Today’s entry: @brianmuddradio I haven’t seen DeSantis endorse a candidate in my school district. Do you know when all of his endorsements will be out?
Bottom Line: I suppose it wouldn’t be helpful to suggest sometime before the elections? No, to date DeSantis hasn’t offered a hard date as to when all of his endorsements will be made. But your question is a good one for another reason as well. Governor DeSantis may never endorse a candidate in your District. It was just over a month ago when Governor DeSantis outlined his “Education Agenda”, which included a questionnaire for candidates to fill out to in order to seek his endorsement. Here’s a refresh as to what his agenda is that candidates are then questioned about:
- Keep schools open, rejecting lockdowns
- Educate, don’t indoctrinate
- Ensure Parental Rights in Education and Keep Woke Gender Ideology Out of Schools
- Support Robust Civics Education
- Expand Workforce Development and Technical Education
- Reject the use of Critical Race Theory in the Curriculum
- Increase Teacher Pay
- Continue support for school security and mental health initiatives
- Protect the right of parents to petition school boards and districts for redress of grievances
- Guarantee the right of parents to curriculum transparency
From there candidates must answer these 15 questions which are specific to the governor’s agenda:
- Do you support the Governor’s efforts to fund workforce, career, and technical education?
- Do you support the Governor’s increases in teacher compensation?
- Should Florida’s students be locked out of school or subjected to forced masking?
- How will you ensure your school district is closing student achievement gaps and meeting progress and meeting progress monitoring goals to guarantee students are reaching their highest potential? (must answer with video or written submission)
- What should your school district do to better prepare students as citizens? (must answer with video or written submission)
- Do you support a parent’s right to know what their child is being taught in the classroom?
- Should parents have the right to choose the best education options for their child regardless of their income or zip code?
- Do you support Governor DeSantis’ school safety measures like the Aaron Feis Guardian Program which arms highly trained school personnel who can respond in the event of a school shooting?
- How will you protect a parent’s right to publicly disagree with their school board? (must answer with video or written submission)
- How do you think Governor DeSantis’ commitment to school choice initiatives will impact your school district? (must answer with video or written submission)
- Does CRT belong in K-12 public education classrooms in Florida?
- Do you agree that students should be educated and not indoctrinated?
- Do you support the Governor’s efforts to require students to learn about the horrors of communism?
- Do you agree that school districts should promote and encourage school choice within their jurisdictions and should not stand in the way of charter schools?
- How will you ensure curriculum transparency in your school district? (must answer with video or written submission)
So yeah, the yes or no questions are rather straight forward. I’d suspect answering that CRT belongs in classrooms would not net you the DeSantis endorsement. At the same time, it's not as though candidates can just say yeah, I like you, please endorse me. The video and essay questions are especially compelling parts of the process. And here’s the rubber and road reality of this process. There’s no certainty that there’s a candidate in every race who agrees with Governor DeSantis’ Education Agenda. There’s no certainty that even if they do agree with DeSantis, they’ll complete DeSantis’ questionnaire. And there’s no certainty that even if they do, DeSantis will feel they’re worthy of an endorsement.
To date there are only 26 candidates who’ve been endorsed. And from Monroe to Martin County there are only fourt endorsements which have been made to date:
- Jennifer Russell in Martin’s 3rd District
- Roberto Alonso in Miami-Dade's 4th District
- Monica Colucci in Miami-Dade's 8th District
- Darren Horan in Monroe’s 1st District
It remains to be seen if there will be any in Broward or Palm Beach County. So yes, there’s the possibility many South Floridians won’t be able to lean on a DeSantis endorsement to attempt to discern the candidate they’d like to vote for. Now, should that prove to be the case, I’d still strongly encourage engagement and a willingness to identify a candidate who is the closest fit to your values even if you don’t see eye to eye on a lot of the issues. While I’d always prefer to have candidates I want to vote for - I’ve often found myself voting for what I perceive to be the “lessor of evils” in local elections. That may well be the case for many of us in multiple races again this year. That said, whatever will or won’t be in various school district races this year, I could see the DeSantis endorsement having a profound impact in the future. It’s a daunting thought/task for many would-be grass-roots candidates to effectively launch a campaign – especially against incumbents. This model, which creates instant legitimacy for any candidate receiving the endorsement, has the potential to encourage greater participation in future cycles.
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