{"id":1859,"date":"2013-04-21T17:30:50","date_gmt":"2013-04-21T21:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=1859"},"modified":"2013-04-21T17:30:50","modified_gmt":"2013-04-21T21:30:50","slug":"hijinks-could-ensue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1859","title":{"rendered":"Hijinks could ensue"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bill is working its way through our state legislature that will turn over review, approval and selection of instructional materials to local school districts. Currently, instructional materials are reviewed and approved by the state and then districts must spend at least half of their instructional materials budgets on state approved materials. Districts can, of course, spend more on things from the state list but they can also spend money on other materials too. <\/p>\n

If I understand correctly, this bill, if signed into law, would turn all of the responsibility for research into quality textbook and other materials over to all of the districts.<\/p>\n

Right now we can keep an eye on what textbooks are being used in the classroom and raise the red flag if anything hinky is going on. We’ve done it before<\/a>. But if every single district now does their own thing, what’s going to stop a strongly conservative district from deciding to approve supplemental materials for the science classroom that are woefully unscientific? We can watch what goes on in a centralized process. But can we watch what’s happening in every district? There haven’t been many stories about this bill, but even those few haven’t touched upon this potential problem.<\/p>\n

Here’s a recent story that will help give you a feel for what this bill is about. School districts may gain control over instruction materials<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I invite you folks to help me keep an eye on this bill and give me your thoughts on whether my concerns are justified.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bill is working its way through our state legislature that will turn over review, approval and selection of instructional materials to local school districts. Currently, instructional materials are reviewed and approved by the state and then districts must spend … 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-tZ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2011,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2011","url_meta":{"origin":1859,"position":0},"title":"Proposed changes to textbook selection process","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 5, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"State Sen. Alan Hays filed a bill that will change the way textbooks are selected in Florida. If approved, the bill would give local school boards full control over the process and the state Department of Education would have no role. The Gradebook blog notes the bill's filing: Florida senator\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2011#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2788,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2788","url_meta":{"origin":1859,"position":1},"title":"Your last chance to stop bill loved by creationists is now!","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 15, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"This is it, ladies and gentlemen. You've been hearing about it from us for months now. The bill that would empower creationists, climate change deniers, anti-vaccine proponents, and other factual science education foes to challenge the textbooks and other instructional materials in school districts across the state is on the\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":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2725,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2725","url_meta":{"origin":1859,"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":3147,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3147","url_meta":{"origin":1859,"position":3},"title":"The Florida House’s bad textbook bill now has a Senate companion","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 6, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida House Bill 827 (Instructional Materials), filed in November by Rep. Byron Donalds in preparation for the 2018 state legislative session proposes changes to several of our laws that govern the review and selection of instructional materials used in our public schools. It didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a Senate companion bill for\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":2414,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2414","url_meta":{"origin":1859,"position":4},"title":"A little press about “instructional materials” bills","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 25, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"An Orlando Sentinel columnist takes apart several bills that Sen. Alan Hays has filed this year in the state legislature:\u00c2\u00a0Hays files wild bills in Senate. His bill about school instructional materials, which Florida Citizens for Science opposes, gets a mention: Hays wants parents to be able to inspect all \"instructional\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Instructional Materials bills '16"","block_context":{"text":"Instructional Materials bills '16","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=31"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2892,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2892","url_meta":{"origin":1859,"position":5},"title":"Get to work! It’s science textbook review time!","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"August 31, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The Florida Department of Education has now issued a \"Call for Reviewers Invitation for Science.\" Every year the FDOE reviews and approves a list of recommended textbooks for that year's academic subject. Last year it was Social Studies. This year it is Science. Once the state compiles a list of\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\/1859"}],"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=1859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}