Climate change has entered Florida’s battle over education. The state approved classroom videos that reject the reality of global warming, writes Scott Waldman. The materials — produced by the conservative Prager University Foundation and geared toward grades K-5 — compare climate activists to Nazis, falsely claim that wind and solar power pollutes the planet, and wrongly dismiss record heat waves as natural weather variations. PragerU, which bills itself as “the world's leading conservative nonprofit,” has received millions of dollars from the billionaire brothers Farris and Dan Wilks of Texas, who made their fortune in oil and gas fracking. It has also received funding from foundations that oppose climate regulations such as the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. The move by Florida’s Department of Education to approve the videos marks a win for Republican Gov. and presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis, who — like leaders in a number of GOP-led states — has aggressively sought to reshape curriculum in African-American history, LGBTQ+ issues and climate science. It’s worth noting that many in the Republican Party are not on board with the DeSantis’ campaign battle cry of “Make America Florida.” DeSantis recently faced loud, bipartisan condemnation after Florida released curriculum standards claiming the institution of slavery offered “personal benefits” for enslaved people. Climate disinformation
Florida’s move to introduce climate disinformation into the classroom follows a rising trend of what education experts call dangerous propaganda in schools. Texas now requires its schools to teach positive lessons about fossil fuels, for example. That could have broader implications for the national textbook market, as Texas is one of the country’s biggest consumers of education materials. Of particular concern is the impressionable age at which these videos could be shown, said Adrienne McCarthy, a researcher at Kansas State University who tracks PragerU. “They can take these right-wing, controversial ideas and cloak them in seemingly harmless and friendly rhetoric,” McCarthy told Scott. Education advocates also fear that Florida’s approval could spread the videos to other states, allowing the misinformation to reach well beyond Florida’s 3 million public school students (which, by the way, is more than the entire population of Kansas). That is exactly PragerU’s intent. The goal is to develop a “turnkey curriculum” that can be expanded to as many states as possible, PragerU CEO Marissa Streit told Scott. She expects to soon announce that more states have approved PragerU content and will use it for classrooms in all grades.
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