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Florida's Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz Sets Record Straight · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

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  It's the Morning Show with Preston Scott. Thirty six minutes after the hour of
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  the Morning Show with Preston Scott, Good to be with you this morning.
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  Grant Allen running the program and joining us on the show, Florida's Commissioner of
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  Education, the Honorable Man ideas, how are you, sir, Good morning,
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  Preston. Great to be with you, Thanks for having me on my
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  pleasure. I wanted to get your reaction and give you an opportunity to kind
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  of push back. I mean, a lot of us understand that what gets
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  pushed out in social media bears very little resemblance to the truth. But what
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  happens is it fuels things. And sadly, one of the narratives out there
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  has to do with the curriculum in Florida's social study programs. The Vice President
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  made the unfortunate decision to basically spread is about the curriculum. So I wanted
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  to give you a chance to tell us a little bit about the curriculum,
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  it's origination, what's really in it? Yeah, look, first of all,
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  it's it's It's shocking to me how obsessed the White House is, this
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  administration is with Florida and governed the santis for the for the vice presidents to
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  come down here without even looking at the standards, having an understanding, and
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  just taking cheap political shots and really, as the governor said last night,
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  not at him, at trying to take them at him, but really taking
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  them at these members of the work group. Thirteen members of the work group,
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  a lot of them African Americans, all of them scholars who spent months
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  working on this. This had ninety days of public comment. It has complete
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  transparency, and it is very thorough. One of only like a dozen states
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  president that has a standalone African American history curriculum or basically standards. This isn't
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  curriculum at standards, and this is a product of a bill pack where we
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  already had in nineteen ninety four African American history standards put in. This is
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  an expansion of it where it goes deep into each individual instance, each individual
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  topic, and really goes to in depth for the students to understand that all
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  of the ugliest parts of American history are are covered by these standards, and
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  for them for her to come in demagogue and take shots, to take chio
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  political shots to the governor over something that was clearly designed to tell the story
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  of individuals that endured that the endured the atrocities, that had the resiliency and
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  the perseverance to acquire skills despite that, not as a benefit of it,
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  but despite what was happening to them, despite the of the situation where human
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  beings were being owned by others, and those stories of those individuals needs to
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  be told as part of that history. That is, as doctor William Allen
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  has explained on many occasions. I don't know if you've got a chance to
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  see him on Jesse Waters. He is un African American scholar who has been
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  clearly describing these standards. And that's the reality of it that if you take
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  a look and delve into these standards, you see that it is a comprehensive
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  standard that covers all of it, all of it. Join me on the
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  program, Commissioner of Education for the Sunshine State Man ideas Commissioner. You know,
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  if you objectively look at it, there's one side of the political aisle
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  that wants to erase history. There's another part of the political aisle that wants
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  to embrace history, good, bad and ugly and make sure that we have
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  it and learn from it. That's what's troubling to me about this. Yeah,
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  look, when we when people were talking about Florida before, they were
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  talking about the fact that they didn't look at our nineteen ninety four standards.
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  But they started to say that we were trying to whitewash history in some kind.
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  When the passage of the bill, the Individual Freedom Act or stopped Wolgack.
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  But in reality, what that bill actually stated is that we had to
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  expand and mandate the teaching of stand alone African American standards of African American history
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  standards. And here you go into the Atlantic Passage, the beginning of the
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  slave trade, the conditions, the deplorable, atrocious conditions that existed for those
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  African slaves as they were brought over, the amount of them that perished on
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  those voyages, and the mistreatment the plantation life, covering all of the atrocities
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  that went on, the day to day life going through the entire period of
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  slavery, passed, the Civil Wars of Reconstruction, going into Jim Crowlalls,
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  all of the discrimination, all of the violence that occurred, and including the
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  civil rights period where these leaders fought to gain rights that these human beings did
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  not have all of that is covered in every gory detail. That is what
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  these standards are about. Be our guest, fact check our facts at WFLAFM
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  dot com. You're listening to the M A D Radio Network where you are
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  challenged to make a difference each and every day. Would you do that for
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  us? Please? Please just a little just try it twitch you. This
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  is the Morning Show with Preston Scott making a Difference. Florida Commissioner of Education
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  Manny Diaz, Commissioner. I have long studied the writings and the philosophy of
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  doctor Martin Luther King. I think personally he would prefer a Civil Rights Day
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  to a doctor Martin Luther King day. But I also believe that Black History
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  Month is almost condescending. Black history is part of American history and it needs
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  to be woven into the overall totality that is American history. Are we seeing
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  a time where we need to start pushing that ideal that we just don't need
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  to have one month focused on it, but that black history is American history
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  and it's taught as part of the overall history's history program in state schools.
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  This is what this is what these standards do Preston d standards cover all of
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  our of our all the African American history, all of the events woven through
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  American history, because African American history is part of American history. And before
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  the change of the standards, these the standards that we have are isolated to
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  specific courses. These are standalone African American history standards that cover that entire the
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  entire topic, across all of the time periods. It is American history.
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  It all needs to be taught. Our students need to understand it. They
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  need to be presented with the facts so that they can, just like anything
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  else that we teach, can arrive our own conclusions. Unfortunately, we have,
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  you know, the Vice President coming down to demagogue this. You have
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  the Union taking pot shots after being present at meetings and lauding the work of
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  the of the work group UM and the media running with the with the story
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  right away and creating a narrative that somehow slavery was beneficial to slaves. Slavery
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  is not beneficial to slaves, was not beneficial slaves in any occasion. That
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  narrative is false. The Vice President is telling lies to try to get to
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  political points. And these standards are extremely comprehensive and cover all of those topics
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  that that you know, the folks have been asking for. And when you
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  look at a comprehensive African American history curriculum, uh, these standards cover that.
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  And again take a look at the work group that spent months working on
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  these standards in an open forum where everyone can participate, where members of the
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  union were present. And again, doctor Allen, I just you know,
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  I would say you should watch doctor Allen's interview with Jesse Waters if you hadn't
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  gotten a chance to watch that, because he really I mean, how he
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  goes into this, no one can really express it better than him. Well,
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  I was just going to ask you in closing, are we going to
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  see a time when maybe that entire committee that put that curriculum together pushes back
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  on this as a group, because I mean, let's be honest, your
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  comments are going to be dismissed because you're a discantist guy. And but yet
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  if that committee comes out, holds a press conference in mass and says let's
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  set the record straight about this curriculum, that might gain some traction. Well,
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  you're right, these but these are academics and volunteers that got together to
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  put these together, and doctor Allen has been out there. Other members of
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  the work group happened speaking to the media, but some are more comfortable in
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  the media than others. Okay, doctor Allen clearly does a great job,
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  but I mean you need to hear him out. His explanation of the standards.
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  His defense of the standards is just completely clear, rational, and it
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  gives you an understanding of how the work group put this together, what they
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  were thinking as they were trying to strive to have the best African American history
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  standards in the country. Maybe your office can put us in touch with him
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  and we can get him on the program and have that conversation. I still
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  think there's safety in numbers, and you put them all out there in front
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  of everybody and let the media have at it. We'll go a long way
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  to push him back on this nonsense that you're having to deal with. But
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  Commissioner, thanks for the time. As always, we'll talk again soon.
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  Thanks questing. Great, that all right, Bannie Diaz, Commissioner of Education,
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  State of Florida. Yeah, we'll see what we can do. Get
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  doctor Allen on the show. I appreciate that he was on. Jesse waters,
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  I want him on my show. Let's talk about it, Let's talk
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  about it. Yeah, I'd be curious to know if the history standards dealing
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  with this entire topic point out that the Republican Party was founded to end slavery
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  and that the Democrat Party through the nineteen sixties fought like the devil to keep
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  it, just saying, I wonder if that's taught in history. Forty seven
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  minutes after the hour