If Americans want a glimpse of Trump-style education policy in action, they should look to Florida.
Over the last six years, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has turned the state into a laboratory for a hard-right agenda, disguised as “parental rights” but aimed at systematically dismantling public education.
Under the banner of culture wars, Florida has censored classroom discussions, politicized school boards and driven teachers out of the profession, undermining not just what students learn but whether they learn at all. It’s a blueprint for control, not for education.
Start with book-banning. Florida leads the country in book-banning, with 4,561 books banned in schools in 33 of the state’s 67 school districts. Banned books, including award-winning authors like Maya Angelou, Saul Bellow and Toni Morrison, classics from Proust to Ovid, bestselling authors like Patricia Cornwell and James Patterson, and left-leaning social commentators like Jon Stewart.
This wave of book-bans aligns with broader efforts in Florida to reshape school curricula.
The state’s new educational standards include language suggesting that enslaved people may have developed skills that “could be applied for their personal benefit.” The state also placed limits on African American studies programs, claiming an Advanced Placement African American Studies course lacked educational value and violated state law.
Gay and transgender students and educators have come under increased scrutiny. Legislation and administrative rules have imposed restrictions on which bathrooms transgender students may use and have limited how gender identity and sexual orientation can be discussed in classrooms.
Under laws signed by DeSantis, teachers face legal risks for using the preferred pronouns of transgender students without explicit parental consent. One notable case occurred in Brevard County, where a beloved veteran teacher’s contract was not renewed because she referred to a student by a name chosen several years prior to the adoption of the rule.
Meanwhile, new laws require parental consent for basic services like nurses’ visits, accessing library books and watching PG films like “Frosty the Snowman.”
Because of these rules, tens of thousands of Florida students lose out because their parents have not filled out consent forms. School nurses risk losing their jobs for something as simple as putting a bandage on a scraped knee without prior parental consent.
The burden falls heavily on parents, who must navigate a maze of new forms, and on school staff, who are overwhelmed by the surge in paperwork. Many frontline educators and support workers live in fear of backlash from activist groups like Moms for Liberty, whose influence has turned everyday decisions into political flashpoints.
DeSantis has also gone to war with higher education, including the takeover of the New College of Florida. High-ranking administrators were fired and diversity programs eliminated. Scores of faculty have quit.
DeSantis’s hostility toward public education knows no limits. His state ranks dead last in teacher pay, Florida just posted the worst national test scores in more than 20 years and Florida has a universal school voucher program that disproportionately benefits higher-income students.
None of this has escaped the attention of Trump, whose executive orders explicitly encourage states to turn federal block grants into voucher programs. His latest proposed budget also slashes $4.5 billion in support for low-income students, undermining programs that help with high school completion, college access and work-study opportunities.
He proposes cutting teacher quality initiatives, funding for Howard University, the Office for Civil Rights and bilingual student programs. His proposed budget explicitly prohibits funding for progressive nonprofits and DEI programs.
Will Republicans in Congress realize that Trump’s assault on education hurts the very institutions their communities rely on? Schools and universities aren’t just economic drivers in their districts, they’re centers of local pride, identity and opportunity.
In places like Brevard County, where we recently held a town hall, hope is being replaced by fear. Parents, educators, students and community leaders all expressed shame and fury at the actions of their local school board and state policymakers.
Trump and DeSantis have taken the bullying approach to governing to new extremes. There is no honest debate, no give and take, no compromise. It is a relentless drive to push, divide and control. Cruelty is the point, and the negative consequences of children, families and educators aren’t a side effect — it’s a strategy.
Forty-two years ago, Republican President Ronald Reagan sounded the alarm on the state of American education by releasing “A Nation at Risk.” Today, that title applies to much more than our schools: our economy, our democracy, our environment, our global standing and our moral compass.
But no one is more vulnerable than 50 million American school children living under an immoral, unethical and criminal president. They cannot vote. They have no lobby.
They are counting on us to fight back.
Jennifer Jenkins is a former Brevard County School Board member and chairwoman of Educated We Stand, a nonprofit committed to resisting right-wing extremism in Florida schools. Arne Duncan is a former U. S. Secretary of Education.