It’s wonderful to see that we’re not alone in our fight against the bad Instructional Materials bill working its way through the Florida legislature.
Several anti-censorship organizations worked together to send a letter to our state legislators, warning them about the bill. The signers include:
— Joan Bertin, Executive Director, National Coalition Against Censorship
— Charles Brownstein, Executive Director, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
— Millie Davis, Director Intellectual Freedom Center, National Council of Teachers of English
— Fatima Shaik, Co-Chair, Children’s and Young Adult Book Committee, PEN America
— Brandon Haught, Board Member, Florida Citizens for Science
The letters starts:
As a coalition of organizations with considerable experience defending challenged books in the public school system, we write to raise our concerns about H.B. 989: Instructional Materials for K-12 Public Education. The bill threatens to undermine the quality of education in Florida by potentially inviting and facilitating wasteful, expensive, and viewpoint-based challenges to curricular materials and by permitting local school boards to deviate from state-approved curricula in favor of subjectively defined “equivalent†or “better†standards. We hope you will keep our considerations in mind when reviewing this bill and urge you to vote against it.
There is also an online petition circulating (not started by us) that has rounded up more than 10,200 signers. We encourage you to participate but please don’t stop there. The petition can’t replace your direct contact with state lawmakers via phone, email, or visits.
Unless there’s a strong public outcry against right-wing extremists’ latest assault on science, many Florida students could soon be learning a curriculum shaped by political and religious dogma rather than academic standards.
Tell Florida legislators and Gov. Scott: Stand up for science in the classroom. Oppose S.B. 1210/H.B. 989.