The Florida Department of Education is bribing teachers $700 to attend a voluntary three-day seminar on how Republican Governor Ron DeSantis wants civics taught in the state, with lessons on how the Founders didn’t actually endorse a separation of Church and state, the Washington Post reports.
The seminars–which come with an opportunity to earn a $3,000 bonus from their home school districts as well as a “Civics Seal of Endorsement” for their cirrcula–are designed to groom teachers to repeat false conservative talking points, like that the Founding Fathers roundly opposed slavery, when in fact many of the Founders were slave owners themselves.
“My takeaway from the training is that civics education in the state of Florida right now is geared toward pushing some particular points of view,” said Broward County teacher Richard Judd, who attended the three-day training. “The thesis they ran with is that there is no real separation of church and state.”
A cornerstone of conservative doctrine is to never acknowledge any wrongdoing by the white ruling class of Colonial times or throughout American history. By teaching children the faults of the American society and government in the past and present–regarding things such as slavery, systemic racism and institutional sexism–conservatives believe it will irrevocably turn them into Democrats who have a realistic view of the past.