by Jason Bedrick in Daily Signal (July 29)
Last November, Gov. Ron DeSantis declared that the Sunshine State would be adopting the Phoenix Declaration, an educational manifesto articulating seven key principles. At their July meeting, Florida’s State Board of Education approved “sweeping revisions to the state’s teacher preparation framework,” which will directly affect teacher preparation programs, requiring all state-approved programs to adopt a new Uniform Core Curricula, which includes embedding the Phoenix Principles in classroom and school decision-making…”
“The Phoenix Declaration: An American Vision for Education,” presents a values-based framework for reshaping American education. It argues that schools should do more than prepare students for jobs; they should help form knowledgeable, responsible, and virtuous adults capable of participating in family life, local communities, and democratic self-government. The declaration describes education as essential to individual opportunity, family flourishing, and national prosperity, and it emphasizes the pursuit of “the good, the true, and the beautiful” alongside academic learning.
Its seven principles are parental choice and responsibility; transparency and accountability; truth and goodness; cultural transmission; character formation; academic excellence; and citizenship. The declaration maintains that parents are children’s primary educators and should be able to choose learning environments that meet their children’s needs, with public funding following the child. It calls on schools to be open with parents about curriculum and students’ well-being, to teach objective truth and moral responsibility, and to transmit American history and heritage in the context of Western and Judeo-Christian intellectual traditions.
The declaration also advocates a rigorous, content-rich curriculum centered on subjects such as mathematics, literature, science, history, civics, and the arts. It favors core knowledge and established instructional practices over what it characterizes as unproven educational fads. In civic education, it calls for students to understand the nation’s founding documents, natural rights, limited government, the rule of law, and equal human dignity. Although it says students should learn about both America’s strengths and failures, it frames this study around a patriotic appreciation for the country and its traditions.
The Daily Signal opinion piece by Jason Bedrick, argues that Florida has begun converting the Phoenix Declaration’s ideas into enforceable teacher-preparation policy. It reports that the Florida State Board of Education approved revised educator-practice standards, new rules for teacher-preparation-program approval, and a Uniform Core Curricula requirement. According to the article, the rules direct future Florida educators to incorporate the declaration’s principles into professional conduct and classroom decision-making. The author portrays this as the declaration’s first major practical implementation in the state.
A central change described in the article is a required teacher-training course called “Foundations of Civil Discourse, American Exceptionalism, and Western Civilization.” The course is intended to prepare prospective teachers to teach the principles and history of American constitutional government, including natural rights, consent of the governed, separation of powers, and intellectual influences ranging from Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian traditions to the Enlightenment. The new standards also emphasize teachers’ role in character formation, respect for founding documents, and civil disagreement. Additionally, the article says candidates must show competency in cognitive science of learning, including cognitive-load theory, retrieval practice, and working and long-term memory. The requirements are scheduled to begin for teacher-preparation programs on August 1, 2027.
[Read The Phoenix Declaration here and the news story here.]
