DeSantis pledges to prevent 'indoctrination' in Florida's education system

(The Center Square) — Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke at the Florida Homeschool Convention on Thursday and said indoctrination in education is not welcome in the Sunshine State.

"When you think about education and your kids, as a parent, you know the kids are many ways an open book and do you wanna turn them over for eight hours a day to some indoctrination factory?... of course not," DeSantis said.

According to DeSantis, Florida is the No. 1 state in the U.S. for homeschooling. He added that he has always supported education choice, homeschooling and empowering parents to make decisions about the upbringing of their children.

"Whether it's kindergarten, whether it's eighth grade, 12th grade, whether it's in our universities, we don't want any of the indoctrination in the state of Florida," DeSantis said.

According to state data, the number of homeschooled children in the state has increased from 77,000 in 2013 to 150,000, an increase of 101.3%.

DeSantis said that higher education in universities and colleges in other parts of the nation is allowing students to essentially do whatever they want on those campuses, including vandalizing school property and commandeering office administration blocks.

"They basically let the inmates run the asylum," DeSantis said. "They can go and demonstrate in favor of Hamas, you can take over property, you can pitch a tent and set up an encampment, you can take over offices, you can do all of that and nobody suffers any consequences."

DeSantis stated that in Florida, some pro-Hamas protestors attempted to set up encampments on the grounds of the University of Florida and Florida State University and were swiftly shut down.

"That lasted about 15 minutes, they were kicked out and we upheld the rule of law. But I think it shows what has happened in education in this country because this isn't necessarily new for the universities." DeSantis said.

DeSantis stated that it's one thing for students to go out and protest the latest cause, but it's something else to side with a terrorist group like Hamas that has beheaded babies and assassinated elderly people.

DeSantis said that to counteract this trend, schools in Florida teach more classic subjects like American history and focus on the Western tradition and Western civilization in universities to move away from what he termed the "soft" liberal anti-American ideologies being taught in other states.

"We are pursuing the truth in the state of Florida in our education system," DeSantis said.