The Constitution No Longer Taught in Florida High Schools

• Posted by Dr. Rich Swier on March 3, 2011 at 7:31am
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According to Course: United States History-2100310 :

United States History (U.S. History) 9-12 Course – The grade 9-12 United States History course consists of the following content area strands: United States History, Geography, and Humanities. The primary content emphasis for this course pertains to the study of United States history from Reconstruction to the present day. Students will be exposed to the historical, geographic, political, economic, and sociological events which influenced the development of the United States and the resulting impact on world history. So that students can clearly see the relationship between cause and effect in historical events, students should have the opportunity to review those fundamental ideas and events which occurred before the end of Reconstruction. [My emphasis]

The same applies to Honors American History in grades 9-12 .

This means that all of Florida’s high school students will start learning about American History after the Civil War.

So much for our Founding Fathers, the Bill of Rights, Constitution and the American Revolution. As far as Florida is concerned they all belong on the dust heap of history.

I know, teachers and administrators will argue that we teach about those things in Middle Schools. I would argue that both middle and high public school students must be firmly founded in the principles this nation is based upon. The concepts contained in our Bill of Rights and Constitution demand continuing study, analysis and discussion. At the public high school level the concepts of liberty, freedom, a republican form of government and free markets need a more mature mind to grasp and understand. The first Ten Amendments of our Constitution should be courses in and of themselves. As Thomas Jefferson said, “An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic. Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight.”

Florida is denying our children the enlightenment necessary to exercise oversight of our government. This is a travesty.

So who is to blame for this? Why the very elected officials in our legislature who have sworn to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. Even if those domestic enemies are those entrusted with the public education of Florida’s students.

It is amazing to me that the Florida legislature has allowed this to happen. There are only two explanations: 1.) They knew about it and condone it, or 2.) the did not know about it and are not providing enlightened oversight of the Florida Department of Education. Either way our public school children and our nation will suffer.

What this means is high school textbooks used in Florida will be scrubbed of anything occurring before 1865.

As Ronald Reagan said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

Our legislature, Florida Department of Education, teachers and administrators have ensured our children’s children will never know what it was once like in the United States where men were free.