DeSantis Rejects AP African-American Studies Course
- Thread starter 3rdWorld
- Start date
New College of Florida dropout rate spikes, retention rate falls amid DeSantis' transition
New College had \
www.heraldtribune.com
New College of Florida dropout rate spikes, retention rate falls amid DeSantis' transition
Steven WalkerSarasota Herald-Tribune
Published 4:10 a.m. ET Oct. 12, 2023Updated 12:09 p.m. ET Oct. 13, 2023
20 PhotosVIEW FULL GALLERY
New College of Florida: Latest coverageFrom mold issues in dorms to the search for a president, civil rights cases to student athletes, catch up with the latest stories.
New College of Florida lost more than twice the normal number of students it usually does between fall semesters this year, according to a report sent to faculty from the college's provost Wednesday.
The college also had "by far" the lowest retention rate of first-year students in the college's history, at 64.9%, Interim Provost Brad Thiessen wrote. The drop in retention rate and the spike in the departure rate followed the dramatic overhaul launched by Gov. Ron DeSantis early this year with the appointment of six new members to the board of trustees, who fired the sitting president and appointed former DeSantis education commissioner Richard Corcoran as president.
Between fall 2022 and the start of the 2023-24 academic year, Thiessen said 27% of New College's 691 students left the school, the equivalent of about 186 students. That compares with 13% and 14% the preceding two years, respectively, according to the report, or about 93 students per year.
Despite the spike in departures from New College, its total enrollment for this fall was 733 students, 41 more than the previous year. The college enrolled a record number of incoming students for this semester at 325 students, an increase of 137 students from the previous year, according to the college's posted fact book.
The swelling enrollment followed the departure of more than a third of faculty after the spring 2023 semester. In April, the trustees voted to deny tenure to five faculty members who had been scheduled to receive it.
New College spokesperson Nathan March said the metrics were "remarkably unacceptable" and showed the need for the new leadership to intervene.
"The real story is despite the difficult circumstances New College found itself in, overall enrollment increased by more than 40 students and we achieved record enrollment for first-time students - breaking past 300 new students for the first time in the school’s 63-year history," March said. "New College will be the best liberal arts school in the country."
Amy Reid, the head of the Gender Studies department at New College and faculty representative on the board of trustees, said the retention numbers combined with the loss in faculty were indicative of the challenges facing the college. The school's leadership needs to express a clear vision to students, she said.
"I hope that the administration is going to be able to articulate a clear and inspiring vision for the college," Reid said. "And that goes beyond just saying, 'Being the best.'"
The tumultuous last year at New College
Gov. Ron DeSantis talks during his bill signing ceremony of new legislation impacting the state's colleges and universities in May, held at Sarasota's New College of Florida. Thomas Bender/Herald-Tribune
Corcoran and the board members are tasked with transforming New College into a more classical liberal arts school, akin to the Christian, conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan.
The school's leadership moved quickly to dissolve the college's diversity department, abolish the gender studies program, fire an LGBTQ librarian and deny tenure to the faculty members set to receive it.
Meanwhile, in this year's U.S. News and World Report rankings of top liberal arts colleges in the country, New College dropped 24 spots compared to the previous year to No. 100.
Corcoran also has established an athletics department to drive up enrollment numbers, which increased first-year enrollment to a record figure. However, increased enrollment came with a decrease in overall grade point average and test scores, which had historically helped the school earn a national reputation as a top public liberal arts college.
Student-athletes were given priority in housing assignments as the college shuttered dorms on campus due to mold issues. The influx of students combined with the restricted housing supply has caused a housing crisis on campus, pushing most new and returning students who aren't student-athletes into living at off-campus hotels.
The board also approved plans to demolish the Palmer, Reichert and Knight buildings.
In September, the college had at least two federal civil rights complaints filed against it. One complaint, which the U.S. Department of Education opened for an review that Corcoran called "not an investigation", involved a lack of disability access on the college's website. As of late last month, the college had settled this complaint with the department.
A separate complaint filed to the department two days earlier alleged an ongoing trend of discrimination against "protected groups" such as LGBTQ+ students, and the creation of a hostile environment toward those students. The agency has not responded to inquiries about whether it is investigating that complaint.
Follow Herald-Tribune Education Reporter Steven Walker on Twitter at @swalker_7. He can be reached at sbwalker@gannett.com.
Godless Socialist CEO
Superstar
Least surprising thing in the world. They destroyed a school that wasn't harming anyone to push a fascist agenda for no reason at all. God these people are terrible humansNew College of Florida dropout rate spikes, retention rate falls amid DeSantis' transition
New College had \
New College of Florida dropout rate spikes, retention rate falls amid DeSantis' transition
Steven Walker
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Published 4:10 a.m. ET Oct. 12, 2023Updated 12:09 p.m. ET Oct. 13, 2023
20 PhotosVIEW FULL GALLERY
New College of Florida: Latest coverageFrom mold issues in dorms to the search for a president, civil rights cases to student athletes, catch up with the latest stories.
New College of Florida lost more than twice the normal number of students it usually does between fall semesters this year, according to a report sent to faculty from the college's provost Wednesday.
The college also had "by far" the lowest retention rate of first-year students in the college's history, at 64.9%, Interim Provost Brad Thiessen wrote. The drop in retention rate and the spike in the departure rate followed the dramatic overhaul launched by Gov. Ron DeSantis early this year with the appointment of six new members to the board of trustees, who fired the sitting president andappointed former DeSantis education commissioner Richard Corcoran as president.
Between fall 2022 and the start of the 2023-24 academic year, Thiessen said 27% of New College's 691 students left the school, the equivalent of about 186 students. That compares with 13% and 14% the preceding two years, respectively, according to the report, or about 93 students per year.
Despite the spike in departures from New College, its total enrollment for this fall was 733 students, 41 more than the previous year. The college enrolled a record number of incoming students for this semester at 325 students, an increase of 137 students from the previous year, according to the college's posted fact book.
The swelling enrollment followed the departure of more than a third of faculty after the spring 2023 semester. In April, the trustees voted to deny tenure to five faculty members who had been scheduled to receive it.
New College spokesperson Nathan March said the metrics were "remarkably unacceptable" and showed the need for the new leadership to intervene.
"The real story is despite the difficult circumstances New College found itself in, overall enrollment increased by more than 40 students and we achieved record enrollment for first-time students - breaking past 300 new students for the first time in the school’s 63-year history," March said. "New College will be the best liberal arts school in the country."
Amy Reid, the head of the Gender Studies department at New College and faculty representative on the board of trustees, said the retention numbers combined with the loss in faculty were indicative of the challenges facing the college. The school's leadership needs to express a clear vision to students, she said.
"I hope that the administration is going to be able to articulate a clear and inspiring vision for the college," Reid said. "And that goes beyond just saying, 'Being the best.'"
The tumultuous last year at New College
Gov. Ron DeSantis talks during his bill signing ceremony of new legislation impacting the state's colleges and universities in May, held at Sarasota's New College of Florida. Thomas Bender/Herald-Tribune
Corcoran and the board members are tasked with transforming New College into a more classical liberal arts school, akin to the Christian, conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan.
The school's leadership moved quickly to dissolve the college's diversity department, abolish the gender studies program, fire an LGBTQ librarian and deny tenure to the faculty members set to receive it.
Meanwhile, in this year's U.S. News and World Report rankings of top liberal arts colleges in the country, New College dropped 24 spots compared to the previous year to No. 100.
Corcoran also has established an athletics department to drive up enrollment numbers, which increased first-year enrollment to a record figure. However, increased enrollment came with a decrease in overall grade point average and test scores, which had historically helped the school earn a national reputation as a top public liberal arts college.
Student-athletes were given priority in housing assignments as the college shuttered dorms on campus due to mold issues. The influx of students combined with the restricted housing supply has caused a housing crisis on campus, pushing most new and returning students who aren't student-athletes into living at off-campus hotels.
The board also approved plans to demolish the Palmer, Reichert and Knight buildings.
In September, the college had at least two federal civil rights complaints filed against it. One complaint, which the U.S. Department of Education opened for an reviewthat Corcoran called "not an investigation", involved a lack of disability access on the college's website. As of late last month, the college had settled this complaint with the department.
A separate complaint filed to the department two days earlier alleged an ongoing trend of discrimination against "protected groups" such as LGBTQ+ students, and the creation of a hostile environment toward those students. The agency has not responded to inquiries about whether it is investigating that complaint.
Follow Herald-Tribune Education Reporter Steven Walker on Twitter at @swalker_7. He can be reached at sbwalker@gannett.com.
1/36
@nhannahjones
There's been much gaslighting & moderate justifying of the new Florida social studies standards, people stating the "clarifications" were designed to show Black resilience, or were just "facts." So, I thought I'd compare the African-American history standards to the Holocaust's.
2/36
@nhannahjones
As you can imagine, they were quite illuminating. So, let's be clear: facts in cases such as this are rarely neutral. It's which facts are highlighted, how much emphasis they get, how are they framed, what is left out, what is diminished and what is uplifted.
3/36
@nhannahjones
I compared the Holocaust for a particular reason. We are a country with a great deal of anti-Semitism. But when it comes to the Holocaust, Americans believe we are the good guys in the story (watch Ken Burns' America & the Holocaust: NO). Slavery, however, is the sin we own.
4/36
@nhannahjones
So, shall we? Let's start here. This is the section on AFRICAN AMERICAN history. And yet, educators in Florida now must discuss the Barbary Pirates and slavery, slavery in Asia, the Slavs and what Indigenous people were doing before African or Europeans arrived. Huh.
5/36
@nhannahjones
In the Holocaust section, there's no such comparison and cataloguing of other genocides committed by and against other groups. The Holocaust stands on its own, as it should. In fact, the only reference to past times and other peoples is to describe the root of anti-Semitism.Huh.
6/36
@nhannahjones
In fact, the Holocaust is described exactly as it was: systematic state-sponsored persecution and murder of European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. But the only time the word systematic occurs in reference to Black history is to describe African slave traders. Huh.
7/36
@nhannahjones
So, even though the slave trade, slavery, racial apartheid were systemic, systematic, institutionalized, the word is only used to describe African slave traders, which is actually inaccurate. The word racism occurs just twice, once in the Holocaust section, one in AA. Compare.
8/36
@nhannahjones
U.S. racism is not treated a systematic, and only apparently abridging on "individual freedoms" even though the racism was codified to deprive rights, life, liberties, due process, access to public goods, access to ballot, from an entire race.
9/36
@nhannahjones
The description of racism in the Holocaust section sounds like America, but no such paragraph exists in the African American history section, even as Nazi's looked to America's race laws for inspiration.
10/36
@nhannahjones
There's this section much discussed section on enslaved people (who worked on slave labor camps in the U.S.) gaining beneficial skills. Shockingly, no similar paragraph about Jewish people gaining skills in concentration camps.
11/36
@nhannahjones
The African American section spends section after section after section on the abolitionist movement that was always a tiny minority of white Americans, and yet no similar concentration on all the good Germans exists in the Holocaust.
12/36
@nhannahjones
The section on the Holocaust names the perpetrators: Nazis and their collaborators. But Black Americans & the good white people are apparently fighting against some nameless, faceless, race-less group of people in the quest to abolish slavery.Who were these obstacles to liberty??
13/36
@nhannahjones
I mean, we were founded on liberty & justice & white people were on this quest to end slavery, with the Continental Congress that was totally powerless to do so, and some chief justice's notes in a court case, but we really have no idea why these good white people didn't win.
14/36
@nhannahjones
With all of these white people trying to so hard to end slavery, including Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, the Continental Congress, who was this alien force that stopped them from until the Civil War? You won't find that in the standards. No perpetrator is ever named.
15/36
@nhannahjones
The Holocaust section does not broach Jewish collaborators, but the African American history sections regurgitates right-wing talking points wholesale by blaming a Black man for the beginning of racial slavery in America. I believe they got this section from a meme.
16/36
@nhannahjones
In fact, as far as I can tell, the only named enslaver in this section is, in fact, a Black man. Huh.
17/36
@socalgeorge
Interesting. You complained when people criticized your 1619 Project, saying people took you out of context. (Your work was edited quietly.)
Dr Allen, author of section of FL curriculum in question, says people like you distort his words.
Different rules for thee, I suppose.
18/36
@nhannahjones
My work was not edited and keep getting your info from right-wing hacks.
19/36
@IanThal
The problem is that it is premised on the idea that Holocaust education in the US has been successful. Yet the increase in antisemitic hate crimes, number of students who deny the Holocaust, or fundamentally misunderstand the causes or historical precedents say otherwise.
20/36
@nhannahjones
What is premised on that?
21/36
@steveplotnicki
It's because Holocaust was unique. Can you name another instance when someone built an intentional killing machine that targeted a single group of people at that scale?
22/36
@tbayw
Turning oppression into a feel good story.
23/36
@churchofbasebal
This is antisemitic and disgusting.
24/36
@BostonDoug1
Exactly. Excellent. Perfect.
I sum it up, as a 69yr old white Liberal, to my conservative denialist friends thus:
"The Germans gave good jobs and skills to the Jews that benefited them"
Outrageous. But that's the Florida way to teach Slavery in the US.
25/36
@LJ198767
Every time I see this retweeted, I wonder how will folks still try to gaslight. Black people on a Florida education work group tried to sell American chattel slavery through a lens of resilience. Would Jewish people sell the Holocaust through a lens of resilience?
26/36
@Nemo17246097
Great post.
This is not the first time US has used education system to whitewash its anti black history.
It was done daughters of Confederates who were allowed to change school curriculum to make South look innocent in CW.
https://invidious.poast.org/qnMl6P81TVg
27/36
@gina_smith
@threadreaderapp Please unroll.
28/36
@threadreaderapp
@gina_smith Hallo, you can read it here: Thread by @nhannahjones on Thread Reader App Enjoy
29/36
@AngryLevantine
I would rethink this post if I were you.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...rding-to-study-of-fading-holocaust-knowledge/
30/36
@Oakland_1st
The American institution of public schools is the beginning of the systematic demise of black children, in part because of its many practices steeped in white supremacy under the guise of “academia”.
31/36
@Endnotes_
Here, mx. Jones centralizes the ostensibly marginal from her lofty perch atop the NYTimes Building. In so doing, she reinscribes the hegemony of the corporate press and the monied interests it represents while enriching herself and reifying the power of the same hegemonic actors.
32/36
@JessAnderson4VA
Hey @TheOmniLiberal you should read this thread
33/36
@VirginiaBuysse
34/36
@RakeemShabazz
Me and my brother @truthminista tried to get Black history added to a Holocaust history bill out here in NC and these politicians said absolutely not.
35/36
@aaron_pet78
It's the old go-to: whataboutism. It's like if Germany adopted educational standards on the Holocaust requiring half the time be spent on America's relationship with Native Americans and a third of the time explaining Israel wouldn't exist without it.
36/36
@1Leg2Cents
There's been much gaslighting.... I love that you are full-blown projecting from the very start
To post tweets in this format, more info here: https://www.thecoli.com/threads/tips-and-tricks-for-posting-the-coli-megathread.984734/post-52211196
@nhannahjones
There's been much gaslighting & moderate justifying of the new Florida social studies standards, people stating the "clarifications" were designed to show Black resilience, or were just "facts." So, I thought I'd compare the African-American history standards to the Holocaust's.
2/36
@nhannahjones
As you can imagine, they were quite illuminating. So, let's be clear: facts in cases such as this are rarely neutral. It's which facts are highlighted, how much emphasis they get, how are they framed, what is left out, what is diminished and what is uplifted.
3/36
@nhannahjones
I compared the Holocaust for a particular reason. We are a country with a great deal of anti-Semitism. But when it comes to the Holocaust, Americans believe we are the good guys in the story (watch Ken Burns' America & the Holocaust: NO). Slavery, however, is the sin we own.
4/36
@nhannahjones
So, shall we? Let's start here. This is the section on AFRICAN AMERICAN history. And yet, educators in Florida now must discuss the Barbary Pirates and slavery, slavery in Asia, the Slavs and what Indigenous people were doing before African or Europeans arrived. Huh.
5/36
@nhannahjones
In the Holocaust section, there's no such comparison and cataloguing of other genocides committed by and against other groups. The Holocaust stands on its own, as it should. In fact, the only reference to past times and other peoples is to describe the root of anti-Semitism.Huh.
6/36
@nhannahjones
In fact, the Holocaust is described exactly as it was: systematic state-sponsored persecution and murder of European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. But the only time the word systematic occurs in reference to Black history is to describe African slave traders. Huh.
7/36
@nhannahjones
So, even though the slave trade, slavery, racial apartheid were systemic, systematic, institutionalized, the word is only used to describe African slave traders, which is actually inaccurate. The word racism occurs just twice, once in the Holocaust section, one in AA. Compare.
8/36
@nhannahjones
U.S. racism is not treated a systematic, and only apparently abridging on "individual freedoms" even though the racism was codified to deprive rights, life, liberties, due process, access to public goods, access to ballot, from an entire race.
9/36
@nhannahjones
The description of racism in the Holocaust section sounds like America, but no such paragraph exists in the African American history section, even as Nazi's looked to America's race laws for inspiration.
10/36
@nhannahjones
There's this section much discussed section on enslaved people (who worked on slave labor camps in the U.S.) gaining beneficial skills. Shockingly, no similar paragraph about Jewish people gaining skills in concentration camps.
11/36
@nhannahjones
The African American section spends section after section after section on the abolitionist movement that was always a tiny minority of white Americans, and yet no similar concentration on all the good Germans exists in the Holocaust.
12/36
@nhannahjones
The section on the Holocaust names the perpetrators: Nazis and their collaborators. But Black Americans & the good white people are apparently fighting against some nameless, faceless, race-less group of people in the quest to abolish slavery.Who were these obstacles to liberty??
13/36
@nhannahjones
I mean, we were founded on liberty & justice & white people were on this quest to end slavery, with the Continental Congress that was totally powerless to do so, and some chief justice's notes in a court case, but we really have no idea why these good white people didn't win.
14/36
@nhannahjones
With all of these white people trying to so hard to end slavery, including Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, the Continental Congress, who was this alien force that stopped them from until the Civil War? You won't find that in the standards. No perpetrator is ever named.
15/36
@nhannahjones
The Holocaust section does not broach Jewish collaborators, but the African American history sections regurgitates right-wing talking points wholesale by blaming a Black man for the beginning of racial slavery in America. I believe they got this section from a meme.
16/36
@nhannahjones
In fact, as far as I can tell, the only named enslaver in this section is, in fact, a Black man. Huh.
17/36
@socalgeorge
Interesting. You complained when people criticized your 1619 Project, saying people took you out of context. (Your work was edited quietly.)
Dr Allen, author of section of FL curriculum in question, says people like you distort his words.
Different rules for thee, I suppose.
18/36
@nhannahjones
My work was not edited and keep getting your info from right-wing hacks.
19/36
@IanThal
The problem is that it is premised on the idea that Holocaust education in the US has been successful. Yet the increase in antisemitic hate crimes, number of students who deny the Holocaust, or fundamentally misunderstand the causes or historical precedents say otherwise.
20/36
@nhannahjones
What is premised on that?
21/36
@steveplotnicki
It's because Holocaust was unique. Can you name another instance when someone built an intentional killing machine that targeted a single group of people at that scale?
22/36
@tbayw
Turning oppression into a feel good story.
23/36
@churchofbasebal
This is antisemitic and disgusting.
24/36
@BostonDoug1
Exactly. Excellent. Perfect.
I sum it up, as a 69yr old white Liberal, to my conservative denialist friends thus:
"The Germans gave good jobs and skills to the Jews that benefited them"
Outrageous. But that's the Florida way to teach Slavery in the US.
25/36
@LJ198767
Every time I see this retweeted, I wonder how will folks still try to gaslight. Black people on a Florida education work group tried to sell American chattel slavery through a lens of resilience. Would Jewish people sell the Holocaust through a lens of resilience?
26/36
@Nemo17246097
Great post.
This is not the first time US has used education system to whitewash its anti black history.
It was done daughters of Confederates who were allowed to change school curriculum to make South look innocent in CW.
https://invidious.poast.org/qnMl6P81TVg
27/36
@gina_smith
@threadreaderapp Please unroll.
28/36
@threadreaderapp
@gina_smith Hallo, you can read it here: Thread by @nhannahjones on Thread Reader App Enjoy
29/36
@AngryLevantine
I would rethink this post if I were you.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...rding-to-study-of-fading-holocaust-knowledge/
30/36
@Oakland_1st
The American institution of public schools is the beginning of the systematic demise of black children, in part because of its many practices steeped in white supremacy under the guise of “academia”.
31/36
@Endnotes_
Here, mx. Jones centralizes the ostensibly marginal from her lofty perch atop the NYTimes Building. In so doing, she reinscribes the hegemony of the corporate press and the monied interests it represents while enriching herself and reifying the power of the same hegemonic actors.
32/36
@JessAnderson4VA
Hey @TheOmniLiberal you should read this thread
33/36
@VirginiaBuysse
34/36
@RakeemShabazz
Me and my brother @truthminista tried to get Black history added to a Holocaust history bill out here in NC and these politicians said absolutely not.
35/36
@aaron_pet78
It's the old go-to: whataboutism. It's like if Germany adopted educational standards on the Holocaust requiring half the time be spent on America's relationship with Native Americans and a third of the time explaining Israel wouldn't exist without it.
36/36
@1Leg2Cents
There's been much gaslighting.... I love that you are full-blown projecting from the very start
To post tweets in this format, more info here: https://www.thecoli.com/threads/tips-and-tricks-for-posting-the-coli-megathread.984734/post-52211196
