Florida Citizens for Science

Creationists, climate change deniers and anti-vaccine nuts are gloating. The instructional materials bill that will allow them to gum up the local textbook selection process and bully school boards into compromise passed its final House vote. Representatives approved it 94-25. Meanwhile, the final Senate committee to hear it said yes 16-0.

Now the full Senate will debate SB 1210 and shortly after that vote on it. At least we hope they’ll actually debate it and not rubber stamp it. But the only way that could happen is if you demand they do. Contact every senator you can.

Need some ammunition? Read through our comprehensive Instructional Materials bills ’17 blog category. Pay special attention to these revealing posts:

• “Nowhere in the material is a balanced discussion of the biblical explanation”
• “I have witnessed children being taught that Global Warming is a reality”

Check out the media coverage and op-eds on this bill:

• Orlando Sentinel: Parents may get new way to challenge school textbooks
• Gainesville Sun: Bill Seeks to Hijack Educational Standards
• Tallahassee Democrat: Anti-science education bill not benign
• WFTV, Channel 9, Orlando: Lawmakers could make it easier to get textbooks removed from classroom
• Daytona Beach News Journal: Bills threaten science education
• Naples Daily News: Leon educators say ‘instructional materials’ bill not needed
• Naples Daily News: Teaching of evolution, climate change at stake in Byron Donalds’ bill
• Miami New Times: “Antiscience” Bill Would Force School Boards to Listen to Silly Complaints About Books

Are you armed and ready to go now? Good. Get to work.

Thursday is probably our last realistic chance to put the brakes on, or at least challenge, the creationist and climate change denier’s dream bill: Instructional Materials bills SB 1210 and HB 989. (See our long list of blog posts on these bills in the Instructional Materials bill ’17 category.) The Senate Appropriation Committee is scheduled to hear their version of the bill then. It would be gratifying to see at least one senator point out the massive pitfalls in it. Even better, wouldn’t it be nice to pull off a miracle by having the bill voted down? The only way that will happen is if you contact the committee senators. I know, without a doubt, our opponents are working the phones. We need to be louder!

And the full House was expected to question and debate the bill today (Tuesday). But I believe that the meeting ran too long, pushing HB 989 to tomorrow’s calendar (Wednesday). It couldn’t hurt to contact lawmakers there to see if any of them will speak up for reality-based science education.

Meanwhile, the Orlando Sentinel has an article online tonight (to be published in the Wednesday print edition) about the bills: Parents may get new way to challenge school textbooks. Florida Citizens for Science is featured nicely.

The proposals have alarmed some science advocates, who fear the measures could lead to books that tackle controversial but required scientific topics, such as evolution, being removed or to those subjects being axed from class lessons.

In one of the affidavits, for example, a Martin County resident wrote about her objections to a textbook used in an Advanced Placement course. “Presentation of evolution as fact … The vast majority of Americans believe that the world and the beings living on it were created by God as revealed in the Bible,” wrote Lynda Daniel.

…

“If this bill becomes law, school boards will become inundated with demands that certain books be outright banned and that schools must discontinue using textbooks that don’t mesh with a vocal minority’s ideological views,” wrote Brandon Haught, a Volusia County high school science teacher and member of the group Florida Citizens for Science.

The bills are a “disaster” and would mean school boards would have to deal with “nonsense complaints” in a process that gives “protesters on a crusade nearly equal weight in the instructional materials selection processes as education and subject matter experts,” Haught said.

The final quote in the story just makes me shake my head.

Ruth Melton, director of advocacy services for the Florida School Boards Association, said her group believes residents should be able to voice their views about school books. But it has some concerns about the bills, such as whether they will mean residents could continue to file protests long after school boards have had vote to adopt textbooks for use in upcoming classes.

“Have we created language here that just invites challenge and litigation?” she said. “How could this go sideways?”

We know exactly how. We’ve been trying to tell everyone for weeks now. Isn’t it about time someone listens?

An article in today’s Naples Daily News reports on the textbook selection process going on right now in Collier County: Committee presents new textbooks, Collier school board to vote next month. Keep in mind that the Instructional Materials bills that we here at Florida Citizens for Science are fighting against in our state legislature were conceived in Collier County. There have been battles over textbooks there for several years, featuring “opposing ideological forces,” as the reporter puts it. The bill sponsor in the House is Byron Donalds, from Naples. And his wife, Erika Donalds, is the Collier County school board vice chairwoman.

With that background in mind, I think you can see why there was a reaction to something Mrs. Donalds said:

She applauded the residents who had read and reviewed hundreds of pages of textbooks “because they want to make sure that the truth is heard.”

Erika Donalds caused the audience to stir when she added, “The truth is going to be different based on your own experience and your own bias, and everyone has it, and that’s fine.”

What biases are Mrs. Donalds referring to? I think this guy nails it:

Bill Korson, a Naples resident who sat on the district’s U.S. history instructional materials committee, cautioned that many people hold opinions that are “based on unique interpretations of American history or unique belief systems.”

Korson brought up House Bill 989, an instructional materials bill introduced by state Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Naples, in February, that would allow all Collier residents such as Doyle to file formal objections “to arbitrarily question the appropriateness of content.”

“Deniers of global warming with no connection to the school district can file costly complaint after complaint,” Korson said. “Creationists who place cave dwellers with dinosaurs and rely on their beliefs with no scientific evidence can file complaints.”

House Bill 989 will be debated tomorrow (Tuesday) on the House floor. It would be nice if some lawmakers pressed Mr. Donalds about our very real, substantiated concerns. Please call your representative and demand they not rubber stamp this awful bill.

Update: The Senate version of the bill, SB 1210, will be considered during the April 20, Thursday, Appropriations Committee meeting. Start calling senators now. We can’t let our voices be ignored any more!

We’ve been working hard here at Florida Citizens for Science in an effort to stop the horrible instructional materials bills that are working their way through the state legislature. House Bill 989 and Senate Bill 1210 would give the green light to creationists and climate change deniers to harass school boards across the state about what’s in textbooks and other materials teachers use. I’m happy to report that we’re now making good headway in educating the public about the impending disaster that will result if these bills become law.

A team of us co-wrote an op-ed that’s going to be printed in Sunday’s Gainesville Sun. But the paper has already posted it online. It was great working with Jiri Hulcr and Andrea Lucky on this piece: Bill Seeks to Hijack Educational Standards.

Florida’s education standards were created cooperatively with input from Florida educators and parents, as well as business and community leaders. The instructional materials bill’s real goal has nothing to do with improving or enhancing the standards. Instead, it is a thinly veiled attempt by a special interest group to hijack Florida education and provide a new avenue to infuse their agenda into public schools.

I also got an op-ed published in the Tallahassee Democrat today: Anti-science education bill not benign.

If this bill becomes law, school boards will become inundated with demands that certain books be banned and that schools must discontinue using textbooks that don’t mesh with a vocal minority’s ideological views. This bill allows any county resident, not just parents, to force school boards to take seriously their unfounded claims that textbooks are biased and inaccurate.

This bill requires school boards to appoint hearing officers to consider nonsense complaints, in essence giving protestors on a crusade nearly equal weight in the instructional materials selection process as education and subject matter experts.

This bill is a disaster and your local school board can very likely be a casualty.

The Tallahassee Democrat also published an opposing op-ed that tries to claim that the bills are all about resisting the textbook industry monopoly. It’s a nonsensical, weak argument to say the least. Read for yourself: Florida school boards should control curriculum.

And the Lakeland Ledger published a letter by Florida Citizens for Science president Jonathan Smith: Make America Smart Again.

This is a deliberate attempt by those with a religious and/or political agenda to deliberately censor curriculum in Florida’s public schools.

We at Florida Citizens for Science strongly oppose this bill and are very concerned that it will essentially remove real learning and discourse from our Florida classrooms. If we want to make America great again, let’s start with making America smart again.

Now it’s your turn. Share our op-eds widely. Send them to the lawmakers in Tallahassee. We still have a chance to make a difference in the Senate since the bill will still have to be heard in one more committee meeting: Appropriations. And we can also try to convince representatives to argue against the bill when it is presented to the full House for questions and debate, which I believe will happen on Tuesday (18th). So, don’t be a spectator. Send emails, make phone calls and pay personal visits to as many lawmakers as you can. Together, we can make a difference.

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.

The nightmare is getting closer and closer to becoming a reality. Today the Florida House Education committee considered an Instructional Materials bill that will force school districts across the state to take seriously creationist and climate change denier complaints about textbooks. School districts will be required to appoint “unbiased and qualified hearing officers” when any county resident, not just parents, protests about what’s in any instructional material.

The founders and promoters of this bill have given us mountains of evidence showing how they will use and abuse this bill should it become law. They want some form of creationism taught alongside evolution. They want references to human-caused climate change erased.

And yet the bill passed through the Education Committee on a 16-2 vote. And it happened with no debate and no substantial public comment during the meeting. I want to repeat that to make my point clear. There was no debate. There were no questions.

One issue that we’re realizing is that many lawmakers honestly believe the bill is harmless. One of our Florida Citizens for Science members had emailed a representative to warn about the bill’s dangers and got a reply:

Initially i had serious concerns about the concept of this bill. After hearing it in committee i learned how benign the bill is. So my question to you is, which part of the bill is dangerous?

We’re not getting our message through. It’s clear that none of the legislators have any idea where the bill originated, what the motivations behind it are, and what the consequences will be. During the email conversation, the representative went on to incorrectly claim that the state Department of Education makes the final decision about what what is adopted for use in classrooms. In other words, he doesn’t understand that local school districts make the final decisions concerning what goes into the classrooms and he further doesn’t understand that this bill will force those school districts to take seriously any county resident on an ideological crusade against those materials.

The lowest bar we can possibly set as we fight these bills is to have our valid and evidence-based arguments heard and acknowledged. So far, we’re failing to accomplish even that modest goal. Will you help us?

The last chance we have to be heard is in the final committee stop either bill, in the House or Senate, will have. It will be the Senate Appropriations Committee. The bill has not been scheduled for a meeting there yet. But that shouldn’t stop you from getting a head start on contacting the members. Tell them clearly and concisely that SB 1210 is NOT BENIGN. These talking points should help you, especially the links in the second point.

• SB 1210 is unnecessary, since there is already a fair and tested procedure for lodging legitimate complaints about instructional materials;
• SB 1210 would be used to launch scientifically unfounded attacks on climate change and evolution — as its supporters acknowledge (see our posts: “Nowhere in the material is a balanced discussion of the biblical explanation” / “I have witnessed children being taught that Global Warming is a reality” / These dangerous bills need to be disarmed);
• SB 1210 would cost local school boards money by forcing them to hire hearing officers to take such complaints seriously; and
• SB 1210 would prolong such controversies indefinitely by rescinding the finality of the school board’s decision on complaints. (Amendments to the bills have eliminated this concern.)

If our concerns aren’t at least brought up during that meeting, then we honestly have little chance of influencing this bill as it goes to the House and Senate floors for final votes.

If you have ever asked “what can I do to support science education,” this is your chance.

Call. Email. Visit. Repeat.