Florida asked if schools need new standards. People said no.

For years, many of us have argued that the politicians and bureaucrats in charge of Florida’s public schools don’t listen.

They don’t listen to parents, to teachers, to students — not even to education experts who know far more than they do. Now we have proof. A few months ago, Gov. Ron DeSantis said he wanted to once again re-do the state’s curriculum standards, this time dismantling the Common Core standards most states use.

This exercise is routine in Florida:

Issue another round of top-down Tallahassee rules and create yet another bureaucratic mess.

But this time, DeSantis vowed to do things differently.

This time, before barging into schools like bulls in china shops, DeSantis and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran said they wanted to know what citizens desired.

“We want to hear from you!” they vowed on the state’s website.

So they commissioned a survey that asked every stakeholder imaginable — parents, teachers, curriculum experts, principals, special-ed specialists — whether the state should re-do its standards once again.

Every single group said no.

Literally, 15 out of 15 groups, said: “No change needed” when it comes to Florida’s teaching standards. And each group said so overwhelmingly.

“No change needed” in language arts standards accounted for 73% of the responses from parents, 85% of the responses from teachers and 95% from school board members. The results were similar for math.

Even among “curriculum specialists” — experts on the very topic being surveyed — 92% of the responses said no changes were needed.

Normally, you can’t get 92% of any group of people to agree the sky is blue or water is wet.

“What concerns me the most is changing the standards and/or testing every few years,” wrote one middle school teacher from Santa Rosa County. “It leaves gaps in students’ conceptual understanding and learning … just about the time we have really learned the new standards and students are starting to catch up, there is a change. My recommendation is to STOP changing things.”

Everyone was clear: Leave things alone.

They decided to change the standards anyway.

You said no. DeSantis and Corcoran said: We’re going to take that as a yes.

I attempted to ask Corcoran —— a former legislator and lawyer whose educational expertise consisted primarily of belittling public schools until DeSantis asked him to be in charge of them — why he even went through this charade.

My exact question: “Why did you guys even bother asking anyone what they wanted if you planned on ignoring their perspective?”

Corcoran did not respond. That’s not surprising. What could he say?

We wanted to act like we cared what people thought … but obviously we don’t.

We were hoping people might say they wanted new standards to give us cover for what we planned on doing anyway … but they didn’t. So screw ‘em.

Or maybe: We just wanted to cut a fat check to a polling company.

There’s no good answer.

And really, it’s just part of a trend in this state of sowing discord in public schools. Bog them down with tests and everchanging mandates. Demonize and drive off teachers. And then claim private voucher schools are the only solution.

In this case, DeSantis is trying to make good on a campaign promise to rid Florida of Common Core.

For those who don’t know, Common Core is a basic set of learning standards. It’s widely accepted, having been adopted in more than 40 states with the bipartisan backing of Jeb Bush, Barack Obama, Bill Gates and others.

Common Core was meant to stress learning over memorization. And many Florida parents liked the idea of national standards developed by teachers and experts, who they trusted more than Florida politicians.

But then a handful of conservative pundits — including Glenn Beck and

Rush Limbaugh — started claiming Common Core was some kind of leftist, antiGod conspiracy. (Which was news to rightist, pro-God Jeb Bush.)

Former Gov. Rick Scott first tried to placate that crowd by chipping away at the Common Core standards. Now DeSantis wants to finish them off, having vowed to do so at a campaign rally alongside Donald Trump last year.

So, with the survey results ignored, the state is once-again creating a new set of standards — which you can (attempt to) check out at this user- (un)friendly site:

www.floridastandardsreview.org.

Here’s a key point, though: While Corcoran and DeSantis claim they want high standards in education, they have demanded virtually no standards of the voucher-school program they keep expanding with public money.

So I asked Corcoran about that as well: “Do you plan to insist on ensuring that students in scholarship/voucher schools can meet the new Florida standards?”

He didn’t respond to that question either. I think we know why.