I take no joy in reporting that the governor of my state is, in fact, an insufferable gasbag trying to run a fledgling shadow presidential campaign without actually competing directly against Joe Biden in the Democratic primary.
Gavin Newsom is really a piece of work. In just a short period of time, he’s taken an $97 billion dollar projected surplus and turned it into a $23 billion dollar deficit. He’s convinced Joe Biden to help him hide it by delaying income tax payments from Californians until the state’s next fiscal year. By doing so, receipts into the Treasury have fallen, as California accounts for something like 18% of filings, therefore bringing the debt ceiling crisis to a head faster than it otherwise would have because of a delay of revenue coming into the Treasury.
Newsom has also overseen record increases in crime, open drug use, homelessness, and has offered no solution other than to snipe away at red state governors like Florida’s Ron DeSantis.
On Saturday, Newsom tweeted this out, signaling a supposed shot across the bow of DeSantis.
You don't get to rewrite history in a back room.
You don't get to erase basic facts around segregation, the holocaust, or Rosa Parks' story.
The extremists in Florida and textbook companies that are colluding with them are about to be exposed. https://t.co/63tAp67f0Q
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) May 21, 2023
First off, parents do have a right to know what is going on with their kids’ education. That’s exactly what got us to the place in Florida where the legislature set up a specific set of guidelines in law about what subjects were to be taught at what grade level, and what topics weren’t. It was signed by DeSantis. The entire process has been very open and transparent.
Don’t let facts get in the way of Newsom when he’s searching for the Fusilli Spock version of an issue set he plans to run on someday.
Let’s review what Newsom is alleging.
1. Textbook suppliers are colluding in private with Florida education officials to rewrite history in a back room somewhere.
2. Segregation and the Holocaust aren’t being taught anymore.
3. Florida somehow owes disclosure to California for who they’ve colluded with and on what they’ve colluded.
Because we do not currently have a media complex in this country anymore, I’m here to help step in. Politico, Business Insider, and the Sierra Sun Times are just a few outlets that wrote up pieces on this that spelled out the letter Newsom fired off and what he was alleging without any interest in investigating whether Newsom knew what he was talking about. He doesn’t.
There simply is no collusion. Everything is being done in public.
Florida’s Department of Education page is replete with news on what the new standards are, what publishers have been approved, which ones haven’t been approved, what some examples of changes to come into compliance with Florida law are, and it’s been public since early May. Newsom is simply grandstanding. Again. He’s trying to make Florida look like it’s hiding something when the information is about two clicks of a mouse away.
Newsom claims Florida no longer teaches segregation and/or the Holocaust. Untrue. Obviously.
And on segregation, that subject is taught, too.
Is there one word in media about Newsom’s claim being bogus? Nah.
Conservatives in Florida have been at the forefront of pushing to remove ideas that they disagree with from schools. Social-emotional learning, the teaching of critical race theory, and LGBTQ topics have all been on the chopping block as the state moved to ban books from schools and suspend teachers.
Social-emotional learning — which teaches self-awareness, self-control, and interpersonal skills through social interactions — soared in popularity when schools closed and children became more isolated during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As is usually the case with Newsom in California, the reason the textbooks are being changed in the first place is because the actual collusion between publishers and state departments of education (and the teachers’ unions that control them) got exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Once details about what was constituting history and social science became public, majorities of parents across the country recoiled in anger. The course correction in Florida has been above board, with clear legislation of what the standards are that need to be met, and what processes have to be undertaken in order to get textbooks approved for the current school year. And in fact, according to the Florida Department of Education, they’re at roughly a 60% acceptance rate now that publishers self-corrected and removed the woke stuff that never should have been there in the first place.
Gavin Newsom may think he’s got mad oratorial skills that allow him to demand sunshine on backroom deals in education, but his argument falls apart with just the slightest bit of research. He’s never had to face that outside of California. If he keeps worming his way onto the national scene, I’m hopeful he’ll eventually be understood by Americans as the empty-suited demagogue he is.
Until then, it’s just we happy few conservatives left in California that must point out the education hypocrisy coming from the governor of a state whose entire educational system, their budget morass (which includes hundreds of billions in unfunded pension liabilities), let alone their entire legislative process, is run through the California Teachers’ Association. In closed rooms.
