{"id":2318,"date":"2015-06-21T11:42:47","date_gmt":"2015-06-21T15:42:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=2318"},"modified":"2015-06-21T11:42:47","modified_gmt":"2015-06-21T15:42:47","slug":"textbook-trouble-history-and-sex-ed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2318","title":{"rendered":"Textbook trouble: history and sex ed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"myworld-history\"<\/a>The Lee County school board will hear from concerned citizens this week about the content of history textbooks<\/a> under consideration for adoption.<\/p>\n

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 are allegations the text is more of a comparative study of religions and cultures as opposed to being historical in nature, and it has a pro-Islam agenda, presenting a biased view of the religion in comparison to Judaism and Christianity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is not a new argument. This same issue was real big in Volusia County in 2013<\/a>, but I believe a different textbook and publisher was in the spotlight then. Nonetheless, the complaint then was about an alleged pro-Islam slant, too. The Volusia school district responded with a “just the facts”<\/a> document explaining that there was no bias. Volusia didn’t bow to pressure and adopted the textbooks.<\/p>\n

That controversy inspired state senator Alan Hays to file a bill<\/a> that would have dumped all textbook review and selection responsibilities on the school districts, taking the state completely out of the process. (Note: Hays filed an anti-evolution “academic freedom” bill when he was in the House of Representatives in 2008.) His textbook bill passed but with substantial changes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A new bill, on its way to Governor Scott, would make school districts give parents the chance to object to textbooks used in schools.<\/p>\n

The Senate, on Thursday, voted 31-4 for the bill that would require districts to hold a public hearing if parents object\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut it wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get rid of an existing state review of textbooks.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

But the legislation will not eliminate state review of textbooks as originally sought by sponsors of the bill. Instead, school boards will continue to decide whether to review textbooks locally, or continue to rely on the state-approved list.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

The Florida House rejected the elimination of the state review and instead passed a bill that creates a process that lets parents object to the textbooks. It requires school districts to hold a public hearing if someone complains about the books that are being used.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, in addition to the history textbook hoopla, Lee County is also facing conflicting opinions on how much sex education should be in other textbooks under review.<\/p>\n

One objection and two responses requesting additional content were recorded for a high school health and physical education text, which was published by McGraw Hill.<\/p>\n

The sole objection came from Marian Scirrotto, who stated the book is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153inappropriate\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for presenting sexual education topics, which she believes \u00e2\u20ac\u0153should be discussed as a family.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the two other responses praise the books and pleaded for additional content to be addressed with students.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lee County is in southwest Florida, containing Fort Myers and Cape Coral.<\/p>\n

I featured Lee County for several pages in chapter 8 of Going Ape<\/em>. The County tried to implement Bible classes in 1996, resulting in a lawsuit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … 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-Bo","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1723,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1723","url_meta":{"origin":2318,"position":0},"title":"Revisionaries movie showing in Sarasota","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"October 30, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The Revisionaries, the documentary about the battles over evolution education at the Texas state board of education, will be playing at the Sarasota Film Society's 23rd Annual Cine-World Film Festival (flip to page 26 in the book). The screenings will be at noon on November 9 and at 2:00 p.m.\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1723#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1127,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1127","url_meta":{"origin":2318,"position":1},"title":"Pasco school board candidate wants alternatives","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"October 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"School board elections for a newly opening seat in Pasco County are still a way off, but some candidates are already popping up. One of them is John Tracy, president of the Faith and Family Values Republican Club of Pasco County. Take a wild guess what some of his issues\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1127#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":728,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=728","url_meta":{"origin":2318,"position":2},"title":"Textbooks changed under pressure","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 14, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida Citizens for Science was under a time crunch to get a letter out to the Brevard County school board about science textbook selections. The letter could have benefitted from another round or two of rewrites, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do to get the letter out in\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":727,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=727","url_meta":{"origin":2318,"position":3},"title":"Letter to Brevard County school board","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 13, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Joe Wolf, president of Florida Citizens for Science, sent the following letter to Brevard County school board members today in reference to yesterday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s post: Dear (name of School Board Member), It has recently come to my attention that one of your Board members, Amy Kneessy, has suggested the biology text,\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":2378,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2378","url_meta":{"origin":2318,"position":4},"title":"Time to talk about textbooks","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 23, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"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:\u00c2\u00a0Activists look to change \u00e2\u20ac\u0153buy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the book procedures Bills in the state House and Senate would change the way school districts select classroom material, increasing parental\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":"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":725,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=725","url_meta":{"origin":2318,"position":5},"title":"What was in that evolution lesson?","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"September 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Tampa Tribune, specifically Hernando Today, has a story out this morning about an evolution lesson that had apparently gone awry. The story is a bit confusing, though. The problem didn't actually involve evolution, but rather some mentions of religion. A sixth-grade student from \u00c2\u00a0Explorer K-8 in Hernando County told\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\/2318"}],"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=2318"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2321,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2318\/revisions\/2321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}