On Thursday, Florida became the first state in the union to adopt the Phoenix Declaration as its guiding vision for education.
After a brief hearing, the Florida Board of Education voted unanimously to adopt the principles of the declaration, which has seven planks: parental choice and responsibility, transparency and accountability, truth and goodness, cultural transmission, character formation, academic excellence, and citizenship.
The board described the Phoenix Declaration as a “powerful statement of principles” that “calls for a renewal and strengthening of American education that cultivates virtue, strives for excellence, imparts the wisdom of history, fosters a love of country and one’s fellow citizens, and teaches children to seek the good, true, and beautiful.”
“These principles are principles that everyone across the board, on both sides of the aisle, can agree with,” said Florida Commissioner of Education Anastasios Kamoutsas. “I’m excited to push this forward through the state board of education as a framework to continue to talk about what this board’s vision is for education.”
