HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — When it comes to the state’s new public education teaching standards, parent and Hillsborough County School Board member Jessica Vaughn is upfront about her feelings.
“It’s extremely frustrating. It doesn’t feel student-centered. It doesn’t feel like any of this is for student success or achievement,” she said.
Parents have been calling her for months because, according to her, they’re upset. She said the calls started when the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
A few months later, the State Board of Education decided to ban certain books from schools—the restrictions on teaching history, specifically black history. Last week, Hillsborough County Public Schools announced it was dropping AP history because the topics of the topics related to gender and sexual orientation within the course are against the new rules.
“There have been so many families messaging,” she said. “[Asking] what are my choices for going to private school? How does the voucher system work? Can I homeschool? It’s driving families out of our school system that really want to be there."
Now, with school starting Thursday, Hillsborough County teachers have to change their lesson plans to limit Shakespeare. Instead of students reading the full text of his classics like "Macbeth," "Hamlet," or "Romeo and Juliet," they have to read excerpts.
We talked to University of South Florida English professor Emily Jones about this. She said whether or not a student learns about Shakespeare and his work isn’t that big of a deal to her. Instead, her problem is with students reading excerpts instead of the whole story.
“When they do that, they miss out on being able to talk about characters and how they grow from beginning to end, and how themes develop through the course of a novel or play," Jones said. “They’re not going to be able to talk about that if all they’ve gotten are segments or snippets.”
Vaughn agreed, saying that is her main concern.
“I fear that when you restrict access to knowledge, it never has a good outcome for our students or being competitive nationwide,” she said.
We reached out to the district. A spokesperson replied that officials made the change to align with the state’s new teaching standards and a new set of state exams that cover a vast array of books and writing styles.
Hillsborough County School District response:
Earlier this week, in an effort to provide clarity around the works of author William Shakespeare, we unfortunately created some confusion. To be clear, we are teaching Shakespeare in a variety of ways in high schools, everything from short excerpts to full novel readings, based on the standards for the course a student takes. Shakespeare has been a foundation of our literary teaching for decades. This instructional plan follows state law. For instance, the state implemented the B.E.S.T standards in 2022-23, which require students in high school to read multiple genres, authors, styles, and literary periods. The assessment that students will take in the Spring, known as F.A.S.T., will gauge students' comprehension from 30% of the books on Florida’s B.E.S.T. Book List. To meet those B.E.S.T. Benchmarks, many of our high school students may read one full novel in addition to excerpts from other works that cover numerous literary periods such as Classical author Homer, Renaissance author Shakespeare, and Contemporary author Bradbury within these units. The purpose of offering individual excerpts from more texts is to provide students with a broad range of materials and expand their literary knowledge. This is aligned with our pillar of Academic Excellence in our Strategic Plan. Our job is to make sure your children learn from a variety of literary materials to prepare them for their future. We are excited to start school tomorrow and begin the instruction that is so important to their success.
