Florida high school students will likely be required to take a civics course in order to graduate. Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was behind the push to mandate that Florida students have a basic civics education, and a bill mandating civics education is advancing through the state government.

According to a report by the Tampa Bay Times, Florida high school students will be required to take a civics course in order to qualify for graduation. The course will teach students about the values that have shaped American political history.

The bipartisan bill advanced in the Florida house on Thursday. Bill co-sponsor Representative Ben Diamond, a Democrat, argued that the course will give students the tools to fully participate in America’s democracy. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis also announced this week that he ordered Florida’s education commissioner to mandate civics courses at public high schools around the state.

“It is often said that democracy is not a spectator sport, and for a democracy to continue to function well, it requires citizens to be effective in the skills of citizenship,” Diamond said. “This bill is part of an important, continuing and bipartisan effort … to ensure our students are learning the skill of citizenship.”

Rep. Susan Valdes, a Tampa Bay area Democrat, also voiced support for the bill. “I believe this bill is a great idea,” Valdes said. “It is their world that we are shaping.”

Breitbart News reported in January that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was making a push to remove the Common Core curriculum from Florida public schools.

“I had a lot of parents who were frustrated because they didn’t understand some of the math. So, let’s try to get this right,” DeSantis said in a January press conference. “We want to be very high quality, we want to demand excellence, but I think we want to do that in a way that’s responsive to some of the concerns we’ve had over the many number of years.”

Stay tuned to Breitbart News for more updates on this story.