Education Briefs
On the 63rd anniversary of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba on April 17, 1961, during which 1,500 Cuban exiles attempted to stop Fidel Castro’s takeover of the island nation, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill strengthening the state’s standards on teaching about the dangers of communism. CBS News Miami reported 
that, beginning with the 2026 school year, “education on the history of communism will be expanded in the state.” In signing SB 1264, DeSantis said: “We will not allow our students to live in ignorance, nor be indoctrinated by Communist apologists in schools. To the contrary, we will ensure students in Florida are taught the truth about the evils and dangers of Communism.” A press release announcing the signing of the legislation highlighted the new statute’s requirements, which include: Adding to communist history standards already on the books “with instruction on the history of Communism in the United States and the tactics of Communist movements”; authorizing the newly established Institute for Freedom in the Americas at Miami Dade College to promote the importance of economic and individual freedoms as a means to advance human progress—specifically in Latin America and the Caribbean”; enabling Florida’s Department of State, in collaboration with the Florida Department of Education, to recommend to the legislature the creation of a Florida-based museum on the history of Communism”; and, preparing students “to withstand indoctrination on Communism at colleges and universities.” The new law also authorizes the Florida Department of Education “to seek guidance about the curriculum from anyone who was a victim of communism.”
The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has introduced a Curriculum of Liberty to “educate American college students toward freedom, the pursuit of truth, and virtuous citizenship.” The NAS acknowledges “that [this] is only the latest of a great many sketches on how to redo higher education—many of them worthy, few of them influential.” But as the curriculum’s author, David Randall, writes: The NAS “has been 
offering a great many policy reforms the last few years, and I think that it is worth articulating a basic vision of higher education, which I take to be in accordance with NAS principles, to provide a background for those proposed policy reforms. Then too, the new surge of successfully enacted education reform policies offers the possibility that a sketch of education reform principles may indeed have real-world effect.” Randall rightly observes that higher education in the U.S. “inculcates tyranny, conformity, and depravity. It forms elites who are unconcerned with law or liberty and are confident that they should impose on their countrymen, by any means they possess, their perverse ideology of ‘liberation’... The survival of the American nation depends upon the creation of national institutions guided by courageous men and women who possess the qualities of leadership.” The Curriculum of Liberty consists of 10 sections: 1. Education Structure, which includes Admissions Requirements, Pedagogy, and Exit Requirements. 2. Human Sciences, including History, Anthropology, Economics, and Military Science. 3. Liberty, which includes European History, American History, Western Political Philosophy, and American Government. 4. Scientific Reasoning, which includes Mathematical Reasoning, Scientific Methods, Experimental Design, and Engineering. 5. Scientific Knowledge, which includes Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Computer Science. 6. Humanities Reasoning, which includes Philosophy, Poetics, Iconography, and Musicology. 7. Humanities Knowledge, which includes Western Humanities, British Humanities, American Humanities, and Eastern Humanities. 8. Language, which includes the History of English, Foreign Language, Linguistics, and Philology. 9. Self-Reliance, which includes Law, Business, Nursing, and Self Defense. 10. Virtue, which includes Bourgeois Virtues, Noble Virtues, Civic Virtues, and Spiritual Virtues.
In 2023, 10 states enacted or expanded school choice programs, among them Arkansas, which passed its universal school choice program called Arkansas LEARNS (Literacy, Empowerment, Accountability, Readiness, Networking, and School Safety). Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders prioritized the program by signing an Executive Order to ensure it received prompt attention shortly after her January 2023 swearing-in 
ceremony. Through the LEARNS Act, Arkansas families can receive 90 percent of their child’s education dollars in an education savings account (ESEA), or about $6,600 per year, which can be used for tuition at eligible private schools. According to School Choice Week.com, for the 2023-24 school year, “44 percent of students participating in LEARNS have a disability, and 31 percent are first-time kindergarteners.” However, for the 2024-25 school year, additional students will qualify for participation, including students enrolled in D-rated schools, children of first responders and law enforcement officers, and students whose parents have served or are currently serving in the U.S. military or military reserves. By the 2025-26 school year, all K-12 students in the state will be eligible for the program. According to Kerry McDonald of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), what’s particularly encouraging about the LEARNS program is that it will expand in the 2024-25 school year to include microschools and homeschooling students. In a commentary she wrote for Forbes, McDonald pointed out that the expansion will likely be a catalyst “for education entrepreneurship and expanding the supply of innovative learning options.” She quoted Laurie Lee, chairman of the pro-school choice Arkansas Reform Alliance as saying: “Microschools are bringing the original intent of the schoolhouse back ... LEARNS has now brought innovation to Arkansas by allowing parents to have options that they didn’t [have] before due to their zip code or income.” If LEARNS proves successful, it may well provide a model for expanding existing programs in other states and for states that don’t yet have a school-choice program.
A popular New York City youth soccer field was rendered unusable when illegal aliens refused to vacate the pitch before a game. The New York Post reported that on April 14, a high school soccer match was canceled due to a group of about 30 migrants who refused to leave the pitch (soccer field) at Thomas Jefferson Park in East Harlem so the kids could play their game. The coach of the Manhattan Kickers, Erik Johansson, told the Post: “I directly asked them to leave and some of them kind of took it into consideration, but then four or five of them said, ‘You know what, f**k it, we don’t have to leave, we can do whatever we want.’” About 40 high school students were on 
hand for the match. When the police showed up, they attempted to resolve the situation by asking the coaches for the teams’ permit to play at the field. But as Johansson told the Post: “When you show up with two teams in uniform, a ref, and two coaches, usually nobody is asking to see your permit.” He explained that by the time his assistant was able to forward a copy of the permit, “the game had been delayed 30 minutes and the teams didn’t feel safe.” Johansson said the teams were fearful that after the police left and the game ended, “you don’t know if they’re waiting for you.” His point was presumably that the players and coaches couldn’t be sure the migrants wouldn’t retaliate after the police kicked them off the field. “So we just all agreed, this is too dangerous,” he said. A native of Sweden, Johansson told the Post he had experienced similar situations in his home country with the “massive influx of migrants” there. “I have seen this before; I know how bad it can get,” he said. Parents were justifiably alarmed, and the Kickers have decided not to play at the Thomas Jefferson fields anymore, even though good soccer fields are at a premium in the city with both adult and youth teams competing for the limited space. One mom said the message the kids got was that those “who refused to follow the rules won,” and that the incident was a sign “of the Big Apple becoming lawless.” But the lawlessness in New York City and elsewhere stems from the lawlessness at the U.S. southern border, and the Biden Administration’s refusal to stop it. In the meantime, U.S. citizens suffer, and our youth are increasingly at risk.
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