Republican debate highlights and analysis: Fiery faceoff on Trump, Ukraine and more

That’s Mostly False.

In checking previous instances when DeSantis made this same claim, PolitiFact found no evidence that critical race theory, a broad set of ideas about racism being woven into American systems, was being taught in Florida’s K-12 schools in the first place. Educators, school officials and several Florida public school districts told us that CRT has never been part of the state curriculum.

PolitiFact found a few examples of state education officials objecting to textbooks and courses they said contained CRT teaching in recent years. They show the state’s objections to prospective teaching materials, and success in preventing content it deemed to be CRT-related. But questions remain about its rationale and broad definition of the theory and other prohibited topics.
-Aaron Sharockman, PolitiFact

Asked about how he would fix America's education system, DeSantis said "we need education, not indoctrination."

The governor defended keeping schools open during the COVID-19 pandemic and argued that the lockdowns were connected to students falling behind.

He also touted his response to the culture wars, saying Florida "eliminated" critical race theory and gender ideology in K-12 schools.

-ABC News' Hannah Demissie and Will McDuffie

On education, Ramaswamy says he would eliminate the Department of Education and make families more central to their children's educational choice. Central to Ramaswamy's campaign is that several federal agencies should be eliminated, but the idea of parental choice in education has swept through conservative states this year. Four Republican-led states passed new universal voucher programs that would allow parents to take tax dollars and spend them on private schools, including religious schools, or homeschool their children. More states have pushed for parental bills of rights that allow students' parents to have more of a say, and object to more, curricula.
-Analysis by Monica Potts of FiveThirtyEight

According to a Ipsos/Reuters poll from July, 77 percent of Republicans say that transgender athletes should not be able to participate in children’s sports at the elementary/high school level. Just 18 percent say they should, and 6 percent are not sure.
-Analysis by FiveThirtyEight