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

- [Rob] Next on WEDU, the state adopts new standards for teaching black history, the DeSantis, presidential campaign may have financial problems, Florida's new state guard is described as too militaristic by some who've gone through training, and the group that won voting rights for felons, who have served their sentences, is now suing the state over the way it's handling that new constitutional amendment.

All this and more right now on "Florida This Week."

(upbeat music) Welcome back.

Join us on the panel this week.

Eric Deggans is the TV and media critic for National Public Radio.

Diane Rado is the editor-in-chief for the Florida Phoenix.

Steve Bousquet is the opinion editor for the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

And Emily Mahoney is the political editor for the Tampa Bay Times.

So nice to see all of you.

What a great panel.

- Thank you.

- Yeah.

- Well this week, the Florida Board of Education approved new academic standards for instruction about African-American history in public schools, but there was pushback from the teachers, the teacher's union and the NAACP.

The new African-American history standards are designed to guide lessons from kindergarten through high school.

The updates to the African-American, history curriculum were required under a 2022 law that Governor Ron DeSantis dubbed the Stop Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees Act, or the Stop Woke Act.

Florida Education Commissioner, Manny Diaz, defended the new history standards.

- And if anyone takes the time to actually look at the standards, you can see that everything is covered, from elementary school where we start talking about those who have been prominent African-Americans.

And as age appropriate, we go into some of the tougher subjects all the way into the beginnings of the slave trade, Jim Crow Laws, civil rights movement, everything that occurred throughout our histories.

- [Rob] Included in the new standards is a requirement to show how slaves developed skills, which in some instances could be applied for their personal benefit.

That brought this reaction from critics.

- Any kind of standards that indicate that slavery benefited black people is such an insult.

- Some of the notion that, you know, enslaved people benefited from being enslaved is inaccurate and a scary standard for us to establish in our educational curriculum.

- [Rob] Another part of the standard requires instruction that includes acts of violence perpetrated against and by African-Americans, but is not limited to the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot, the 1919 Washington DC Race Riot, the 1920 Ocoee Massacre, the 1921 Tulsa Massacre and the 1923 Rosewood Massacre.

The words violence perpetrated by African-Americans, associated with the one-sided white massacres of blacks that took place in Ocoee, Rosewood and Tulsa angered Democratic, state senator, Geraldine Thompson.

A teacher from Escambia County said, "The new standards tell only half the story and half the truth."

- When we name political figures who work to end slavery but leave anyone who worked to keep slavery illegal nameless, kids are forced to fill in the blanks for themselves.

- So Eric, now in these new standards, they're going to teach that enslaved people derive personal benefit from slavery.

What do you make of that?

- You know, I'm gonna apologize if I go on about this 'cause I could talk about this for the whole show.

And I have to say, as somebody who raised four kids in the Pinellas County School system, I am so glad that they're older and have all graduated from high school so I don't have to worry about having my kids under the yoke of this incredibly ridiculous, disgusting, disappointing, unfair, you know, there's so many adjectives I could use.

But what strikes me about this is that some people, especially conservatives, have a hard time facing the bitter truth about how people of color, especially black people, have been dehumanized, exploited, killed, marginalized for centuries in this country, even after the Civil War, even after slavery was over through Jim Crow segregation, even after we got the right to vote which by the way only happened a year before I was born to now where we are still dealing with police brutality and systemized oppression of black people.

And the other thing that some people, especially conservatives have problems with is the moral authority of the Civil Rights movement.

They resent the fact that America has largely accepted that black people and people of color have been exploited and victimized by this country for centuries and that there should be some official way to not only correct the history books so that their stories are told right, but correct modern day systems so that education and housing and employment are fairer for them after centuries of oppression.

And so part of this is about, you know, feeding people this fantasy that there was somehow both sides to this issue.

And part of it is about usurping and denigrating the moral authority of the Civil Rights movement and all the efforts that we've made.

And finally, the worst part of this is that we have these people in Tallahassee who have usurped the power and the authority of locally elected school boards!

People elect local school boards to make these decisions about curriculum.

They've taken those decisions away from them and they've disregarded the advice of longtime educators, experts on civil rights and black history.

You've heard of all the people who've lined up to criticize this.

It's obvious it's political, it's obvious it's about justifying re-marginalizing people and it's obvious that it's about intimidating educators so that they will be afraid to teach, even though they say some of the stuff is allowed, they'll be afraid to talk about it at all for fear that Tallahassee will come after them.

It's so ludicrous and terrible.

As I said, I could talk about it all day.

- So in his opening statement, Diane, in Orlando this week, as the new standards were being announced, education commissioner Manny Diaz said, "Everything is covered."

What do you make of that statement, Is that a fair representation of what these new standards are?

- No.

Just, absolutely not.

And most of the people who were there were talking about why, you know, it was called incomplete for many people, saying these standards are not correct.

And we've been going back, again, years and years on this issue that the state says, you have to have black history.

But I think that in many cases, it hasn't happened in school districts and now it's even worse with these new standards.

It's really uncomfortable, it's upsetting.

And what are we going to do about this?

I feel like every time we're talking about this issue, I feel like maybe the federal government should come in at this point to monitor what's happening and even lose money from federal dollars if we do not get it straight on this issue.

Something has to happen.

- Steve, at the meeting in Orlando this week, several people stood up and said, "Look, you're rushing to adopt these new standards.

You've gotta take more time.

We want a chance to have more input than has already been given."

Manny Diaz said, "Well, a lot of input has been given already."

- The reason they're rushing is because the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary are coming.

Every minute, you showed a clip of Manny Diaz speaking at that meeting.

Every time, Manny Diaz is sort of framing this issue and not the chairperson of the Hillsborough County School Board or as classroom teachers group in Pinellas County.

It's a bad sign.

It's top down, Tallahassee knows best, you know?

It'd be nice to have a governor and commissioner of education talking about the need for this curriculum to include James Meredith, George Floyd, Malcolm X and on and on.

- [Eric] Harry T. Moore.

- Yeah, Harry T. Moore in Florida.

- [Eric] Civil Rights worker killed in Florida.

- His home was bombed around Christmas.

- And so this is completely political and it's just, it's a complete hijacking of local education decisions by politicians in Tallahassee.

- So Emily this really does show, I think, the power and the influence of the governor though over all aspects of Florida government.

I mean, this shows how important, I think, the governor's position is when it comes to exerting power here in Florida.

- Absolutely and, you know, Steve touched on the politics surrounding this, but we haven't talked about the most notable critic of this so far, which is the vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris who's flying to Florida as we speak, if not already touched down to blast this move by the state of Florida.

And that I think is very indicative of the politics surrounding this.

And I think, you know, governor DeSantis already sort of blasted her visit, saying that she's lying about the curriculum.

And I think that for DeSantis politically, Harris's criticism is really kind of exactly the, you know, I don't know if intended effect is the right word but it certainly will be used as a feather in his cap politically.

The Biden Administration is exactly who they would like to be publicly battling right now, especially as he runs for president and tries to portray himself as, you know, really the one to fight Joe Biden when it comes to the general election.

- You know, one other thing I'd like to point out is that the sad thing about all of this is that the message for young, black and brown kids in this state is that when something like this happens, teachers and principals and superintendents and local officials and state officials, they won't stand up for you.

They won't take care of you.

They will let it happen.

And that is the worst message of all.

- We're gonna pick up on something that Emily just said.

NBC News reported last week that Florida Governor, DeSantis, tapped out his top donors and burned through $7.9 million in his first six weeks as a presidential candidate.

That's more than a million dollars a week.

The numbers suggest for the first time that money could be a threat to the future of the DeSantis campaign, which has touted its fundraising ability.

More than two thirds of the money he's raised so far has come from big donors who gave the maximum.

His ability to raise money from small donors is anemic when compared to Donald Trump.

Although DeSantis is consistently in second place among the Republican field, Donald Trump is still the far and away favorite by almost 33 points according to RealClearPolitics.

And Emily, I'm wondering, you know, could it be that these new African-American history standards, help elevate Ron DeSantis?

His campaign is having some trouble.

Lots of media has reported it, including the Tampa Bay Times.

Why do you think he's having problems and do you think that his stance on black history might elevate him in the Republican primary?

- I think it's definitely possible.

He'll see a bump in fundraising, especially if this conflict between him and the state of Florida and the Biden Administration continues.

I wouldn't be surprised if his campaign continues to play up that conflict in donor appeals, for example.

We've seen that happen in the past when he got in the high profile fight with Disney.

His reelection campaign saw a surge in small dollar donations.

And so I would not be surprised if that's the case.

And I think that there are a lot of interesting numbers, campaign finance wise in the most recent filings from the DeSantis campaign that really sort of highlight this interesting position that he's in, right?

He is the candidate with a firm grip on second place.

And on one hand, that means that he raised more money than Donald Trump in the second quarter which, you know, is impressive but on the other hand, it means that only 15% of those donations came from small dollar donors which is a really troubling number for him and I'm sure is one that his campaign will try to increase going forward.

- Hmm, Steve- - Yeah but now just keep in mind though, there are still pots, right?

There are still pots of money.

For example, there's about 80 million at one of those super PACs.

So I'm not clear right now on how much money does he really have.

- [Rob] Well, that's true because his Don't Back Down PAC raised $130 million since March.

So it's not just his campaign that's an avenue for him or a path for him to achieve the presidential nomination.

- But what can that money be spent on?

You know, campaign expenses and things like that, he can't necessarily spend that money on.

- Steve, some of the Republican polls this week showed that Governor DeSantis is losing favorability among college educated Republicans.

And that was supposedly one of his keys to winning this nomination.

- I also saw a story just before coming in here that he's losing ground significantly with women voters.

So he's got problems with women voters, he's got problems with college educated voters.

If we know anything about this, one thing for voters to astutely watch is, as I understand it, don't be distracted by national polls.

This is a state by state competition, here.

It's much more important at this stage is how DeSantis is doing in Iowa rather than how he's doing in the country as a whole.

And so, you know, and the other thing is this issue that's been in a lot of news stories about DeSantis's fundraising, called the burn rate.

And the burn rate is really very simple.

The burn rate, it costs money to raise money as a candidate.

It costs a heck of a lot of money.

And the more you're spending to raise money, you know, those need to be in proportion and they're obviously not.

It seems like every week, we're reading a story about DeSantis rebooting his campaign, you know?

- I will say, I looked at the numbers in Iowa a little while ago, maybe three weeks ago and he wasn't doing that great there either.

(laughs) But I just wanna point out that I said on this show about eight months ago that his two biggest problems were gonna be that he was letting Trump define him before he was speaking for himself and that we had no idea how he was gonna do on a national stage when he was outside of the comfy confines of Florida politics.

And I think we've seen that he's not a great national candidate.

He's a terrible retail politician.

He still hasn't done many interviews outside the Fox News bubble.

And the way that Trump sort of portrayed him is dogging him and he's having a really hard time transcending that, even with Republican voters.

- Emily, let me go back to you because you did write a story this week about the troubles in the campaign, the Republican debate.

The first televised debate is a month away.

Give us some hope or tell us what the DeSantis team is thinking about the way that they can turn this around.

- Well, Steve highlighted the importance of Iowa and I think his campaign is really, really focused on early states, particularly Iowa.

And we've seen that in DeSantis, really highlighting his social conservative issues such as signing the six week abortion ban.

And so I think that that is a play to capture and, you know, they believe that he could still win the state of Iowa, giving him a shot of momentum going forward.

The question though becomes, you know, with things like the six week abortion ban, that is something that may be popular with Iowa Republican primary voters where many voters are religious, but that sort of policy carries risk in other states because it's not as necessarily popular nationwide.

And so, I think that it'll really be interesting to watch what happens in Iowa, first and foremost, but what happens afterward and how he may need to pivot or highlight different issues once he makes it past that state.

- [Rob] Okay.

- And do we remember who won Iowa last time around?

- Who did?

- It was Ted Cruz, wasn't it?

- It was Ted Cruz.

(laughs) - All right, we'll keep you on the DeSantis topic.

- Wait, what about the Trump situation?

What about the Trump situation and then connected to Ron DeSantis?

So if we continue to have more criminal situations, and especially coming down in Georgia possibly, what would happen if Trump had so much on his mind?

Maybe he will get out, and then who would be there?

DeSantis.

Do we really think DeSantis will lose?

- He will never quit.

- Eric's saying he- - And leave.

- He will never quit.

- And leave.

- He will never quit because the fact that he's a candidate, he feels is helping keep him from being fully prosecuted.

He will never quit.

- What if he has to go to prison?

I mean, they just did a trial date on, it was with the what, the Mar-a-Lago.

- May.

- May?

- Next May.

- Yeah.

All right, we'll see if those indictments come down.

- May, 2024.

- Well two years ago, governor DeSantis announced that he was reviving Florida's long dormant state guard.

He said the purpose would be to help Floridians during times of need or disasters such as hurricanes.

According to a new report from the Tampa Bay Times Miami Herald, when recruits showed up for training last month, they were trained for combat.

According to the Times/Herald, "Khakis and polos were replaced by camouflaged uniforms.

Volunteers assured that they could keep their facial hair, were ordered to shave and they were drilled on how to rappel with ropes, navigate through the woods and respond to incidents under military command.

According to records reviewed by the Times/Herald and interviews with program volunteers, a number of recruits quit after the first training class last month because they feared it was becoming too militaristic.

And Steve, the New York Times also reported this weekend that they said that the recruits, rather, had expected sessions on such things as how to set up water distribution and other resources during disasters.

But that training came only at the very end after classes on marksmanship and concealed carry of weapons, as well as hand-to-hand combat took place.

This is different than what the governor touted in the beginning.

- It is.

Couple of things about this, and I'm referring to an editorial we ran this week on this very subject in the Sun Sentinel and the Orlando Sentinel.

They changed the statute so that the person who runs the state guard reports directly to Ron DeSantis, a direct appoint, which solidifies his personal control over this operation.

You know, the idea of a state guard which was dormant since World War II was built initially on the concept that the National Guard is splintered in terms of, their attention is focused in lots of different directions.

I mean, DeSantis has sent National Guardsmen down to the border with Texas.

National Guardsmen perform vital work during and after hurricanes.

So you need this secondary force, supposedly.

But you've got a governor who's, already, got demonstrated record of authoritarian impulses and it's very problematic to give a guy like that this kind of military control.

- But when this idea first came up, DeSantis's critics said it may turn into a private army but Emily, the governor and his supporter said, "Look, that's paranoia."

- Yeah I think these reports, and I have to give a lot of credit to my colleagues who have brought this to light, I think these reports raise a lot of legitimate questions about what the purpose is of the state guard and what types of missions it will be going on in the future.

And in response to some of the reporting that my colleagues did, the major general, who oversees the Florida National Guard, told them that the state guard is a quote, "Military organization, whose mission is aiding law enforcement with riots and illegal immigration," or at least that's part of their mission.

And that is obviously a very different thing and requires a very different skillset than doing things like helping with hurricane shelters.

And so there's just all sorts of questions about not only the purpose of this, but what kind of training they're receiving.

And some military veterans who were receiving training as part of the state guard are concerned that it's not really up to snuff with a full military operation.

So there's just a lot more information that needs to be revealed about what's going on with the state guard.

- A lot of questions are raised.

- I have to say, it feels like in this state, we're like the frogs in the water that's slowly rising in temperature in terms of authoritarianism.

And before we know it, are we gonna be in a boiling pot of water controlled by this guy who has his own private security for us?

It's frightening.

- Let's do one more story.

The group that pushed to restore voting rights for most convicted felons who have served their sentences in Florida is suing Governor DeSantis, contending that the Republican governor and his allies have put in place an overly complex and at times intimidating process designed to block people from voting.

The federal lawsuit in Miami claims the current process of signing up to vote after serving their time in prison is unconstitutional and violates federal voting laws.

The problem is that many felons have to pay fines and fees in order to complete their sentences.

The lawsuit contends it is nearly impossible for convicted felons to find out how much they owe and within which jurisdiction they should make payments.

The lawsuit notes that the state of Alabama has a centralized database that allows convicted felons to check their status and that applicants are told within 44 days if they are eligible to vote and explains the reasons behind any denial.

Governor DeSantis created a new election crimes office that wound up arresting about 20 ex-felons who had voted in 2020.

Several of those arrested said that they were confused because they had received government issued voter ID cards after they registered.

And Diane we only have 15 seconds, but if Alabama can fix this, can Florida fix it?

- Yeah, we could do it if they would do it.

Cord Byrd is our Secretary of State, was in the confirmation mode at that point during the legislative session and he was acting like, "Oh, we can get something done."

But he didn't do anything at all.

And so, talk about Alabama, it's absolutely ridiculous that we cannot get this to happen for these felons who had their, you know, I'm saying the Secretary of State should be doing something.

- Yeah it's been five years since the Constitutional amendment was passed.

- Yes.

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

Eric, your other big story of the week.

- Well you know, I'm a TV critic, so I'm looking at, Netflix announced its earnings this week.

They're the only major streaming service that makes money and they're in the middle of dealing with this Hollywood strike and in an odd way, it benefits them.

They have enough material to make it to the end of the year.

They're getting more revenue out of their subscribers because they're cracking down on password sharing.

So they don't have as much incentive to end the strike as broadcasters and cable channels do.

So I have a feeling we're gonna be stuck dealing with this strike for quite a while.

- And Diane, your other big story of the week.

- I'm saying that we're not gonna just have the black history.

There's going to be so many other standards, including health and it's the tip of the iceberg in terms of how many of these kinds of standards.

So we're gonna be, you know, looking at that next week.

- All right Steve, your other big story of the week.

- Yes.

Just about everything that this governor does ends up in court, and here's the latest example.

It took a lawsuit this week to do something that's very ministerial, very simple.

It's throwing a switch and that is to schedule special elections for two seats in the legislature that are vacant.

Believe it or not, the next session starts in six months.

But DeSantis dragged his feet already long enough so that when the next session begins, these people in both Orlando and Miami will have nobody speaking for them in the Florida house and that's inexcusable.

- All right.

Emily, your other big story of the week.

- One of my colleagues reported that more than a third of the faculty at the New College of Florida will not be returning in the fall, which is a very high number obviously and this is according to one of the provosts there.

So this is just continued fallout, obviously, of Governor DeSantis's overhaul of that school but this is something that obviously raises real questions for the students there.

- All right, Emily Mahoney, Diane Rado, Steve Bousquet and Eric Deggans, thank you all for a great program and thank you for joining us.

You can comment about this program by writing to FTW, wedu.org.

You can view this and past shows online at wedu.org or on the PBS app.

"Florida This week" is now available as a podcast.

And from all of us here at WEDU, have a great weekend.

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

(upbeat music continues)