Q&A – Rouge Teachers in Florida Schools

The bottom line is that the education establishment is overwhelmingly occupied and commonly run by leftists. This means conservative parents are almost certain to have their children regularly encounter educators who do not share their values. Most teachers are able to put politics to the side and do what’s right for their students. Some obviously don’t.  

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Your questions, Brian's answers. It's time for today's Q and
A of today. This is the Brian Mud Show, all right,
So today's Q and A rogue teachers in Florida schools.
This is brought to you by Melissa and Ashes check
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(00:23):
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(00:45):
you tap it. You may lay down a message right there,
maybe for a future Q n A. Today's note is
this at Brian Mud Radio. Please check out these poss
from this Alachua mom about the evil and corruption in
Ilachua public schools and the usual efforts to punish parents
who speak out by bleeding and shaming their kids. Appalling,

(01:06):
but not surprising. Would love to hear your take. Thanks, Okay,
so today's note included a link to the testimony of
the mother of the student in question before the Florida
Board of Education. So about this in Alachua County yet
a Gainesville High School teacher, Lauren Watts, that has been
suspended and faces potential disciplinary action following a twenty twenty

(01:30):
three incident where a student was awarded a certificate titled
most likely to become a dictator in her class? Most
likely to become a dictator? You ever win an award?
Joel in classic, I never won any kind of award.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
It's cool.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Did he ever try to go for anything? I don't
think so.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
But I could have just been handled. Apparently this kid
didn't try to go for that either.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
I I'm thinking, oh, well, I was a vice president.
I was a class vice president. That's what ended up
happening with me. So, but I was going for class president.
Being elected the vice president was kind of like, you know,
I mean, it's something something. It wasn't dictator. I probably

(02:18):
had teachers that wanted to hand me that certificate but
thought better of it, unlike this teacher in Elashwa. Okay,
so about this before we dive into this specific situation
in Florida. This is interesting. This is something that is
just starting in Oklahoma. By the way, Glenn Beck is
involved with this program, helped create it. Listen to this
something we might consider for teachers. Foxes, CJ. Papa.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
It's not unusual for there to be required exams for
professionals who were moving to another state. But what's sweeping
down the plane in the Sooner state has some crying foul,
describing it as a mega loyalty test. Teachers coming from
California and New York looking for jobs in Oklahoma must
pass an exam that Oklahoma's public school Superintendent Ryan Walter
says is designed to safeguard against radical leftist ideology. The

(03:06):
exam is administered by Prigger You in Oklahoma based conservative
nonprofit candidates must take it in order to get a certification.
Some of the fifty questions on the tests include what
are the first three words of the US Constitution and
why freedom of religion is important to America's identity?

Speaker 1 (03:23):
All right, so that's interesting, right as that is going
on in Oklahoma, maybe something in the state of Florida
might consider in the future. But anyway, Okay, so about
this situation at Gainesville. This issue came to light last
week when Crystal Merle, the mother of the student, testified
at the state Board of Education meeting, claiming her son

(03:45):
was targeted due to his conservative values, interest in history,
and participation in ROTC. So the mom said that the
teacher allowed classmates to label her her son a Nazi file.
So apparently this is something had been called for some
time in this classroom preceding this most likely to become

(04:05):
a dictator award, and ultimately the teacher orchestrated a class
vote for the derogatory award, which the student, by the way,
refused to accept in front of the class. So the
mom's testimony went viral last week caught the attention numerous officials,
including Florida Attorney General James Authmeyer, who condemned the teacher's action,

(04:29):
saying that if they're true, Watts should be terminated and
barred from teaching in Florida now. On a letter to
the Alachua School Board, Othmeyer argued that the teacher violated
state laws in school policies by harassing a student based
on political beliefs. Similarly, Florida Commissioner of Education and Nastasios
Kamutsas also investigated the matter, identified Watts as the teacher involved,

(04:53):
filed an administrative complaint with the Education Practices Commission. The
complaint accuses Wats of multiple violations, including gross immorality, reducing
her effectiveness as an educator, failing to protect the student's
mental health, and discriminating based on political beliefs. Potential sanctions

(05:13):
include a written reprimand probation finds, suspension, or revocation of
her teaching certificate. So those are the facts of the
case as we know them. Now, we'll see how this
plays out from here. As from my perspective on this now, Firstly,
this incident occurred two years ago and we're only learning
of it now. So One, how has this teacher conducted

(05:36):
herself over the prior to years. Do we have additional victims? Two,
it's a reminder for parents to interact with the kids
about what's happening in the classroom, what's happening educationally. You know,
I get this sense. I don't know this necessarily to
be true, but I get this sense from some the
many parents. Well, I know many parents are busy, right,
and a lot of kids, especially those who are not

(05:56):
standout performers in the classroom are not inclined to openly
talking about what's been taught without prompting. But I feel
like a lot of conservatives kind of like, Okay, we
can we can breathe this. I have relieve take a
deep breath after the passing of the printal rights of
education laws and the state's emphasis on kind of driving
out all the wokeness. But I think that might be

(06:19):
a false sense of security because I think, for example,
a lot of conservatives would expect something like this to
happen in a school in California, but not in Florida, right,
And so I think it's also important to remember, no
matter where you happen to be in education across this state,
you need to consider the source of education. You know.

(06:39):
Nearly four years ago, during the initial push towards the
changes in Florida's education laws, I shared this research to
study conducted by Verdant Labs regarding the political affiliation of teachers,
and the results were overwhelming, I mean overwhelming, And the
political bend of teachers starts well before K through twelve education,

(07:04):
even because preschool teachers, seventy four percent of preschool teachers
are Democrats, eighty five percent of elementary and middle school
teachers democrats, and eighty seven percent of high school teachers
are democrats. So not only are teachers overwhelmingly liberal, but

(07:29):
they're also increasingly liberal as your kids advanced through their
academic careers. So the bottom line is that the education
establishment is overwhelmingly occupied and commonly run by leftists. This
means conservative parents are almost sutain to have their kids
regularly encounter educators who do not share their values. Now,

(07:50):
key in this conversation is that most teachers are able
to put their politics to the side and do what's
right for their students. Educate properly. I mean just because overwhelmingly,
you know teachers are Democrats that they're going to educate accordingly.
But you do get some, right, you do get some.

(08:12):
And the current example in Gainesville is an extreme example
of biases applied in the classroom. Here's the key thing
in this. I can almost guarantee you the teacher involved
here her first act of traveling down the extremely bigoted
and biased path that she did was not this award
before her entire class, I will all but guarantee without

(08:35):
knowing any of the additional background here, this teacher had
applied various biases in the classroom long before we got
to that point, and she had gotten away with it
to the point where she felt so comfortable as to
be this overt about it. And so the bigger takeaway
here from my perspective is that where agendas in the

(08:56):
class in education may exist, they're usually not so odd.
I say this from experience. I've shared some of my
experience previously stories I'm not going to get into that
again here, but the bottom line is, you know, I
uncovered something when I was in sixth grade that was
presented to my class that nobody else picked up on,

(09:17):
but a lot of people are outraged by once I
brought it to their attention. Most grade school students are
not especially politically savvy, right, and they can be subjected
to biased education and conduct many cases without even realizing it,
especially when you're talking about preschool, in kindergarten, elementary. So anyway,

(09:38):
it's one of the many reasons why it's important for
parents to remain engaged with their kids about what is
and isn't happening in the classroom.