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It is, indeed, outrageous. I'm struck by how much of it was taught this way to me back in the 1960s in Los Angeles. It's not just the South or just Florida. I remember clearly when a new history textbook was introduced into the high school curriculum which included the role of black people in American history for the first time. It was an epiphany in my all-white upper middle class school. I am deeply saddened that we now seem to be moving quickly backwards.

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We have been moving backward well before 2016 but TFG and right wing conservatives have dragged this country to lows equal to and worse than pre-civil war. How can I make such a statement. Easy! This curriculum is being promoted by people who certainly know this is a big lie and who are leading the biggest assault on gender identity and women’s health. It represents an attack on every value and principle long understood by people living in the United States of America.

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How can a Teacher teach this hogwash!

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Florida has a record shortage of teachers, because many are quitting the system. Florida Senate Bill 896, signed by DeSantis in June, allows veterans to apply for a temporary teaching certificate good for five years without first earning a Bachelors degree, which is normally required to teach. The average salary for a teacher in Florida is $51,230, ranking #48th in the nation.

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Oh good. So, pretty much anyone who is a veteran can apply for a teaching certificate with no training or education at all? What a slap in the face to teachers everywhere who worked hard to become educators. Surreal.

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DeSantis owns the Florida Congress with a super majority, & they rubber stamp anything he wants.

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Yes. It is so wrong. So very wrong.

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It IS a slap in the face of teachers and will continue in the trend to dumb down America. An uninformed population is a compliant one or so the fascist doctrine says. The fact that DeSatan won so big in Florida somehow attests to this.

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Nothing new there: in 1985, when I escaped from Florida, the starting salary for a rookie police officer in Boca Raton was higher than the salary of a high school teacher with a master's degree.

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Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that also the spouse of a veteran could ALSO become a teacher.

What an insult to teachers! BTW, I wonder what they will teach? I am thinking about my two children who teach HS English: they routinely spend about 60 hours a week working, since so much time is needed to plan curriculum, create and give make-up tests and quizzes after school, tutor after work hours, spend hours grading every night, and on HOLIDAYS and weekends. This doesn't take into account the amount of time the work during the infamous "summer vacation" where they attend mandatory workkshops, and often rewrite their curriculums when some new trend comes out of Washington. ("No Child Left Behind" anyone?) Heck, one daughter's dreary classroom was not scheduled to be painted for several years. SHE bought the paint and painted it herself, after getting permission from the administration, who kindly offered to reimburse the paint. We're talking a room with 12' ceilings, folks.

Average salary over $50K in FL? In many states, even blue ones, rural teachers make much less than that!

Between irate school boards, shootings, book banning, low salary, long hours--I wonder how much longer my daughters can carry on?

My bad for giving so much respect to teachers, such that two of my kids decided to become teachers!

I think many, if not most of those who comment have children long out of school. Perhaps if they have grandkids, or if the reader has kids in school, may I make this suggestion:

When Christmas, Teacher Appreciation or end of year comes (or all of them) please recognize the sacrifice teachers make for your kids. Do not send them a mug or teacher ornament, they have tons of them. IF you can afford it, send them a gift card. If you can't afford that, write a note or email thanking them. And if nothing else, SHOW UP TO PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCE and LISTEN respectfully to what they have to say about your kid.

Thank you. End of rant.

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You are correct. The spouse of a veteran can also get a temporary teaching certificate.

You are also correct that this is an insult to the many dedicated, hard-working teachers who continue to sacrifice to instruct our children.

That dollar figure paid to teachers in Florida is an average, certainly not the lowest salary paid. There are a lot of different “averages” given on the internet, but this dollar figure is not the highest, & includes private school as well as public teachers.

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Exactly. I think it was HCR a few months/weeks ago who listed all the factors around education: teacher pay, teacher background, state funding for education, higher ed prep for education, etc - FLA falls within the BOTTOM 10% of the 50 states when all these factors are analyzed.

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Ignorance is strength. I read that somewhere.

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Yes in some things.........ha!

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Mostly for keeping a lie going.

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In George Orwell's "Animal Farm."

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Could be, I don't recall. It was one of "The Party's" key slogans in "1984", along with, "War is Peace", "Freedom is Slavery" and "Make America Great Again", though I might be mixing memories on that last one. Something like that.

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Republican doctrine c. 2023.

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Sandy, have you seen this? I posted it in response to commenters on yesterday’s LFAA….reading it, I thought it might be from the Onion…still can’t take in (wrap my head around) what it says….I mean, seriously? This site links to the whole publication which I have skimmed part of….find it appalling, very scary and revving my engines to oppose such a take-over strategy: https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/project-2025

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You should read Miles Taylor's new book, "blowback." He spent two years talking to the people who are planning to "hit the deck running" on January 20, 2025 and turn this country into a theocratic christofascist dictatorship under the "leadership" of their fearless tenth-rate failed circus clown Trump. The only "good Republicans" now are the ones in the graveyards, as Harry Truman pointed out back in 1948.

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Thanks, TCinLA. It's on my wish list. Must be time to go ahead and buy it!

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Reading it as we speak. Excellent.

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If this is meant to be taken seriously, there's more than an insurrection ahead.

Do you see what his name is? Look up "chretien".

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Ruth Ben-Ghiat,scholar on facism and authoritarian leaders:⬇️

“Authoritarians tell you what they’re going to do, but we often don’t listen, don’t take them seriously, or don’t have the understanding and framework to assess the threats they pose.”

“Those plans, as reported by The New York Times on Monday, are consistent with a 21st century playbook for authoritarians: Tell the public how you will set up an authoritarian state. Frame your intended expansion of executive powers as a streamlining of government. Don’t forget to repeatedly praise dictators as “brilliant” and “top of the line” people so there’ll be no surprises when you act in a similar manner. And whet your followers’ appetites for destruction of existing norms by advertising how you will purge ‘the sick political class that hates our country’ from government.”

https://lucid.substack.com/p/no-q-and-a-today-taking-trumps-threats

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It's sickening. Fits like a glove. And yet there were millions of intelligent, educated Germans... But there was the Treaty of Versailles, ignominy, terrible management and then the hyperinflation, it's easy to understand them losing the plot. They were desperate. The enemy are saying Look, just look - it's all horrible! Only we can save America! And Biden is saying Look, just take a look: it's all going better than it's been for decades.

(And little Marjie has declared it loud and clear on Twitter - nothing like it since FDR!!)

I don't know how the President can stand the pressure. We're all at snapping point. Well, we can't afford to be. All strong behind the President.

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A few days after the 2016 election, Masha Gessen wrote this for the New York Review. We dodged a bullet that time. We won't in 2025 if Trump succeeds in getting back into the White House.

https://www.nybooks.com/online/2016/11/10/trump-election-autocracy-rules-for-survival/

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A most informative substack. The message can not be said often enough... There are a slew of writers who have sounding the alarm for years!!!

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I’ve only just opened the lid, so to speak….so haven’t fully digested it (kinda lack the stomach to do so honestly!). At first i really thought it was a spoof…then I listened to some recent recorded (ugh) Trump comments that seemed to echo stuff written in the Heritage Foundation intro piece I linked to….then wondered is this for real? I kinda felt like I shouldn’t ignore it if it IS real. And, yeah, I wondered what it might portend.

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It is most definitely NOT a spoof.

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TC, I tried to read it a couple of days ago with an open mind…thinking I might understand a point of view or maybe to find some common ground. However, the further I read I kept thinking “wait, that’s not actually correct” or “that’s a meme/propaganda”…and wondered why would they post this? Do they REALLY, cross their hearts, believe this stuff? I try to understand (everyone’s entitled to their own opinions after all, even if I don’t agree), but it’s quite a stretch to wrap my head around some of the statements/opinions proffered. I find it very scary.

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Thanks for sharing this. It was Rachel Maddow, I believe, who talked extensively about Project 2025 but you won't hear it discussed by our dear mainstream media that are billionaire owned. It is truly frightening.

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It is so scary about what they plan on doing if dumpster gets back in !

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Gack--I can't finish that article at one gulp--it is unbelievably sick-making. I'll take another whack at it after breakfast and see if I can stomach it then....

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"Heritage" has gone full fascist.

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The Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society and Dominionist groups (others?) are the trifecta seemingly pulling us farther right towards a Christian theocracy/autocracy/oligarchy & appear to be quietly bankrolled by some pretty big bucks.

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I couldn't get past the second bullet point. But thanks for making us aware of the skullduggery that's being crafted. (Not that I'd expect anything less from Heritage)

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Yeah, you need an airline barf bag nearby to delve into more than a few sentences of it!

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Thank you for the link. I took a deep dive on the site. YIKES! I'm horrified but grateful I better understand why we're up against.

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Republican doctored doctrine.

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The "Reagan Revolution" was always about throwing the progress of social and economic justice into reverse. Democracy and egalitarianism was mocked, while the Lords of wealth canonized. MAGA, which posits an unspecified era of greater glory, is reminiscent of the Fascist harkening to the (predatory) glory that was the Roman Empire. For the right wing, the best days seem always to have been in a mythical past, yet to be recaptured; while for progressives, the best has yet to come, should we strive to make it so.

Alas, we realistically must expect unpleasant developments and losses that might once have been avoidable; but which approach is most responsible for that?

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Let’s not let that happen. Teaching lies and whitewashing history hurts all of us.

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Rebecca, the new Florida curriculum mirrors what I was taught in the 80s & 90’s in Maryland. I grew up on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, a region where enslaved people were forced into reproduction, forgive me for saying ‘bred’. In other words an industry of forcing enslaved humans to procreate & selling them their children.

We barely learned about Frederick Douglas & Harriet Tubman, who each lived in neighboring counties. Nobody bothered to celebrate their heroics, or their remarkable contributions to the anti-slavery or suffrage movements. To think these two national heroes are apart of our local history, and yet teaching of who they were and what they accomplished was ignored.

The Florida curriculum will have its desired effect, as it has where I grew up. Ignorance, white supremacy, and racism will become further entrenched, especially in Florida’s rural communities, where opportunities to challenge the ideas perpetuated by the curriculum is limited.

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I was born in the 1950's. I also went to school in Los Angeles. This is what we were taught, too.

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