By CHRIS MEGERIAN and BRENDAN FARRINGTON
WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris said extremists want to “replace history with lies” as she traveled to Florida on Friday to assail Republican efforts to overhaul educational standards, plunging into a battle over schooling that has rippled through classrooms around the country.
“They dare to push propaganda to our children,” she said in Jacksonville. “This is the United States of America. We’re not supposed to do that.”
Her trip came two days after the Florida Board of Education approved a revised Black history curriculum to satisfy legislation signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican presidential candidate who has accused public schools of liberal indoctrination. The new standards include instruction that enslaved people benefited from skills that they learned.
“How is it that anyone could suggest that in the midst of these atrocities that there was any benefit to being subjected to this level of dehumanization?” Harris asked.
She did not mention DeSantis by name, instead referring to “so-called leaders.” However, the speech was another example of how Harris has been the White House point person for addressing cultural issues such as race, schooling and abortion that DeSantis has championed in the governor’s office and on the campaign trail.
DeSantis rejected Democratic criticism over his state’s new education standards, issuing a statement before Harris arrived saying, “Florida stands in their way and we will continue to expose their agenda and their lies.” He accused the administration of being “obsessed” with his state as it ignores other problems, like border security and crime, that Republicans prefer to focus on.
Harris, the first Black person to serve as vice president, spoke from the Ritz Theater and Museum, located in a historically African American neighborhood of Jacksonville.
She described “true patriotism” as “fighting for a nation that will be…
Read the full article here