evidence: One of the most widely criticized standards requires teachers to teach middle school students that under enslavement, some African Americans gained skills that later benefitted them. [...] DeSantis, who was in Utah for his presidential campaign, said in response to a media question he wasn’t involved in writing the standards but defended them, including the middle school standard on slavery. "They’re probably going to show some of the folks that eventually parlayed being a blacksmith into doing things later in life. These were scholars who put that together, it was not anything that was done politically." [...] The Florida middle school standard on the personal benefit from slavery echoes those past attempts at teaching Black history, though they are factually wrong as they imply Black people were unskilled prior to enslavement, King added.