{"id":2043,"date":"2014-03-18T20:12:30","date_gmt":"2014-03-19T00:12:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=2043"},"modified":"2014-06-22T17:05:58","modified_gmt":"2014-06-22T21:05:58","slug":"voucher-and-textbook-bill-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2043","title":{"rendered":"Voucher and textbook bill updates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two bills that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re watching in the state legislature — voucher expansion and changes to the way textbooks are selected — are off to strong starts. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re breezing right through committee stops. Despite that fast start, I hold out hope and bet a cold Diet Mt. Dew that neither will cross the finish line.<\/p>\n

I have a few observations to fire off real quick:<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m happy to see that some of our determined efforts to get a voice in these debates are paying off to a small extent. The Orlando Sentinel<\/a> and the Tampa Bay Times<\/a> have posted items on their education blogs. With any luck, some of that will trickle into stories that will actually see print and a wider audience. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m continuing to put a bug in the ears of other reporters.<\/p>\n

One argument that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard in support of expansion of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship is that the tax dollars are not going to private schools.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather, the money is going to the students (meaning their parents). Disingenuous, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you think? That feeds into the line of thinking that all parents are education experts or at least great shoppers in the education marketplace. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Parents know best\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is an irresponsible argument. Paul Cottle at his blog Bridge to Tomorrow<\/a> explains quite clearly: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153parents are not always competent to decide what preparation their own children need for the society of the future.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, our society is presently experiencing a rapid change in its economic structure that many parents are finding confusing and intimidating.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Some parents find many elements of science education frightening and\/or at odds with their personal ideologies. As I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve mentioned before, these parents purposely seek out private schools that cater to those fears and beliefs. Their determination to hold on to what they believe is true and pass it along to their children is a gross injustice that closes doors in the kids\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 futures. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s impossible to determine how many future scientists we lose because of this. The bottom line is that tax dollars are flowing to schools that don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t teach real science. Accountability is sorely needed!<\/p>\n

Moving on to the textbook bill, I want to point out a minor change that was made. An amendment was filed to add a few words to the House version that seem innocuous. The original language says:<\/p>\n

Any instructional materials recommended by each reviewer for use in the schools must be, to the satisfaction of each reviewer, accurate, objective, current, and suited to the needs and comprehension of students at their respective grade levels.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The approved additions are in bold:<\/p>\n

Any instructional materials recommended by each reviewer for use in the schools must be, to the satisfaction of each reviewer, accurate, objective, balanced, noninflammatory, fact-based<\/strong>, current, and suited to the needs and comprehension of students at their respective grade levels.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Devil-in-the-Detail-illustration\"<\/a>I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to read too much into the addition of a few simple words, but some of these words send up little red flags to me.\u00c2\u00a0 A reviewer could very well see \u00e2\u20ac\u0153balanced\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as a mandate to want \u00e2\u20ac\u0153other theories\u00e2\u20ac\u009d alongside evolution. The devil is in the details, folks.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two bills that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re watching in the state legislature — voucher expansion and changes to the way textbooks are selected — are off to strong starts. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re breezing right through committee stops. Despite that fast start, I hold out hope … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","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-wX","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1999,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1999","url_meta":{"origin":2043,"position":0},"title":"Florida Voucher Program Expanding?","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"First, I invite you to read this Salon piece, Creationism, at taxpayer expense: Secrets of the GOP\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s frightening new school voucher schemes. You can probably guess from the headline alone that the article takes a negative view of vouchers. For example: \"In Florida, from 2006 to 2010, the state carried\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1999#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3304,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3304","url_meta":{"origin":2043,"position":1},"title":"More reactions to Schools Without Rules article","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 8, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Last weekend the Orlando Sentinel ran an article that's part of their Schools Without Rules series that investigates private schools that accept public money via various scholarships (aka vouchers):\u00c2\u00a0Private schools' curriculum downplays slavery, says humans and dinosaurs lived together. In a previous post I highlighted some reactions to the article,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2196,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2196","url_meta":{"origin":2043,"position":2},"title":"Folks got a bit stirred up!","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"August 1, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Today I participated in a fun interview on radio station WUFT, which is in Gainesville. The program was Conner Calling and it was a full hour, by far the longest interview I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done so far. It also featured about 10 people calling in to ask questions and state opinions. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 9 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 9 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2196#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/SMBC-Second-Law-of-Thermodynamics-219x300.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1581,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1581","url_meta":{"origin":2043,"position":3},"title":"Rotten apples","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 5, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t worry if that juicy apple has a rotten spot, folks. Just quickly swallow the mush and move on. There is still plenty of crisp, cool fruit to enjoy once you get past it. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the thrust of an argument posted recently at the redefinED blog: Why science advocates should\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1581#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1734,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1734","url_meta":{"origin":2043,"position":4},"title":"Bennett’s background","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 9, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been some buzz about Indiana\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s outgoing state superintendent Tony Bennett being recruited to make a move to the Sunshine State for a job as our education commissioner (see here and here). It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still just conjecture at this point, but why not highlight a thing or two from his past\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1734#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1241,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1241","url_meta":{"origin":2043,"position":5},"title":"Coming back to life","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 29, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been away for a while. Sorry about that. The good news is that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m finally done with the monstrous tower of college assignments that has kept me pinned down and squirming for a couple of months. It was a cold, dark, lonely time and it felt like it would\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 5 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 5 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1241#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043"}],"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=2043"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2048,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043\/revisions\/2048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}