FL universities awarded $15M to teach America’s founding principles, boost civics education
Florida’s public universities will receive millions in grants from the U.S. Department of Education to boost civics education and American history instruction ahead of the nation’s 250th birthday.
Florida’s public universities will receive more than $15 million from the U.S. Department of Education to boost civics education and American history instruction ahead of the nation’s 250th birthday in 2026.
The new initiatives, launched across several university campuses, will develop curricula rooted in America’s founding documents and provide professional development for K–12 teachers. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced several of the grants at a press conference held at New College of Florida in Sarasota.
Florida State University (FSU) in Tallahassee will receive nearly $5 million for two new projects focused on civic education and the Founding Fathers.
A $2.9 million grant will fund the “Fireworks250” initiative, which will provide lessons and paid professional learning activities to nearly 200 public school teachers each year for three years. The resources aim to strengthen fifth-grade students’ vocabulary and reading comprehension skills as they study historical texts.
FSU’s Institute for Governance and Civics was awarded an additional $1.7 million to launch “Founding Voices,” a project designed to teach middle school students about the Founding Fathers and other American historical figures. The project includes interactive seminars featuring live or AI-generated historical interpreters reenacting Founding-era debates and hosting student-led Q&A sessions.
The University of Florida (UF) in Gainesville will receive $2.9 million to support its Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education and launch its new “Documents of Democracy” program.
The program will create lesson plans and model curricula based on America’s founding texts, including a “Primary Document Toolkit” and a “Civics Snapshots” video series, to “strengthen students’ understanding of the principles of liberty, limited government, and equality.”
“The Hamilton School faculty, as well as our nationwide network of experts, are committed to building rigorous, engaging curricula in history and civics that will help teachers bring the founding documents to life in their classrooms,” Benjamin Boyce, director of civics outreach and strategic partnerships at the Hamilton School, wrote in a university press release.
UF’s Hamilton School offers courses for undergraduate students such as “Civil Discourse and the American Political Order” and “American Characters (Lincoln).”
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The University of West Florida in Pensacola will receive $1.5 million to expand its current Summer Institute for Civics Educators into a full-time Academy of American Civic Republicanism to provide resources to UWF students and K-12 teachers.
The institute will develop “undergraduate courses on principles of Civic Republicanism in Colonial America and the American founding” and will establish “a post-doctoral fellowship to support teaching and research.”
Additional grants include $1.8 million for New College of Florida in Sarasota to develop its “Invigorating Liberty and Self-Governance” initiative and $2.9 million for Florida International University’s (FIU) Adam Smith Center for Economic Freedom in Miami. The University of North Florida in Jacksonville will receive $2.1 million to provide civics training to public high school teachers.
“There’s no state that’s doing more to cultivate [and] to reinvigorate education about American principles than we are here in the free state of Florida,” Gov. DeSantis said at the New College press conference.
Campus Reform verified grant amounts through the U.S. Department of Education’s grant database.
