Florida governor Ron DeSantis introduced chaos in the state’s public schools by promoting and signing the law that bans teachers from saying anything positive about Gay people while ignoring the family situations of students who are Gay or whose parents are. The bill does not define any parameters as was made clear when he went after Disney because they are not as narrow-minded as DeSantis would like and a difference of opinion is not allowed in the most free state in America.

After slamming the state-wide closet door closed, DeSantis moved on to the next vague law with his “Stop WOKE Act” that limits conversations about race in schools and businesses basically meaning a teacher could face discipline if he or she were to point out that slavery was a bad thing and we have no idea how many Einsteins or anyone for that matter who could have made society greater died quietly on the plantation without their true potential, as God had ordained until the slave trade intruded, being realized.

The law allows students and workers to sue the alleged offender if they believe a classroom lesson or workplace training course caused them to “feel guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” due to their race. None of these are clearly defined, nor is the word woke.

This apparently does not apply when Florida schools cover what led up to the Civil War. Black students have to just sit there while their White classmates don’t have to learn the uncomfortable truths that the Black kids know all too well.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed a suit arguing that the legislation could restrict teaching about people, male or female, Black or white, Gay or Straight, who may have broken through the relevant glass ceilings because the conditions that had made their advancement impossible would require speaking negatively of those conditions and this might make some people feel uncomfortable about that.

The ACLU of Florida, and the Legal Defense Fund filed a suit because the legislation is “discriminatory classroom censorship law that severely restricts” dealing with race and gender in schools.

If courts are to pass judgment on those accused of being too woke, they need to know the details and have a formal definition of the term woke.

US District Judge Mark Walker who is hearing the Foundation’s  case wants to know exactly what the term means and has blocked state officials from enforcing a central piece of the Stop WOKE Act because it violates the First Amendment as the judge sees that DeSantis and his acolytes seem to believe that

“the State has unfettered authority to muzzle its professors in the name of ‘freedom,’”

which is quite obviously not freedom at all.

Because of the fact that the law targets freedom of expression that DeSantis and fellow Republicans don’t like, Walker wrote:

“The law officially bans professors from expressing disfavored viewpoints in university classrooms while permitting unfettered expression of the opposite viewpoints. Defendants argue that, under this Act, professors enjoy ‘academic freedom’ so long as they express only those viewpoints of which the State approves.”

Proof of this is DeSantis’s recently claiming that to teach students that America was built on stolen land was a woke thing even as Native Americans descended from those who were sent west to Indian Territory or had to hide in the Everglades not to be are sitting in the classroom hearing all about Andrew Jackson as the perfect man who did no wrong and George Armstrong Custer a hero killed by savages who had no real reason to kill him.

Might I suggest the Book “And Still the Waters Run” by Angie Debo.

According to Emerson Sykes, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU,

“This [stay] is a huge victory for everyone who values academic freedom and recognizes the value of inclusive education. The First Amendment broadly protects our right to share information and ideas, and this includes educators’ and students’ right to learn, discuss, and debate systemic racism and sexism.”

Rather than present a coherent definition of the word Woke to support the law, the DeSantis administration is appealing the ruling.

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JOE MANCHIN CONTEMPLATING A FUTURE WITHOUT THE SPOTLIGHT  ON HIM ESPECIALLY AFTER KYRSTEN SINEMA GOT ALL THE ATTENTION BY LEAVING THE DEMS. 

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While the rest of the country is becoming redder and some in Massachusetts want it that way here too, there is a huge difference between a state with a struggling education system and parental indifference having the school system remain mediocre with some minor progress often opposed because it was new and Massachusetts that continues to make its education system second to none, and, in spite of some missteps, has managed to have the top educational system in the country. 

The Republican candidate for governor this time around said on his website that he was proud of the educational system in this state and wants to preserve it before then publicly in speeches and as answers to questions about improving education in the state parroting the bullet points about education and parental rights that called for certain practices from the educationally failing states being applied in Massachusetts.

I have watched a state I came to appreciate get to a cross roads in education and had the opportunity to lead the country in effective education go in a politically damaging approach that dismantle what was and prevented what could be

Why should Massachusetts be using antibiotics when a nearby state is still practicing blood letting?

I had returned to Massachusetts after an extended out of state sojourn than included 18 years in the Mid/South West. I was used to hearing some old school ideas in politics and religion being bandied about, but I could always go home, which I did, and enjoy a more enlightened state where thinking and critical skills had, and, hopefully still did, have importance.

I was not disappointed in that as, having gone from a very red state to the Bay State, I was experiencing rights and freely mingling with a diverse population without the attendant suspicion side-eye that followed cheerily greeting someone wearing a Hijab.

I was advised when I first moved back that if I  missed the  mindset there were the local Rush Limbaugh wannabes who, like that band in your youth you followed from club to club and you just knew would hit it big but never did, they were effective locally but just below the made-it-under-the-Limbo stick, an impressive feat when it comes to the Limbo, but useless if your intention is to stand tall and stand out.

There was one particular columnist and radio talk show host that as a writer of history based books was good when he related the facts. However, his opinions were generally played to the audience, swooped too often to almost childish levels with nicknames, and seemed, and here I may be giving too much credit, that the host could not have possibly believed in what he was saying but it was an important element of his schtick to make it appear he did.

He loved the most conservative elements of the Republican party and promoted its worst aspects by endorsing and praising the people he did.

As most Republicans are doing, this columnist and talk radio host is looking for those things that make the election somehow questionable, and in this state that values education, he has come up with the major threat unleashed by the Woke voters. Other states are going after teachers, so why should this state not join in in spite of its reality?

The teacher Unions in the state are the enemy because, without specifying if he means the Mass Teachers Association, or The American Federation of Teachers, or both,

‘The teachers’ union mobilized the hackerama to harvest ballots….the payroll patriots didn’t have to worry about anythihg other than Question 1. That was the so-called millionaire’s tax, an 80% increase that will soon fall on everyone who has a real job.”

Either he is convince that teaching is not a real job, or everyone in this state makes millions of dollars annually.

And what did either or both teacher unions do all this for? Why did they harvest ballots?

Quoting the Wall Street Journal, the reason is that these teachers wanted to tax those who so far have been living off their workers and the tax breaks and subsidies supported by their low wage workers’ tax dollars is,

“For a measly outlay of $23 million, unions secured $1 billion in new annual education funding.”

How evil!

But not a bad return on the investment.

The columnist may have quoted a WSJ headline, but he went on to express his anger at guaranteeing money for education like we do for the military.

“That’s one billion a year, every year, forever,” whining that the state party chair was not, “working hard to stop this theft.”

To Republican voices in Massachusetts, guaranteed education funding is theft.

He did begin his article by asserting that,

“The disappearance of the Republican party affects everyone who works for a living.”

Since he did not say how, I am guessing not in a good way since he objects to the rich with the loopholes helping to pay for the education of the state’s children, their future employees.

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