This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, March 1st,

2003. I'm Caleb Brown.

Florida, Governor Ron Desantis has axed

the African American Studies AP course

from Florida Public Schools, and the College Board

has, perhaps in response, slimmed down the curriculum.

David Beto is author of numerous books on TRM Howard and the too soon forgotten mutual aid societies.

We spoke about teaching African American history, how curricula get designed, and the proper

role of the state last month.

As of this recording, it was last month when Governor Ron Desantis announced that Florida would not

be offering AP African American studies in public schools in the state of Florida.

And one, I guess what was your initial reaction to that as a historian?

My initial reaction is I need to look more into this simply because I am well aware of how impoverished these political

debates are. You know there's usually another side, there's another side of the

question. There's a third side of the question. There's a third side of the question and there is

certainly here and it's in some ways a plague on both your houses but you need to

look at these things closely because if you rely on the media, if you rely on the right-wing,

you know, talk shows, you're not going to get, you know, you're not going to get the full picture.

So that was sort of my media reaction. Well, this doesn't sound

good, but I want to look into this a little bit.

So, I mean, I'm not a supporter of government-run education in general but to we we know that these

schools are probably going to exist well into the future and to the extent that they do exist we should try to do right by the young people who attend those institutions.

...