Newsom and DeSantis both promote freedom in education. But their focus is wildly different

When it comes to education, the divide between the governors of California and Florida turns on different visions of freedom in their state’s schools.

For Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis it’s about giving parents the freedom to control what their children will learn and where. They also are free to leave public schools entirely — using state funding for a private school.

For California Gov. Gavin Newsom freedom to learn is about protecting the civil rights of students, expanding opportunities within public schools through new investments — such as schooling for four-year-olds — and also allowing instruction about diverse views related to race and gender.

In Thursday’s debate between the two governors, the topic of public education is likely to expose deep philosophical contrasts as well as two starkly different educational terrains.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks before signing HB7, which some called the “stop woke” bill during a news conference in Florida in 2022.

(Daniel A. Varela / Associated Press)

The nation’s culture wars are front and center — especially for DeSantis, who opposes instruction about LGBTQ+ issues and favors new restrictions on books, curriculum and the teaching of American history.

DeSantis’ stances tap into widespread concerns among parents, said Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy studies at the conservative, Washington, D.C.-based American Enterprise Institute.

“Families are sending their children to school to be cared for and for moral formation as well as technical skills,” Hess said. “Parents are concerned about how the country’s history is being taught, about how children are being taught to think about belonging and identity and race, and about how and when fundamental questions of gender and sexuality are being addressed. For a lot of parents, these are more immediately relevant than what curriculum the school is using to teach Algebra 1.”

But the head of the nation’s second-largest school district, Los Angeles Supt. Alberto Carvalho, lauds Newsom’s approach of “fully embracing all children, regardless of whether they are immigrant English language learners, or LGBTQ+.”

Los Angeles school Supt. Alberto Carvalho bumps fists with students Armando Medea, left, Brianna Collins and Nohemir Rosas, right, during a recent visit to an 11th grade AP English classroom at Diego Rivera Learning Complex.

(Al Seib / For The Times)

“Anyone who thinks that you’re going to achieve higher academic performance by suppressing anyone’s rights is morally and professionally wrong,” said Carvalho, who formerly led the Miami-Dade County school system, including after the election of DeSantis. “You don’t need to ban books. You don’t need to put people back in dark corners, to insult or humiliate anyone to achieve academic gains. In fact, that’s usually a detriment.”

There’s also disagreement between the two governors over how to hold students, teachers and schools accountable for academic performance. Managing the effect of the pandemic on schooling marked another point of departure.

Culture wars: LGBTQ+

Backers see DeSantis as a champion of “parental rights,” which for many supporters means opposing LGBTQ+ education.

“If there’s a central theme to the DeSantis regime it’s ‘parent empowerment,’” said Bruce Baker, professor in the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Miami.

Last year, Florida’s governor signed a parent “Bill of Rights” legislation that included alerting parents of information “related to a student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being,” and was intended to include changes to a student’s gender identity.

Under DeSantis, the state also has prohibited class discussions about gender identity — first targeting grade three and under and later expanding the ban through high school. Another new law requires teachers to provide parents information about what they are teaching, including all reading materials.

Parents also have won the right to initiate a book removal process — which is supposed to apply to books they or state officials view as pornographic or seen as portraying racism incorrectly.

For DeSantis, a presidential candidate, the issue has helped define his political identity as he struggles to court the political base of Donald Trump.

“As the culture war began to shift towards parent empowerment, DeSantis made that a priority,” said Jonathan Butcher, senior research fellow in education policy for the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based conservative think-tank. Newsom, he added, “has defended what California already had in place” from an entirely different perspective.

Gov. Gavin Newsom checks out the hair style of kindergartner Leonardo Castrejon during a 2019 visit to Paradise Ridge Elementary School in Paradise, Calif.

(Rich Petrocelli / Associated Press)

Even before Newsom entered office, California law required students to study “the role and contributions” of groups including LGBTQ+ individuals “to the economic, political, and social development of California and the United States of America, with particular emphasis on portraying the role of these groups in contemporary society.”

What’s more, policy guidance from the state education department advised school districts not to “out” students to their parents — over concerns about student privacy and welfare.

Some schools systems in more conservative regions have fought back, adopting parental-notification policies. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, a Newsom ally, has sued the Chino Valley school system over its notification rules.

The governor also signed a law that allows for fining local school districts when their leaders bar state-approved curriculum because they object to LGBTQ+ content.

History and racism

DeSantis’ education department has banned instruction it defines as “critical race theory,” objecting to curriculum or books that suggest racism has harmful effects into the current day. State officials also have cited materials as inappropriate when they contain critiques of capitalism. Banned courses include College Board’s Advanced Placement African-American Studies.

Such policies do not fit neatly under parent rights — except perhaps in relation to parents who believe that left-wing teachers are indoctrinating their children.

However, letting these parents dominate the conversation creates a new problem, said Julian Vasquez Heilig, professor of educational leadership, research and technology at Western Michigan University

“Those parents are taking the freedom to learn away from the children of other parents,” he said.

Vasquez Heilig defends California’s emphasis on representing a wide-range of cultures and beliefs — even when the learning takes on controversial topics.

Other related laws signed by Newsom and DeSantis are all but opposites.

In higher education, DeSantis signed a bill in May banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs, calling them discriminatory and a distraction from a college’s core mission. Also banned were “programs based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political and economic inequities.”

In contrast, Newsom signed a bill making ethnic studies — which challenges traditional historical narratives about Asian, Black, Latino and Indigenous Americans — an undergraduate California State University requirement.

He also signed a separate bill making ethnic studies a high school graduation requirement. He said the law teaches students about the diverse communities that make up California and boosts student engagement and academic achievement.

“America is shaped by our shared history, much of it painful and etched with woeful injustice,” Newsom said in his signing statement on the high school bill.

Rewards and punishments

The accountability systems in each state are strikingly different; they also existed prior to the election of DeSantis and Newsom.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs education bills at Cambridge Christian school in Tampa, Fla. in May.

(The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Critics call Florida’s approach punitive and simplistic, while supporters consider it to be clear and meaningful. Every school gets a letter grade — just like on a student report card — based on annual state scores. Schools get good marks based on high performance or notable improvement or both.

Moreover, part of a teacher’s evaluation is based on student standardized test scores, something not required in California.

Florida students can be held back in elementary and middle school if they don’t meet certain learning requirements. In California it is more typical to keep students with their age group and try to catch them up.

California’s philosophy is to give extra money and services to schools “in need” — with need determined by test scores as well as by whether students live in poverty or are learning English or are in the foster-care system. The state then tracks progress in test scores, attendance and suspensions. Schools and districts are not singled out publicly for failing to raise academic achievement.

Newsom‘s push for transitional kindergarten was made possible by a relatively healthy state economy. Florida has offered transitional kindergarten for nearly 20 years.

Under Newsom, expanded education funding also has gone toward higher teacher salaries, improving and subsidizing teacher training and developing “community schools” — which provide services to meet the wide-ranging needs of families, such as mental health and financial counseling, health services and housing support.

Other Newsom-backed initiatives have included expanded before- and after-school programs and no-cost meals at school for all students. School funding in California has hit historic highs — with much of that spending mandated under long-existing state law.

Funding private schools

DeSantis-backed legislation has, for the first time this fall, allowed all families to use state education funds to subsidize a private-school education. The value of this funding is about $7,800 per student for most, but rises to nearly $10,000 for some students with disabilities. Formerly, only a portion of students with disabilities were eligible.

For DeSantis, such a program is another expanded opportunity for parents to exert choice.

This type of funding — variously called vouchers, scholarships or education savings accounts — have been political anathema in California, partly because of strong opposition from teacher unions.

The labor climate marks another difference. Florida has taken repeated steps to weaken teacher unions, including under DeSantis. In California, Newsom draws major support from influential teachers unions.

Pandemic contrasts

These unions strongly supported Newsom’s decision to close campuses in March 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. They also pushed for school staff to have early access to vaccines — often as a prerequisite to reopening campuses.

Both DeSantis and Newsom pursued policies they said were to support student learning in difficult times.

For DeSantis this meant forcing campuses to reopen quickly — on the premise that in-person education is innately superior to online learning, especially given the hastily fashioned remote classrooms of the pandemic.

Angelina Sabadin, 17, center, a high school senior from Upland, joins thousands of protesters rallying at the intersection of Main Street and Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach to call on Gov. Newsom to relax the state’s stay-at-home orders under COVID-19 in May 2020.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Newsom, in turn, kept campuses closed longer with the goal of preventing illness and death. He attempted to compensate for inferior learning conditions by supporting online learning, enhancing state funding for local school systems and speeding vaccine production.

The results

There’s no clear answer about which governor’s choices have yielded better academic results.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress tests a sample of students in fourth and eighth grades. Florida’s scores are higher, but they also were higher long before DeSantis took office.

“Florida metes out student discipline more firmly — expulsion rate looks about twice as high in Florida compared with California — one ill-spirited way of raising test scores,” said UC Berkeley education Professor Bruce Fuller. “Our research shows that California districts are bringing back more electives for kids, especially given dips in pupil attendance in the wake of COVID. This may strengthen student engagement ... Florida retains a narrower curriculum, tracks student progress and keeps educators’ feet closer to the fire.”

Both states saw test scores decline in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.