by Mica Pollock and Hirokazu Yoshikawa, with John Diaz, Abigail Richburg, Blair Cox, Andrew Matschiner, Emilie Homan, and Abdul-Rehman Mohammed Issa

“I want to leave. I hate almost everything about 'teaching' because we are restricted on every level and because we fail to do what is right for children. Love the kids, love my coworkers, love my principals, hate the demands. I’m exhausted, overwhelmed, overburdened.”

- Elementary-middle school teacher, Florida

“Many parents are not truly informed about what is going on in terms of the restrictions placed on librarians and teachers and their children's access to literature.” 

- Middle school librarian, Florida

“We are not allowed to use the words ‘diversity’ or ‘equity.’ We are not allowed to use ‘social emotional learning.’ We are not allowed to talk about any form or even the word ‘discrimination.’ We are not allowed to use ‘growth mindset.’ We are not allowed to use any researcher or author whose political stance they have to review and tell us whether or not they will accept…we absolutely have been censored. It has been a very difficult journey for me in particular.”

- State-employed professional development provider, Florida

Report abstract:

What happens to public education when state policy seeks to restrict learning and talking about some American communities, experiences, and topics? Since early 2021, as part of a broad “conflict campaign” inflaming Americans about/against public schools, politicians have proposed hundreds of state bills and policies seeking to restrict and control educational speech and student support efforts characterized as “woke” in U.S. public schools. The majority of such policy has targeted K-12 instruction, often through nearly identical language and even model legislation from conservative organizations. Policy also has sought to limit student supports and content opposed by some parents, demanding more “parental rights.”

This report explores experiences of such K12 state policy efforts in Florida, which since 2021 has implemented the most education restriction policies in the nation. We use the umbrella term “state policy” here primarily to encompass state laws and restriction regulations, plus related state guidance and official decisions shaping and pressuring local behavior. Florida laws and state policies now demand K12 restriction on “Critical Race Theory,” the New York Times’ 1619 Project, specific viewpoints and broad ideas about racism and history, instruction on “sexual orientation or gender identity,” school use of chosen pronouns, “sexual conduct” in texts (via inviting local objection), and more. Florida policies also mandate and catalyze vetting of materials for compliance and invite individuals to review, challenge, and try to ban education efforts they dislike. Our report sought to explore lived experiences in this context.

Through an open-ended-answer survey and follow-up interviews totaling 86 respondents, largely school-level educators and parents, plus supplemental review of media and public documents, we explore this state’s particularly active version of a national restriction dynamic and its consequences for the opportunities and supports offered young people in public schools. We argue that Florida offers urgent examples of a consequential limitation effect, here state-catalyzed, limiting basic educational opportunity in K12 public schools. State policy mandates that educators restrict K12 access to specific information, perspectives, and student supports the state caricatures as “woke” or “inappropriate,” particularly targeting perspectives critical of racial inequality (and Black voices as such) and information/supports related to sexual orientation and gender (particularly signaling hostility to LGBTQ people).

In a wide ideological net, policy also invites local challenge to texts containing any “sexual conduct” and most broadly of all, deemed not “age appropriate” – and invites local community members to help restrict educational work individuals deem to be violating policy. Policy also catalyzes widespread vetting of educational practice, for compliance with restrictions and for complaint prevention. We find evidence of broad effects of these state policies as K12 system actors, including state, district, and school-level adults, attempt to comply with, align with, and execute policy as they understand it. While the state frames its restrictions as protection of students from presumed-pervasive “woke” ideology, or argues for parents’ “rights” to control the education of their own children, restrictions seen here actually pressured erasure and prevention of basic opportunities for many.

Our data showed how in a cascade of pressure processes reaching down to educators’ daily interactions with students – what we call the limitation effect –- state policy played a key role in K12 system actors constraining basic opportunity that could support young people, limiting access to both targeted topics, viewpoints, and supports and even more broadly to wide swaths of learning opportunity for everyone.

As seen in these data, Florida policies put a cage of restriction, threat, and intimidation around the educational triad of curriculum, instruction, and student-teacher relationship, to align educators’ daily work and students’ daily opportunities to the most restriction-oriented Floridians’ ideological preferences. In individuals’ work and across K12 systems, time use and energy became organized around restricting access to ideas, information, and supports, rather than expanding education opportunity — far from protecting children from harm as purportedly intended. We call the concrete reduction of education opportunity and improvement education restriction – and a form of collective harm applied both to subgroups and a public education system.