In late 2022, former Republican Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse was appointed president of the University of Florida. The media mostly ran with artificially inflated stories of student protests. But Sasse’s supporters were optimistic that he could prove a transformative leader.
To date, he’s kept a relatively low public profile. But Sasse has just been handed a golden opportunity to remodel not only higher education, but substantially improve public K-12 education along with it. We should know soon whether he’ll take it.
For decades, conservatives have complained about teachers’ colleges, where educators and administrators must receive certification. The evidence proves that they’re a waste of time and money that confers no benefit on new teachers. Worse than that, they’ve devolved into little more than critical race theory-indoctrination camps. It’s rather insane that red states still require teachers to be steeped in anti-white, anti-American, anti-achievement dogma before entering a public school classroom.
But most do, for three reasons. First, state legislators tend to be intimidated by people who have “Ph.D’s,” even if they have Ph.D’s in nonsense. Second, legislators are typically reticent to rock the boat at their alma maters. And third, even if legislators had the will, transformational leaders who could overhaul a teachers’ college are few and far between.
None of these limiting conditions, however, apply to the UF.
The Florida legislature passed House Bill 1291 last month, which mandates that state-approved teacher-preparation programs may not be “based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States.” Instead, these programs must teach “mastery of academic program content” and “instructional strategies.” Fancy that — schools of education that teach teachers to teach, rather than be social justice warriors. This law goes into effect on July 1.
As the Claremont Institute recently documented, the UF’s College of Education is radically out of compliance with state law. UF’s College of Education went as woke as any teachers’ college could get — right under DeSantis’s nose. In 2020, it jettisoned requirements for things such as “Core Teaching Strategies,” “Music for the Elementary Child,” and “Art Education” with, respectively, “Equity Pedagogy Foundations,” “Equity Pedagogy Applications” and “Studying Equity Pedagogy.” Math and science? They simply weren’t “inclusive” enough.
Which is to say — everything was infused with CRT. Required course readings include things such as “The First Day of School: A CRT Story,” “White Girl Teaching,” “Raising Race Questions: Whiteness and Inquiry in Education,” and required videos included one called “The Urgency of Intersectionality.”
So, what will Sasse do? A traditional college president would try to run interference for his institution, make cosmetic changes, and do his best to continue to violate the spirit of the law while pretending to adhere to its letter. Sasse doesn’t need to play it this way, though. He can, and should, see that between the Florida law and the Claremont report he has been dealt two aces.
By going hard-woke right under DeSantis’s nose, the leadership of UF’s College of Education has clearly indicated that they don’t see themselves as Florida state government employees. So, they shouldn’t be. They should all be fired. The College of Education should be fundamentally reworked, root to branch.
The possibilities here are incredible. At minimum, Sasse could require his teachers’ college to actually help teachers teach. Best practices in classroom management and student discipline, rigorous instruction in the science of reading, and additional content area knowledge for science, math, or history teachers should be a top priority.
But UF could go far beyond teaching the basics. Florida has a burgeoning private and micro-school sector thanks to its universal education savings account. UF could offer a teacher entrepreneurship track. Florida’s classical education sector, in particular, is thriving. UF could offer teachers rigorous training in classical methods. And believe it or not, teachers are rarely trained to actually deliver a particular curriculum. UF could do that, too.
Why must a teacher move to Gainesville to get a UF degree? UF could set up satellite centers in every Florida county, and rework their program to support teacher apprenticeships. What’s more — why limit that to Florida? With teacher certification reciprocity agreements, UF could colonize (we can use that word; it’s Florida) teacher education nationally.
When Mitch Daniels was president of Purdue University, he proved that colleges could be effectively administered — that endless tuition increases resulted from executive incompetence, not an inexorable law of finance. Sasse’s legacy could be to prove that someone other than Daniels can do this too. Or, it could be to pioneer ways in which state flagship universities can drive dramatic improvement in public education — ways that could and should be emulated in every red state in America if they work.
Here’s hoping he gets started next month on his transformational legacy.
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Max Eden is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.