Florida Citizens for Science

The National Coalition Against Censorship has noticed the instructional materials bills filed in the Florida legislature that we here at Florida Citizens for Science are also tracking: Florida Bills Threaten Science Instruction and Freedom to Read

In the end, these bills seem designed to empower ideologically-driven activists to shape what is taught in Florida’s classrooms. Those decisions are best left to professional educators.

The National Center for Science Education has taken note of the instructional materials bills filed in the Florida legislature. Their analysis is thorough, taking note of the many problems the bills have. For instance:

“A further provision of the bills is also of concern. Currently, instructional materials used in Florida’s schools must be consistent with the state science standards. HB 899 and SB 1018 would allow that instructional materials may be alternatively be consistent with ‘standards that are equivalent to or better than the applicable state standards.’ No criteria for assessing the relative quality of standards are provided.”

And they found something I had missed: complaints that “an American history textbook that it is ‘permeate[d]’ by ‘discussion of climate change.'”

We will use this post to try and keep track of two bills in our state legislature that could change textbook adoption and review procedures. See our previous post for a summary of why these bills are of concern.

Senate Bill
SB 1018: Instructional Materials for K-12 Public Education
12/17/15 — The bill has been referred to three committees: Education Pre-K-12; Appropriations Subcommittee on Education; and Appropriations. No hearings have been scheduled yet.
12/2/15 — Bill was filed by Sen. Alan Hays.

House Bill
HB 899 – Instructional Materials for K-12 Public Education
12/18/15 — The bill has been referred to three committees: K-12 Subcommittee; Education Appropriations Subcommittee; and Education Committee. No hearings have been scheduled yet.
12/8/15 — Bill was filed by Ray Pilon. It has three Co-Sponsors: Dane Eagle, Matt Gaetz and David Santiago.

The Naples Daily News has a story up about efforts in the Florida legislature to possibly change the way textbooks are reviewed, approved and purchased: Activists look to change “buy” the book procedures

Bills in the state House and Senate would change the way school districts select classroom material, increasing parental involvement, putting more of the burden on elected, rather than appointed, officials and de-emphasizing electronic materials.

I briefly mentioned the Senate bill, filed by Sen. Hays, in a previous post in which I asked what the motivation behind the bill might be. Information in the Naples Daily News article has provided some clues to help us answer that question.

The identical bills are the work of the Florida Citizens’ Alliance and Better Collier County Public Schools, two organizations frequently at odds with the Collier County School Board majority and Superintendent Kamela Patton.

I looked up Florida Citizens’ Alliance and discovered some interesting things about them. They’ve been concentrating on history textbooks, but some of those books have sections explaining human evolution. In this December 22 post, they say that there is a problem with how evolution is presented:

“Florida History: People and Nations” Collier County 6th grade History: These two pages teach the children that we descended from apes. This is stated as a fact not a theory. Nowhere in the material is a balanced discussion of the biblical explanation.

There is a link in their post to a pdf scan of the textbook pages in question.

In a December 15 post they publish a full report on Modern World History, 9th Grade Teacher Edition Year: 2013. Here is one of their critiques:

Study of Darwin’s theory of evolution

Very biased section and Darwin’s conclusions presented as fact and the biblical theory as ludicrous

– Poses the question “how can the earths tremendous variety of plants and animals be explained?” states as fact millions of species exist and fossil records document changes over time. Darwin proved species compete for food and only fittest survive and pass off traits to their offspring.

-while the biblical explanation claims all species created by God on the same day

This is a totally superficial and disingenuous comparison. No reference of fact that both are theories or offer students references like the well documented series called “ The Truth Project” by Focus on the Family.

And a November 2 post is titled: “How To” Suggestions For Creating And Managing A Curriculum Education Watchdog Committee In Your County. One suggestion there is:

Reach out to church leaders to help them understand how evil much of the revisionist content is. The History and literature Common Core uses teaches that nothing is true and everything is permissive. Example: FL 6th grade world History books teach we came from apes as a statement of fact rather than teaching the Theory of Evolution as a theory.

Now take a look at their Examples of Acceptable/Proven K-12 Standards and Corresponding Curriculum. One such example is Freedom Project Education, which displays on their website: “Classical, Judeo-Christian, Online Academy”. The textbook they use in Biology is Exploring Creation with Biology.

Florida Citizens’ Alliance is rallying supporters to push these bills through, using an Action Alert to spark the campaign. Also take note of this paragraph in the Naples Daily News article:

Flaugh said about 80 organizations from around the state have agreed to support the legislation. He expects 15 to 20 representatives from those groups to be in Tallahassee in January to lobby for the changes as the legislative session begins Jan. 12.

The motivations behind the bills are now very clear. There is no question. Will you, Florida Citizens for Science members and supporters, respond?