Abstract:

In spring of 2022, Florida’s governor signed House Bill 7 (HB 7) into law. The bill, commonly known as the “Stop WOKE” bill, amended then current Florida non-discrimination statute (Section 1000.05, the Florida Educational Equity Act) to provide that an educational institution may not subject any student to instruction that “espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such student or employee to believe” any of eight key constructs based on race, color, sex, or national origin. The constructs prohibit, for example, the teaching that “A person, by virtue of his or her race, color, national origin, or sex should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment to achieve diversity, equity, or inclusion” and “A person’s moral character or status as either privileged or oppressed is necessarily defined by his or her race, color, national origin, or sex.” The ramifications of the law are beginning to have impacts on the instructional resources used by Florida’s teachers. The law authorizes the Florida Department of Education to ensure that instructional materials not contain any matter that contradicts the aforementioned principles. It also puts the onus of instructional resource selection on each of Florida’s 67 school districts and requires a process for public review of any instructional materials and if not in compliance, state funding can be withheld for districts. Furthermore, the bill allows parents to challenge the use of selected resources and to sue teachers and districts if schools subject students to certain principles regarding race and gender. Hence, teachers are reluctant to self-select instructional resources and, instead, rely on district and state approved instructional resources. That action has led to a reduction in the amount and type of resources employed in classrooms and a reliance, by classroom teachers, to employ only approved materials. This paper reviews a set of district supplied social studies and science resources that were adopted by Duval County Public Schools, a large school district in Northeast Florida, prior to the passage of HB7. Due to HB 7’s key constructs and related penalties, we believe that resources selected for instructional use will limit exposure in areas of race, color, national origin, and sex. In essence, students will be exposed to less culturally responsive content in classroom resources. As a preliminary review, we wanted to examine extent resources to determine if they conform to HB 7 and are culturally responsive. We employed the New York University Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of School’s Culturally Responsive Scorecard (CRS) to measure the provided texts regarding their cultural responsiveness. Culturally responsive education refers to the combination of teaching, pedagogy, curriculum, attitudes, and practices that a) validates students’ experiences and values and b) disrupts power dynamics of privilege dominant groups, and c) empowers students. This paper will share the findings from the CRS on the extent resources as well as if these resources meet the requirements of HB 7.

Keywords:

Culturally responsive teaching, instructional resources, teacher censorship, elementary education.