PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — State officials are demanding that Governor DeSantis and Commissioner Manny Diaz revise the new African American history standards. They were approved last week.
As a history teacher in Dunedin, Brandt Robinson said the revisions will make his job very different this school year.
"We have a lot of teachers who really have scaled back on the way they would normally teach about plantation slavery," Robinson said.
Robinson said sixth graders will see changes when talking about specific massacres, and there is language which suggests slaves developed skills which could be applied for their personal benefit.
"Is the motivation to have students walk away thinking, 'well racial slavery wasn’t that bad, at least people learned something', and that’s quite disturbing," Robinson explained.
Some state lawmakers believe the revisions are harmful and factually incorrect.
"I’m just so dismayed that that these standards were put into place without any real thought," Florida State Representative Dianne Hart said.
Hart wants to see Governor DeSantis and Commissioner Diaz make changes. "We want that language taken out," Hart said.
The Department of Education has defended the standards. 10 Tampa Bay reached out to the Department of Education and the Governor's office for their response to the letter from the Florida Legislative Black Caucus. Once we get a response, we will update this article.