceshittology that barely scratches the surface.
West of the Rockies
@Kent:
Former teacher here, too (community college English)… I agree that generally teachers are regarded with admiration or, at least, neutrality.
But conservatives have for years clucked on about them having summers off and working short days (8-3).
But this full-on disdain now will backfire on Republicans. Everybody knows teachers, have been inspired or positively affected by them. They’re sort of like nurses, people doing important and valuable work without much support or recognition. Trying to vilify them turns off a larger chunk of the population than it might attract.
As I’ve said before, it’s bizarre to me how Republicans manage to live in a world where every damn thing leads them to rage, terror, and resentment. How bloody exhausting would that be?
Kent
@Betty Cracker: Part of it depends on whether or not Florida is actually winnable for Dems, or whether it is the equivalent of Republicans trying to win statewide in California.
I don’t know the answer to that question, but based on recent elections I’m not super hopeful. Most people in the rest of the country already think Florida is crazy so it is not much of a lift. We have 40 years of Dave Berry, Carl Hiassen and endless news coverage of hurricanes, alligators, Burmese pythons, and crazy Cubans (Elian Gonzales, etc.). It is a whole lot easier than say trying to turn Colorado into the crazy.
p.a.
The intertubes (never wrong!) say “Manhattan” chowder is a misnomer/insult coined by New Englanders to smear the tomatoey chowder cooked by Portuguese and Italian immigrants. I like all 3 with the caveat that New England chowder, when the ‘broth’ is thickend to the extent that a spoon stands up in it, is an abomination. And on principle I downgrade any RI restaurant that doesn’t offer RI chowder.
lowtechcyclist
@Greg:
How does that work, though? You know the for-profit schools are going to pay the teachers less than a public school would, probably a good deal less, because of course they are a grift, and a hefty profit will be priority #1. And the teachers there will have no job security either. Those that can, will either move to a more hospitable state or leave the profession altogether.
Not a lot of smart people are going to want to move to a state where the schools are privatized, and their kids would be in a school where ‘teachers’ with no credentials have fifty kids in their classes.
Kent
@West of the Rockies: Yes, but none of the anti-teacher stuff is remotely recent. My dad was a teacher in the 1970s and I remember all the bullshit he had to deal with even from the extended family. All that “those who can’t teach do” denigration. It frankly goes back generations. Richard Hofstadter wrote about it in the early 1960s with “The Anti-intellectualism of American Life”
If anything I think modern parents are getting more supportive of schools because we are in a new economy where you can’t just go out and get a union job like you used to. The majority are realizing that education is more important today than ever. ESPECIALLY immigrant parents who are a growing percentage. Schools are already close to being majority minority nationwide if they are not already there. I think we easily forget that with the bullshit coming out of states like Florida.
lowtechcyclist
@prostratedragon:
Hah! I’m glad to say my wife shares a birthday with the current VP.
Paul in KY
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: There were certainly things he wasn’t ambiguous about.
Matt McIrvin
@Ruckus: Ohhhhhhhh I know. Had sort of a horrified negative fascination with Scientology during the period when they seemed to have more pull than they do today
But the similarities between right-wing political movements and cults like that disturb me too.
TheTruffle
This is a 1A violation and all teachers should say no.
@lowtechcyclist: I’m guessing families and younger people pack up and leave Florida. No use staying in a state with no future. Maybe they should do the same for Texas.
@Kent: I love this strategy. All the people saying “define him first”–bring it on. Troll him for the next few years. And you know Former Guy will try to destroy him.
cckids
Yes! That’s by design. One of the main reasons public schools were started in this country was to give people a common base of experience, and, frankly, to “Americanize” all the immigrants coming here; to overrule some of the cultural heritage they were getting at home, teach them English and make them into good citizens. You’d think conservatives would be on board.
Betty Cracker
@Kent: I agree the Florida branding is firmly in place and not altogether unjustified — the zany shit that happens in a place where the roads run out is part of the charm, IMO. Long-term branding (for good or ill) is powerful as hell. TFG and Hillary Clinton are handy examples of candidates who were helped and hurt respectively by years-in-the-making (and in both their cases completely bogus) branding. DeSantis, unlike most of the so-called “Florida men” who do crazy shit that makes national news, actually was born here, so fair enough.
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
Similarities? Right-wing political movements ARE cults, not just cult like. They want to create a world that is in no way representative of human beings, which is why they have to disguise it in bullshit and lies. The difference between the right and left is that the right wants absolute strict, limiting definitions of every thing and the left wants people to just not hurt each other and give the same opportunities to everyone and protect those that have to work harder just to exist. It is an existential difference in life. The right has zero imagination, thought, insight that the world can be diverse and therefore better for all, while the left embraces the concept of diversity.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: The “Florida Man” trope seems to be kind of an in-joke to me, one that most voters aren’t in on and won’t appreciate.
It seems like a better line of attack is that Florida men and women are are fine, but they have to live in a crappy state because Ron DeSantis has made it one:
“Under Ron DeSantis, Florida ranks __ in infant mortality.”
“Ron DeSantis allowed his buddies in Florida’s home insurance industry rates to jack up rates xxx% since he’s been Governor, so now they are making billions while retirees are eating ramen noodles every day just so they can keep their house insured”
“Ron DeSantis let Florida have the __th highest murder rate in the country.” etc.
Don’t make Floridians the bad guys, make DeSantis the bad guy and Floridians his victims.
I know some Democrats are gonna grumble,”Well those Floridians voted for him, so…” to which I would say “Put a sock in it it. This is politics, not an exercise in moral judgement.”
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: The Miami Herald reports that VP Harris weighed in on DeSantis:
Bring the fire, ma’am! ;-)
Ksmiami
@Kent: Just keep showing him in dem boots
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I like the “so-called leaders…”
gvg
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Not around here. Most of the private schools are religious. And even the ones that aren’t, I haven’t heard attacks on. It’s just not on the radar for a long time here in Florida. Mostly the far right thought leaders want to start their own grift charter.
gvg
@sab: I think it was New York? that did an internet lending library to all teens of banned books for the whole country. I forget how the library card worked. It was just last year I read about it.
Kay
ha ha. The private sector :)
DeSantis will have to do press conferences where he yells at book stores now.
gvg
Teachers can be fired for even telling students about these resources so if your job does not involve schools, you can help by telling them about these https://www.bklynlibrary.org/media/press/brooklyn-public-library-94
and https://www.bklynlibrary.org/books-unbanned
buggrit
I’m really irked that the Republicans are trying to stick us with yet another guy who looks like he smells bad.
Miss Bianca
@p.a.: Real New England chowder, at least the parts of New England I’ve lived in, is not the gloppy crap that the soup companies market. Just sayin’.
kalakal
Bizarrely DeSantis is also trying to present himself as the teachers pal. He wants them to be able to ‘Stand their ground’ and impose discipline. Simultaneously he’s giving Moms for Serfdom absolute power over teachers. The clash between a teacher trying to ‘discipline’ a child and a wingnut parent having a hissy of fit over said disciplining of their little cherub will be fun.
Citizen Alan
@The Moar You Know: I don’t think it’s “most” by any means. But a significant percentage of Americans would rather see public education cease to exist than for it to be a possible means for non-whites and females to better their prospects. And sadly, that deranged subgroup contains a disproportionate number of the nation’s billionaires who are completely embittered that they can’t have actual slaves.
Citizen Alan
@Kay: Does the McArdle creature even have children? I’d always assumed a sociopath like her would never have children unless she had a family history of bad kidneys and thought she might need to breed a potential organ donor.
Citizen Alan
@Ruckus: Well, let’s be fair now. 30-40 years ago means Lowell Weicker was still alive!
Citizen Alan
@cckids:
The problems started when schools started taking the position that immigrant students could Americanize while still being proud of their ethnic heritage and, worse, that they could aspire to being more than good second class citizens.