Public schools

Florida Wins the Curriculum Wars

Plus: French ship attacked, pro se on the rise, Mamdani's grocery store, and more...

Liz Wolfe | 5.7.2026 9:30 AM

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(Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story/Wilfred M. McClay/Ancientaftertone/Dreamstime)

Florida just created its own alternative to A.P. United States History, and it seems pretty good.

Headlines describe it as "anti-woke" and "more conservative," but this framing is a little tired and unsophisticated. Instead, I'd offer that it seems a lot more balanced and positive on Western/Enlightenment ideals than the curriculum it is replacing. It seems rather similar to what most of us were taught in school, provided we attended school prior to the late 2010s.

The recommended textbook for the course is Hillsdale professor Wilfred M. McClay's Land of Hope: An Invitation to the American Story, which—though I have not personally read it—seems like a useful corrective and better alternative to, say, Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States (which is frequently used in A.P. U.S. History classes).

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"One of the worst sins of the present—not just ours but any present—is its tendency to condescend toward the past, which is much easier to do when one doesn't trouble to know the full context of that past or try to grasp the nature of its challenges as they presented themselves at the time," writes McClay. I fully agree, and this seems like an appropriate lens through which one should view teaching of the past. But McClay is also rather sensible when it comes to the specifics.

"Generally, traditional texts address industrialization after the Civil War with trepidation. A few words are offered in support of free enterprise and the amazing economic accomplishments of the period, but the story is overshadowed by coverage of 'robber barons,' the growth of labor unions, strikes, income inequality, and........

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