November 20, 2025 • 10 mins
The former is, sort of, for parents in Florida and the latter is for students. Anastasios Kamoutsas, Commission of Education for Florida, talked with Preston.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Having more fun than any human being should be allowed
to have while getting paid. Good morning, friends, and welcome
to the third hour of The Morning Show with Preston's
got We're one show short of Show fifty five hundred.
It is Show fifty four ninety nine. It is great
(00:22):
to be with you this morning. Remember raising funds to
build a home for orphan children. It's the second time
we've done this. We build a home in twenty twenty two.
We're doing it again and you can go to Orphanshade
dot com and donate to building house number six and
we would appreciate it. Orphanshade dot com. All right, please
(00:44):
to have with us. He is the Commissioner of Education
for the Sunshine State. Anastasioskimuts Us. Good morning, sir, how
are you.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Good morning, Preston, how are you? It's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Okay, before we start to establish some credibility for our
audience here, okay, I'm gonna get give you a little quiz,
all right, Okay, how many genders are there?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
There are two sexes. We don't even we don't even
play into the gender game because that's where they go
into the fluidity argument. There are two sexes one male,
one female.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
All right, very good, you can stay on the show.
We just covered the supertenitive education in Michigan. Refusing to
answer the question because you know, different people have different
thoughts on that. Thank you so much for coming on
the show. And I understand that there are some items
(01:42):
that have been adopted by the state Board in recent days.
And first tell us what the Phoenix Declaration is.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, the Phoenix Declaration is an affirmative statement that really
sets a framework for our educational system and what we'd
like to see as far as principles that are of
value to our state board. Parental choice and responsibility, transparency
and accountability, truth and goodness and objective truth, character formation,
(02:12):
academic excellence, citizenship. These are the guiding principles of the
Phoenix Declaration.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
How will that impact a local school district across Florida.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Well, I think you're going to continue to see what
we've been doing all along. I mean, these standards really
reinforce what has been taking place in the state of
Florida under the leadership of Governor DeSantis. When you talk
about parental choice and responsibility, I don't know of any
other state that has empowered parents more than this governor,
particularly since everything we uncovered during COVID and so passing
(02:44):
a parental Bill of Rights, passing curriculum transparency, passing, and
making sure that there's legislation that protects the innocence of
children and what topics they're going to be exposed to,
ensuring that it's age and developmentally appropriate, ensuring that it's
based in the objective, factual truth. All these policies and
principles that you're seeing articulated in the Phoenix Declaration or
(03:07):
what we've been doing all along and what we will
continue to do. It's been wild the amount of controversy
that we've received as a result of folks who just
don't like the Heritage Foundation and its affiliation with the principles.
But not a single criticism has gone towards the principles
articulated in the Phoenix Declaration. And that's because objectively, everyone
(03:30):
can agree these are good things to value and education.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
What does that say that they're just mad at the association?
You know, the same thing happened to President Trump. You know,
the Heritage Foundation put out a thing on what they
think ought to happen in the future of this country,
whether anybody embraces it or not as up to them,
but they put out some guidelines and they tried to
hammer Trump with that. It's the same tactic.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
That's right. And we just received the letter yesterday from
ten Democrat members of the Florida Legislature, I believe it
was in the Florida Hoigh saying that this Phoenix Declaration
is somehow racist in nature. And I'm just befuddled by
the letter just because, as I articulated these principles, these
are pretty unapologetically across the board, straightforward. I mean, who
(04:17):
doesn't value academic excellence. Who doesn't want our students to
understand civic virtues and the knowledge necessary for self government
and civil disagreement? Who doesn't believe in character formation and
making sure that students are understanding personal responsibility and self discipline.
These are all great things that we should be valuing
(04:37):
in our education system. And I'm thankful to the leadership
of Governor DeSantis, but also the chair of the State
Board of Education Ryan Petty and former Commissioner of Education
Many Diaz, as they were both original signatories to the
Phoenix Declaration when it was signed into existence close to
a year ago, and So this is a document that
all kinds of educational experts from across the nation boord
(05:00):
into and signed off on it, and we're proud to
stand by it.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Stoss. Listeners of the program know, I have been long
advocating that communist socialist Marxist should be allowed to run
for office in this country. I believe it's a direct
opposition to the oath of office to defend this constitution.
But this really points to a bigger issue, and that
is the lack of knowledge and understanding of what communism
(05:27):
is and its failures across time and history. You all
have addressed that tell us about these new standards, Yeah, we look.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
It dates back to twenty twenty two when the governor
signed the Victims of Communism Day that required at least
forty five minutes of direct instruction on the history and
atrocities of communist regimes. And then he built on that
in twenty twenty four when he signed Senate Bill twelve
sixty four that required a comprehensive instruction on the history
of communism starting in the twenty six to twenty seven
(05:59):
school here. And so just last week the state Board
of Education adopted those standards and it just continues to
show why Florida continues to be a leader in civic education.
These standards are going to show, you know, specifically the
atrocities that are related to communism. Many people know I'm
Greek by my name, but I'm also Cuban on my
(06:19):
mother's side, and I was fortunate that I got to
hear directly from victims of communism through my grandparents who
fled communist Cuba in nineteen sixty. And so what this
does is it gives students that same education and foundational
knowledge that I had as a kid growing up to
understand the atrocities committed under communist governments. That includes mass shillings,
(06:40):
political prisons for starvation, suppression of speech. I mean, it's
just horrific the end result. And it also exposes students
to something that we're seeing increasingly become romanticized and popular,
which is versions of socialism, which we all know are
the beginning frameworks and steps for communism.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Well, you know, we talked just last week about the
fact that you know, in Governor William Bradford's documents with
the first Pilgrims, the settlers that came on the Mayflower,
they used communism his word, not mine, and found it
to be an abject failure. Are these lessons going to
go back that far to point out how the people
that came to this land so many centuries ago learned
(07:22):
that lesson fundamentally early on.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
It's going to cover all kinds of topics. I mean,
it's going to talk about the rise of communism globally
and in the United States. It's going to do the
comparative study of communism, intotalitarianism, and the principles of freedom
that are foundational to this country and what makes this
the greatest country on earth, you know, the political, industrial,
and economic conditions that sparked communist revolutions. It talks about
(07:47):
Cuba and generally Latin America and the spread of communist movement.
So you are going to see a wide array of
the history of communism throughout the world.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Who's going to write the curriculum? Where's it? Where are
we going to get it?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
So it's already been written Florida educators and content experts
quite frankly, who graciously spent all kinds of time helping
develop these standards to ensure that history was taught in
a clear on its an unfiltered way or who put
these standards together, and so that is what the board
voted on. So you're going to see there's going to
be professional development over the summer so that teachers are
(08:22):
taught what these standards are because they are going to
be implemented for the first time in the twenty six
twenty seven school year.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
How do you make sure the teachers are going to
embrace it and teach it fairly and accurately.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
I think that's why professional development is so important. We
provide that at the Florida Department of Education because we
want to make sure that our educators understand the standards.
Gives them an opportunity to ask questions, to let us
know if they have additional feedback. But the reality is
that's how this generally goes. Ultimately, if the bad actor
(08:56):
is going to stray from the standards, as we saw
in Florida Southwestern Stay College with the sociology professor who
was literally part of our work group that put together
the standards and decided to run afoul the law and
teach a gender ideology contrary to what the law allows.
There was accountability that was brought towards that professor and
teachers can expect the same as they're going to stray
(09:17):
away from the standards.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Well, parents, now you've heard it from the Commission of
Education himself, and you'll know to look for it starting
next year. And Commissioner, thank you, appreciate your efforts on
this stuff and look forward to having you back. And
until then, have a great Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Thank you, God bless you, and have a great Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
He is the Commissioner of Education, Anastasioskimutzus. See what I
did there, I did my job. I pronounced his name right. Yeah. Now,
I mean, how wonderful is that that we're going to
teach communism and how awful it is the unvarnished history
(10:00):
of it all. Seventeen minutes past the hour, Go Florida,
Come on, come on This Morning Show with Preston's Guy.
Having more fun than any human being should be allowed
to have while getting paid. Good morning, friends, and welcome
to the third hour of The Morning Show with Preston's
got We're one show short of Show fifty five hundred.
It is Show fifty four ninety nine. It is great
(00:22):
to be with you this morning. Remember raising funds to
build a home for orphan children. It's the second time
we've done this. We build a home in twenty twenty two.
We're doing it again and you can go to Orphanshade
dot com and donate to building house number six and
we would appreciate it. Orphanshade dot com. All right, please
(00:44):
to have with us. He is the Commissioner of Education
for the Sunshine State. Anastasioskimuts Us. Good morning, sir, how
are you.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Good morning, Preston, how are you? It's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Okay, before we start to establish some credibility for our
audience here, okay, I'm gonna get give you a little quiz,
all right, Okay, how many genders are there?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
There are two sexes. We don't even we don't even
play into the gender game because that's where they go
into the fluidity argument. There are two sexes one male,
one female.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
All right, very good, you can stay on the show.
We just covered the supertenitive education in Michigan. Refusing to
answer the question because you know, different people have different
thoughts on that. Thank you so much for coming on
the show. And I understand that there are some items
(01:42):
that have been adopted by the state Board in recent days.
And first tell us what the Phoenix Declaration is.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, the Phoenix Declaration is an affirmative statement that really
sets a framework for our educational system and what we'd
like to see as far as principles that are of
value to our state board. Parental choice and responsibility, transparency
and accountability, truth and goodness and objective truth, character formation,
(02:12):
academic excellence, citizenship. These are the guiding principles of the
Phoenix Declaration.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
How will that impact a local school district across Florida.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Well, I think you're going to continue to see what
we've been doing all along. I mean, these standards really
reinforce what has been taking place in the state of
Florida under the leadership of Governor DeSantis. When you talk
about parental choice and responsibility, I don't know of any
other state that has empowered parents more than this governor,
particularly since everything we uncovered during COVID and so passing
(02:44):
a parental Bill of Rights, passing curriculum transparency, passing, and
making sure that there's legislation that protects the innocence of
children and what topics they're going to be exposed to,
ensuring that it's age and developmentally appropriate, ensuring that it's
based in the objective, factual truth. All these policies and
principles that you're seeing articulated in the Phoenix Declaration or
(03:07):
what we've been doing all along and what we will
continue to do. It's been wild the amount of controversy
that we've received as a result of folks who just
don't like the Heritage Foundation and its affiliation with the principles.
But not a single criticism has gone towards the principles
articulated in the Phoenix Declaration. And that's because objectively, everyone
(03:30):
can agree these are good things to value and education.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
What does that say that they're just mad at the association?
You know, the same thing happened to President Trump. You know,
the Heritage Foundation put out a thing on what they
think ought to happen in the future of this country,
whether anybody embraces it or not as up to them,
but they put out some guidelines and they tried to
hammer Trump with that. It's the same tactic.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
That's right. And we just received the letter yesterday from
ten Democrat members of the Florida Legislature, I believe it
was in the Florida Hoigh saying that this Phoenix Declaration
is somehow racist in nature. And I'm just befuddled by
the letter just because, as I articulated these principles, these
are pretty unapologetically across the board, straightforward. I mean, who
(04:17):
doesn't value academic excellence. Who doesn't want our students to
understand civic virtues and the knowledge necessary for self government
and civil disagreement? Who doesn't believe in character formation and
making sure that students are understanding personal responsibility and self discipline.
These are all great things that we should be valuing
(04:37):
in our education system. And I'm thankful to the leadership
of Governor DeSantis, but also the chair of the State
Board of Education Ryan Petty and former Commissioner of Education
Many Diaz, as they were both original signatories to the
Phoenix Declaration when it was signed into existence close to
a year ago, and So this is a document that
all kinds of educational experts from across the nation boord
(05:00):
into and signed off on it, and we're proud to
stand by it.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Stoss. Listeners of the program know, I have been long
advocating that communist socialist Marxist should be allowed to run
for office in this country. I believe it's a direct
opposition to the oath of office to defend this constitution.
But this really points to a bigger issue, and that
is the lack of knowledge and understanding of what communism
(05:27):
is and its failures across time and history. You all
have addressed that tell us about these new standards, Yeah, we look.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
It dates back to twenty twenty two when the governor
signed the Victims of Communism Day that required at least
forty five minutes of direct instruction on the history and
atrocities of communist regimes. And then he built on that
in twenty twenty four when he signed Senate Bill twelve
sixty four that required a comprehensive instruction on the history
of communism starting in the twenty six to twenty seven
(05:59):
school here. And so just last week the state Board
of Education adopted those standards and it just continues to
show why Florida continues to be a leader in civic education.
These standards are going to show, you know, specifically the
atrocities that are related to communism. Many people know I'm
Greek by my name, but I'm also Cuban on my
(06:19):
mother's side, and I was fortunate that I got to
hear directly from victims of communism through my grandparents who
fled communist Cuba in nineteen sixty. And so what this
does is it gives students that same education and foundational
knowledge that I had as a kid growing up to
understand the atrocities committed under communist governments. That includes mass shillings,
(06:40):
political prisons for starvation, suppression of speech. I mean, it's
just horrific the end result. And it also exposes students
to something that we're seeing increasingly become romanticized and popular,
which is versions of socialism, which we all know are
the beginning frameworks and steps for communism.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Well, you know, we talked just last week about the
fact that you know, in Governor William Bradford's documents with
the first Pilgrims, the settlers that came on the Mayflower,
they used communism his word, not mine, and found it
to be an abject failure. Are these lessons going to
go back that far to point out how the people
that came to this land so many centuries ago learned
(07:22):
that lesson fundamentally early on.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
It's going to cover all kinds of topics. I mean,
it's going to talk about the rise of communism globally
and in the United States. It's going to do the
comparative study of communism, intotalitarianism, and the principles of freedom
that are foundational to this country and what makes this
the greatest country on earth, you know, the political, industrial,
and economic conditions that sparked communist revolutions. It talks about
(07:47):
Cuba and generally Latin America and the spread of communist movement.
So you are going to see a wide array of
the history of communism throughout the world.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Who's going to write the curriculum? Where's it? Where are
we going to get it?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
So it's already been written Florida educators and content experts
quite frankly, who graciously spent all kinds of time helping
develop these standards to ensure that history was taught in
a clear on its an unfiltered way or who put
these standards together, and so that is what the board
voted on. So you're going to see there's going to
be professional development over the summer so that teachers are
(08:22):
taught what these standards are because they are going to
be implemented for the first time in the twenty six
twenty seven school year.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
How do you make sure the teachers are going to
embrace it and teach it fairly and accurately.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
I think that's why professional development is so important. We
provide that at the Florida Department of Education because we
want to make sure that our educators understand the standards.
Gives them an opportunity to ask questions, to let us
know if they have additional feedback. But the reality is
that's how this generally goes. Ultimately, if the bad actor
(08:56):
is going to stray from the standards, as we saw
in Florida Southwestern Stay College with the sociology professor who
was literally part of our work group that put together
the standards and decided to run afoul the law and
teach a gender ideology contrary to what the law allows.
There was accountability that was brought towards that professor and
teachers can expect the same as they're going to stray
(09:17):
away from the standards.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Well, parents, now you've heard it from the Commission of
Education himself, and you'll know to look for it starting
next year. And Commissioner, thank you, appreciate your efforts on
this stuff and look forward to having you back. And
until then, have a great Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Thank you, God bless you, and have a great Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
He is the Commissioner of Education, Anastasioskimutzus. See what I
did there, I did my job. I pronounced his name right. Yeah. Now,
I mean, how wonderful is that that we're going to
teach communism and how awful it is the unvarnished history
(10:00):
of it all. Seventeen minutes past the hour, Go Florida,
Come on, come on This Morning Show with Preston's Guy.
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