Ron DeSantis touts Florida's education system, slams woke academia in Sarasota address

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis addressed an audience at Sarasota's New College of Florida Saturday in a speech that touted the state's educational accomplishments and reforms and bashed the "woke" stranglehold on academia.

"In the last 5½ years, there's been no state that has done more to reform and improve education. … We took on school choice. We made sure schools were open during COVID, battling school unions, all this stuff. So it was really, really good."

New College of Florida, the state's liberal arts honors college, has been the site of a contentious power struggle between the previous school administration and the governor, which has seen DeSantis seek to remake the institution in the image of Michigan's Hillsdale College.