Average citizens may lose what limited role they have now in the state’s adoption of public school textbooks — a proposal from the GOP-controlled Legislature that has infuriated conservative activists already accusing the state of selecting biased instructional materials.<\/p>\n
The law change appears in the middle of a 77-page bill which contains myriad proposals affecting Florida’s public schools, from increasing virtual education to loosening the rules for class-size compliance. Scott received the bill from lawmakers on Tuesday and has until June 1 to act on it.<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
That overhaul has outraged some activists in the Tea Party and related groups, which last year helped propel more Republicans into the GOP-controlled Legislature, and Scott into the governor’s mansion.<\/p>\n
“‘We the People’ should have a say on what textbooks OUR CHILDREN read,” Tea Party activist Shari Krass wrote recently in a letter to Scott.<\/p>\n
Krass and activists like her believe some texts used by Florida schools are slanted to favor Islam over Judaism and Christianity.<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
The ACLU of Florida, which has battled conservative activists in the past over the teaching of evolution, was less concerned about the change in textbook adoption.<\/p>\n
“So long as the people choosing the texts can honor the principles of academic merit over a political cause, it should not matter if they are experts, parents or members of the community at large,” ACLU spokesman Derek Newton said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is another article today about the proposed radical changes to the state’s textbook selection process. School bill removes citizens from textbook reviews Average citizens may lose what limited role they have now in the state’s adoption of public school … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-lt","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2019,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2019","url_meta":{"origin":1331,"position":0},"title":"Details emerge about textbook bill","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"As I've noted before, there is a bill in the state legislature that proposes to turn review and selection of all public school textbooks over to local school districts, removing state-level government from the process completely. In today's Tampa Bay Times there is now a more in-depth story: Bill aims\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2025,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2025","url_meta":{"origin":1331,"position":1},"title":"Editorial against textbook bill","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 18, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"A Tampa Bay Times editorial today says: No room for political games on textbooks. The editorial notes that the new bill filed in the state legislature that would completely take the state government out of textbook selections was motivated by \"unsuccessful culture warriors.\" I had discussed this issue in previous\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2725,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2725","url_meta":{"origin":1331,"position":2},"title":"Creationist-enabling bill passes; what can you do now?","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"May 6, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The Florida Citizens for Science membership is dismayed that House Bill 989, a proposed law that will affect how instructional materials for our schools are selected and challenged, passed its final vote in the Senate 19 to 17. We believe that should this bill become law with the governor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s signature,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Instructional Materials bills '17"","block_context":{"text":"Instructional Materials bills '17","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=32"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/textbookskulls-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2318,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2318","url_meta":{"origin":1331,"position":3},"title":"Textbook trouble: history and sex ed","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 21, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The Lee County school board will hear from concerned citizens this week about the content of history textbooks under consideration for adoption. Board documents show nine objections have been filed for a sixth-grade world history text published by Pearson. Among the complaints for the book, called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153my (sic) World History,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2318#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1322,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1322","url_meta":{"origin":1331,"position":4},"title":"Textbook selection process to change?","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"May 19, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Hmmmm ... did this slip by everyone unnoticed until now? And even now there is only one reporter on the story so far. This seems like a rather significant change, don't you think? Florida Textbook Adoption Process May Be In For Big Changes Fewer people will approve what textbooks Florida\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Textbooks"","block_context":{"text":"Textbooks","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=26"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2901,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2901","url_meta":{"origin":1331,"position":5},"title":"Marion County to review and approve textbooks on their own","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"September 24, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"There's a new wrinkle in the Florida instructional materials world. We already know that the Florida Department of Education is in the process of reviewing and approving new science textbooks that school districts could then pick from to purchase for their schools. We already know that two new laws could\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Textbooks"","block_context":{"text":"Textbooks","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=26"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1331"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1331"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1332,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1331\/revisions\/1332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}