- [Voiceover] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- [Host] Coming up next, Florida gives the go ahead to conservative ideology to be presented in schools.

The makers of the materials say left wing ideology now dominates education.

How Governor DeSantis responds to the latest indictments of former President Trump, Florida taxpayers are subsidizing the governor's presidential campaign to the tune of millions of dollars, and soaring auto and homeowners insurance rates are making Florida more and more unaffordable.

All this and more, right now on Florida this Week.

(opening music) - Welcome back.

Florida's department of Education has approved the use of supplemental curriculum created by Prager U, a right-wing advocacy group.

Prager U is not a university, but is a conservative advocacy organization founded by a right wing talk show host.

Prager creates videos featuring right wing figures giving their spin on topics like climate change, American history, the media, and other important issues.

Prager's CEO says its curriculum is necessary because our schools have been hijacked by the left, and says schools have been politicized.

But there are groups in Florida fighting back, saying that no ideology, left or right, should be taught in schools as the final word.

And joining me now is Jessica Wright, the Director of Education and Empowerment for the Florida Freedom to Read Project.

The group works to bring together parent-led groups from across Florida and unite to protect every student's right to access information and ideas.

And Jessica, thanks for doing the program.

- Thank you for having me here today, I appreciate it.

- Let me play one of the videos that will now be available to Florida public school children.

This features an MIT professor who does not reveal that he's been the recipient of money from the fossil fuel industry, he's downplaying global warming.

- I'm an atmospheric physicist.

I've published more than 200 scientific papers.

For 30 years I taught at MIT, during which time the climate has changed remarkably little, but the cry of global warming has grown evermore shrill.

In fact, it seems that the less the climate changes, the louder the voices of the climate alarmists get.

So let's clear the air and create a more accurate picture of where we really stand on the issue of global warming.

- And Jessica, that's pretty typical.

It's a five minute video, we're not gonna show the whole thing, but that's pretty typical, one expert giving their opinion about an important issue.

What's your take on Prager U?

- So Prager U in general, I think it's very interesting how transparent they've been about their initiative to indoctrinate from what they consider to be the other side.

And I think it's important to note that the super majority of parents, as previously mentioned, does not want any sort of indoctrination.

And so, it's very ironic that this has been approved by the state, that has continuously said that they're going to fight and stop indoctrination.

And what that's really told us is that it just means it wants to thwart any perspective that it does not actually agree with, despite if it's based on fact or not.

- Now, Prager says it's a free alternative to the dominant left wing ideology that exists in the education system.

I think they're referring to the public education system in the country, so is that your view of what's going on in our public schools?

- Definitely not.

And I think that that's further evidenced by, especially this year, what we saw come out as the approved adoption list from the state, in terms of what districts even have to choose from for actual curriculum.

And it's important to note too, that the Florida Department of Education is currently under investigation with a grand jury because of their involvement in the vendor process.

Which is also important to note, because Prager U did not go through this vendor process, they did not go through a bid process, because it's an open source supplemental resource that can be accessed from anywhere, anytime that you have any sort of device that can access the internet.

- Let's look at another video in which a cartoon character who's supposed to be Christopher Columbus, but who is not actually quoting Columbus, downplays the evils of slavery.

- Slavery is as old as time, and it's taken place in every corner of the world, even amongst the people I just left.

Being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no?

Before you judge, you must ask yourself, what did the culture and society at the time treat as no big deal.

- Jessica, what do you think of that video?

- I think that that's a very common perspective that we've heard for decades regarding Christopher Columbus, specifically.

And it's concurrent with a lot of the perspectives that we see in other videos, like the ones with Frederick Douglas where they try to claim that America was the first to pursue the abolitionist movement, which we know was not true, because Denmark was the first, and then France, and then Britain.

And so, it's another avenue to further push logical fallacies, meaning that they'll provide a very small subset of information that is really just confirming their own own previous bias.

- Now, we have a teacher shortage this year, as we do every year, but it's grown.

The state education department says we've got about a shortage of about 5,000, but there's disagreement.

The teacher's union and others say the shortage is about 8,000.

How does the shortage of teachers, experts in their field, impact, or how does Prager U impact the shortage of experts in the field in teaching?

- Yeah, you know, earlier this week we saw the Florida Department of Education release another statement that said that the teacher shortage was actually decreasing 10% year over year.

And we know exactly how they're getting those numbers, and it's because of increased class sizes.

We have kindergarten classes right now that are upwards of 28 students, which is largely anywhere from six to eight more than what's actually recommended by class size amendment.

And they're thwarting and circumventing the law, by just having an instructional assistant in that room.

But we know that's not best practice for children.

The way that these laws are also further burdening our teachers is because now we have parents who are going to be reaching out to opt out of Prager U, which puts a further burden on our district and individual teachers, because it's further just whittling away at any sort of trust the public had with our public education system.

And we know that that's intentional, so that more people are gonna take advantage of the universal voucher system that was just passed, which will dismantle public education.

- And just a quick question, if parents are concerned about ideology either far right or or far left in their schools, what should parents do?

What if parents just want factual information, solid history, solid science, what should parents do?

- I think one thing to remember is that the majority of our teachers and educators who are certified and have that professional background, they're gonna look at these resources and know that they're not valuable.

And so I think that's first and foremost, you have to ask, do we have a certified teacher, or do we potentially have a long-term sub or someone who is not as experienced?

And once you know that, it's going to shape how you partner with your teacher.

And so that partnership is going to be the most important aspect of your child's education all throughout K through 12, you cannot replace parental involvement in a child's education.

- Jessica Wright, Florida Freedom to Read Project.

Thanks a lot for coming on Florida this Week.

- Thank you for having me.

(light music) - Joining us on the panel this week, Stanley Gray is the president and CEO of the Hillsborough County Urban League, and is not affiliated with a political party.

Shelly Reback is the host of WMNFs Midpoint Wednesday, and a Democrat.

Barry Edwards is a political commentator and a pollster, and in the past has worked for both Republicans and Democrats.

And Darryl Paulson is the Emeritus Professor of Government and Politics at USF St. Petersburg.

So nice to have you all here, thank you for coming.

Well, former president Donald Trump was indicted, along with 18 other people in Georgia this week on charges related to trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Governor Rod DeSantis again defended Trump, as he's done in the past, calling this an example of the criminalization of politics.

And so Darrell let me go to you.

Governor DeSantis has been defending Trump, even in Atlanta on Friday, had nothing bad to say about Trump.

What do you think about this as a strategy?

Because Chris Christie has said that DeSantis should drop out of the race if his goal is to defend Trump.

And that Christie says DeSantis lacks the authenticity and principle to be president.

- That's all true.

Yes.

I mean, you'd expect somebody who's running against another candidate to have something bad to say about him, or at least have something good to say about himself as to why he should be chosen over his opponent.

But DeSantis has not taken that track.

Those two words have become by words for the Republican presidential primaries this year, the criminalization of politics, or the weaponization of politics.

What that means is, we're afraid to say anything about Donald Trump because we know he is by far the front runner.

Anything we say might hurt our own campaign, so we're too chicken to say anything about Donald Trump.

So they're just weaseling their way out of this political process.

It would be nice to have a politician who always claims to speak the truth to actually do it for once.

- Andy Barry's true that the Republican answer to a lot of this is that the, this is the criminalization of politics.

You hear that from the people you know, standing outside the Trump rallies.

- Right.

And one of the problems, and I agree with Dr. Paulson is we both are so much in our own tribes that whatever our tribe does, and I talked to activists in both the Democratic Party and the Republic Party every day, whatever their party does, it doesn't matter.

When I talked to a woman who was a former, like a woman's president for the Democrats, and she was going all this articulate on what the Republicans have done wrong, and then I mentioned the Hunter Biden stuff, "Well, you know, there's no proof yet."

And so, as soon as it's on our tribe, we find some way to discount it.

Both tribes, if you want to get America back to where we need to be, we need to be Profiles in Courage like John Kennedy wrote, 'cause really the warmest places in hell are reserved for those at times of deep moral crisis remain neutral.

So, a pox on both houses.

- Hmm.

So Shelly, the road to the debate on Wednesday, and the advice that Ron DeSantis has been given by his super PAC is to attack Vivek Ramaswamy with a sledgehammer, defend Donald Trump from attacks from Chris Christie, and bring up his wife and his family often.

Is that good advice for the debate on Wednesday?

- I don't think so.

I mean, there's nothing in that advice that tells us why we should vote for Ron DeSantis, and isn't that what a presidential campaign should really be about?

I, you know, I'm not hearing it.

- All right.

Stanley, I think DeSantis has dropped a third place in New Hampshire and he seems to have lost his traction, at the beginning of this year, he was golden.

Why do you think he slipped back a little bit in the most recent polls?

- Because I think that the events that have occurred recently have showed who the true DeSantis is.

I think that they've showed that he really doesn't have anything that's gonna be cohesive in binding the American population together.

He's a very, his positions on things are very divisive, and they seem to be very tactical as opposed to strategic.

And I think that a lot of people are starting to see that.

- Barry, I gotta ask you just real quickly, is most of the leadership in the legislature who are Republican, are they mostly pro-Trump?

- Behind the scenes, they're mostly pro-Trump, but if you're in Florida, the big gavel is DeSantis.

So I think you're gonna find when somebody loses a nomination, they lose half their juice.

'Cause they're, we're always in politics about the future.

And I think that's why DeSantis is not doing as well as he should, he's talking about what he's done in Florida.

Well, if you're in Iowa, what are you gonna do for me?

It's always a with him, what's in it for me?

And he's not talking about aspirational things that's gonna benefit me outside of Florida.

- Darryl?

- Well, it's the moral fiber once again.

If you can't speak the truth, then people aren't gonna have any credibility in what you say, and Ron DeSantis has trouble speaking the truth.

I mean, does anyone really think that that's his honest attitude about Donald Trump?

That he thinks Donald Trump has done everything right, and has not made any mistakes?

Nobody believes that.

- And looking at Florida from the outside, is that what you want for your state?

We are now the least affordable state to live in.

We have a housing crisis, we have an insurance crisis, we have so many problems in Florida and all that DeSantis is focusing on is culture wars.

- All right.

And that topic is coming up in just a moment.

Well, Florida taxpayers have spent more than $13 million on travel and protective security for Governor DeSantis in the two years that he's prepared for and conducted a campaign for the 2024 presidential nomination.

Mary Ellen Kloss of the Miami Herald reports, it's substantially more than what the state spent for his travel and security in his first term in office, and more than several other states have spent on their sitting governors while they were running for president in recent elections.

And Shelley, what do you think about, I mean, the state subsidizing his presidential ambitions?

- Let's remember that this is all because the Republican controlled Florida legislature passed a new law that said that Ron DeSantis did not have to resign to run for president.

So as a result, wherever he goes, he and his family, all the costs of his travel and security are being picked up by Florida taxpayers.

Now he has, his campaign and his political committee, have raised over a hundred million dollars, and none of that money is being reimbursed to the Florida taxpayers to pay for his travel and security because he is still a Florida governor.

And so the money is coming out of Florida taxpayers funding of FDLE to take him wherever he and his family wants to go.

And this is at a time when Florida taxpayers are desperately trying to make ends meet in their own households, as again, we have the least affordable state in the nation.

And he's continuing to take this money from taxpayers.

And in fact, I read that it was $22 million, not $13 million that Florida taxpayers have been responsible for so far.

And you have to ask, every time he restructures his campaign, he's pulling more and more of his loyalists from the administration into his campaign.

And so now, we have his chief of staff running his campaign.

The Lieutenant governor has gone to Iowa to support his campaign.

His Florida Department of Education is under federal investigation.

His chief of affordable housing has been suspended, for what we still don't know.

And so you have to ask, who's running Florida right now?

- But there, isn't the public pretty cynical about this?

They see presidents using Air Force one traveling the country for presidential campaigns, and don't think anything about it.

- Just what I was gonna talk about.

Donald Trump has accused our own Ron DeSantis of taxpayer funded globe-trotting.

Now, I can't imagine Donald Trump ever doing that as president of the United States himself, but our governor is guilty of that.

Now, if that doesn't get Ron DeSantis to come out and say.

"This is just a bunch of hooey, Donald Trump doesn't know what he's talking about, all politicians do this."

At least we'd have more honesty and credibility in what he's saying, but he won't even come out and attack Donald Trump when Donald Trump is directly attacking him.

- All right.

Well, in a story for the publication Inside Higher Education, headlined "Chaos Reigns at New College", it's reported that when classes begin on Monday at the Sarasota School, there's already been a faculty exodus, more than 40 professors have left.

Many classes essential to graduation in several majors have been canceled.

Hampshire College of Massachusetts is welcoming all new college students in good standing who want to transfer.

The turmoil comes after governor DeSantis has been making a full court press this year to turn the liberal bastion into a version of ultra-conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan.

So Barry, chaos at New College, would you agree with that assessment?

- I don't think it's a chaos of New College, number one.

And number two, why are we celebrating mediocrity?

When Ron, when Richard Corcoran got hired, my friends on the woke left always liked US News and World Report.

My academic friends like him, don't like those rankings.

They were ranked number 73, in 1973, New college in their class was ranked number five, is decayed to 73 outta 210.

And they're transferring to Hampshire, which is ranked at 120th, which only graduates 60% of their kids in six years.

Why are we celebrating mediocrity?

And I looked at the SAT average of these New College athletes, but what, it was a little difficult 'cause you can't get the micro, but I was able to compare year on year on year the last five years.

The difference in the SAT and GPA average is, there's less than a hundredth of a point.

So not a 10th, but a hundredth from the previous years.

So these new kids that are coming in, these athletes, which really aren't college athletes, they don't have a program yet, they want is very de minimis.

So there's not all this chaos.

There are some kids, some professors leaving, but 40 faculty members can be replaced pretty easily, this isn't like 500.

And why are we condemning and saying this ultra right at Hillsdale, I noticed that the University of Florida, which is there again, has a Republican president, is ranked number 10 in public universities, the University of South Florida, which also happens to have a Republican president in array of law.

I just got admitted to AAU the 65th university.

- But (indistinct) is not an ultra rightist.

- None of the, and Richard Corcoran, if you look at Florida.

- Cocoran is.

- If Richard Corcoran is an ultra rightist then Florida is an ultra-rightist, because Rod DeSantis won by four-tenths of a point four years ago.

He won by 19 point half points.

So the state of Florida is voting for this.

And so, you have to look at where the state is and if you put it into perspective, these are not ultra-right, these are the norm.

- Stanley.

- I understand how you're using the statistics and everything, but I think that we have to really all admit that perceptions do matter, in everything.

And the fact that in the manner in which that the college changes direction, it's just improper.

You basically change the board of directors and then you have the board of directors fire the president, and then you bring this president, and a salary that's really, I believe inflated, that makes one wonder and question where are we going and why are we going?

- Well if you want a little parody in education though, I think it's only fair to say if you're gonna say that New College is left wing now because it's using literature from Prager University, then you ought to say that New College itself is left wing, because of the students that it enrolled in the campus.

And it's generally known as a very left wing liberal organization.

So Prager University is to the right, but if you're gonna say that, then at least be fair and say that New College is far to the left.

- Shelley, New College has turned out a lot of doctors, a lot of lawyers, it's turned out bank presidents, federal reserve presidents, it's turned out a lot of amazing people.

The incoming freshman class though in New College will be the largest in its history and.

- And over half are athletes.

- That's right.

341 students, 155 are, just under half are athletes.

What do you think about that?

- That's who they're recruiting.

That is what they want to entirely remake New College from its former.

- But they have really no athletic program.

- They have no athletic program, 40 faculty members have left.

And I have to disagree with Barry that it's gonna be easy to replace those people because there's a brain drain from the entire public university system in Florida now, because faculty feel insecure now that the law has changed and tenure is no longer protected.

And a lot of faculty are not ideologically disposed to come to Florida right now.

They do not want to support this kind of indoctrination that the DeSantis agenda is promoting through the Department of Education and through the public university system.

- Okay, well in another sign that Florida's becoming a very expensive state to live in, bank rate reports that auto insurance rates in the state are now nearly double the national average.

That's adding to the high cost of living here already.

Homeowners insurance is about four times what it costs in most states around the country.

Florida's experiencing the highest inflation rate in the country, the inflation rates in Tampa and Miami are more than twice as high as the consumer price index nationwide.

Stanley, the high cost of living in Florida.

- You know, one of the things I think is just so interesting when we start talking about the cost of car insurance.

Well, why don't we look for a solution?

I mean, why aren't we going to the dealerships and saying, before you can sell to somebody, they have that proof that they're insured.

And I'm talking about new as well as used cars.

I mean we seem to like just be leaving a solution or even trying to find a solution.

But we just wanna have something to complain about.

And this is another classic example to me where the lack of leadership is actually showing in the cost that the citizens of the state of Florida have to pay.

- Barry, has Tallahassee adequately dealt with these problems.

- On homeowner's insurance this year, we've made a big dent, on car insurance we have not.

And in fact, on the homeowner's insurance, it was the largest tort reform overhaul in the history of the country.

- [Host] And they're also giving a lot of money, billions to the insurance companies.

Yet, insurance companies are leaving, and prices are still still going up.

- Making it harder for people to afford.

- We have litigation, for auto insurance we have litigation.

Well actually that's not true, but, well it's not true according to any outside study.

So you know, we can say we think, but facts are stubborn things.

- I think you have to be very careful when you say people are leaving Florida in massive droves.

Because if that was the case, Florida would not be the third largest country in the nation now.

I mean our population has grown from 6.6 million in 1969, to 22.2 million today, the third largest country.

There's something that's attracting people.

- Excuse me, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I think when you start talking about people leaving and staying, I think you have to look at who is able to leave.

Okay?

Before we like, you know, get in one camp or the other, you have to say who has the financial means to relocate and go someplace, because that really does make a big bearing.

- Barry, in just 20 seconds, you get the final word on this, on insurance, is the Tallahassee dealing adequately with the problem?

- They've started this was, yeah, I think they are.

But the problem is when you make a reform on insurance like we did on the tort reform, then you have the reinsurance.

People say, well you have a lot of storms in Florida, because of climate change we're gonna pull out.

So the answer is maybe.

- Okay, well before we go, what other news stories should we be paying attention to?

Stanley, your other big story.

- I think the cost implications resulting to the immigration policy, specifically with construction.

This is going to like make people who are building buildings and building, you know, large complexes, it's gonna change their whole financial picture.

- Okay, Shelly, your other big story.

- Nearly 3 Million Floridians voted by mail in the 2022 election.

And all of those vote by mail requests have now been repealed and wiped out by a new law that DeSantis promulgated this year.

So if you voted by mail before and you wanna vote by mail again, you need to contact your supervisor of elections office and make a new request.

- All right, Barry, your other big story.

- Last week or the mayor of Tampa proposed the only government entity in the whole state of Florida that's not doing a keep the millage at the same or a rollback proposed a one mill increase.

And I think that she got bad staff advice because I've talked to several friends who are close to the Republican County Commission, if that passes, I don't think you're gonna see the CIT tax on the ballot in 2024.

- All right, and Darryl, your other big story.

- Speaker of the House Renner has asked the Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court to look at consolidating judicial districts in Florida, there are 20 judicial districts.

It's been that way since 1969.

The big question is, is this for real reform, as Renner talks about cost reduction that will save Florida taxpayers a lot of money?

Or is this another attempt at gerrymandering?

Because one of the things that this opens the door to is that you could take judicial District 13, which is Hillsborough County, which is very democratic, merge it with the judicial District 12, which is Manatee Sarasota and DeSoto County, which is very Republican, and help them have a better chance of electing a Republican to all of these judicial positions in that newly created gerrymandered judicial district.

If in fact, that's what the real purpose of this is all about.

- Well, thank you all for a vigorous show and I hope you come back too.

And thank you for joining us.

Send us your comments at ftwwedu.org and like us on Facebook from all of us here at WEDU, have a great weekend.

(upbeat music) - [Voiceover] Florida this Week is a production of WEDU, who is solely responsible for its content.