{"id":2567,"date":"2017-02-23T18:13:25","date_gmt":"2017-02-23T23:13:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=2567"},"modified":"2017-02-24T17:12:10","modified_gmt":"2017-02-24T22:12:10","slug":"its-baaaaack-instructional-materials-bill-filed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2567","title":{"rendered":"It’s baaaaack: Instructional Materials bill filed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Textbooks\"<\/a>Last year, Florida Citizens for Science voiced our opposition to bills filed in the Florida legislature that would have made significant changes to how textbooks and other instructional materials are selected and reviewed at the local school district level. The good news is that the bills died. The bad news is that the bill is back for another try in the House.<\/p>\n

Rep. Byron Donalds<\/a> recently filed HB 989:\u00c2\u00a0Instructional Materials for K-12 Public Education<\/a>. It’s nearly identical to the bills filed last year. Here’s a link to last year’s House bill: HB 899<\/a>. The current bill omits one of the worst parts of last year’s bill about giving parents and taxpayers the right to take their challenges of instructional materials to court. But everything else is still there, such as this requirement: “Provide a noninflammatory, objective, and balanced viewpoint on issues.” That’s a potential back door for inserting creationism and climate change doubts into the classroom. In case anyone thinks we’re being paranoid, remember that the folks behind last year’s bill clearly believe that evolution instruction should be balanced with religion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So, everything in our press release from last year<\/a> still applies this year except for the section about Costly Court Cases.<\/p>\n

The Tampa Bay Times’ Gradebook blog<\/a> makes the following observation about Donalds:<\/p>\n

Donalds is married to Collier School Board member Erika Donalds, past president of the conservative Florida Coalition of School Board Members, a group that split from the Florida School Boards Association over school choice issues. The coalition is vocally supportive of “home rule” issues.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last year, Florida Citizens for Science voiced our opposition to bills filed in the Florida legislature that would have made significant changes to how textbooks and other instructional materials are selected and reviewed at the local school district level. The … 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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-Fp","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2570,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2570","url_meta":{"origin":2567,"position":0},"title":"When more is not merrier","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 24, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"We noted yesterday that the bad Instructional Materials bill from last year has been resurrected for another attempt this year in the Florida House. Unfortunately, the House bill now has a companion in the Senate that was filed today: SB 1210. I believe it's a duplicate of the House bill.\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":2402,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2402","url_meta":{"origin":2567,"position":1},"title":"Update on instructional materials bills","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Two companion bills have been filed in the Florida Senate and House that have a lot of potential for disrupting education in Florida schools. These instructional materials bills have more than one focus, but the one most concerning to us at Florida Citizens for Science is the back door it\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\/2016\/01\/Textbooks-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2575,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2575","url_meta":{"origin":2567,"position":2},"title":"Instructional Materials bills starting to get attention","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 3, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Two bills filed in the Florida legislature that could make significant changes to how textbooks and other instructional materials are selected and reviewed at the local school district level are getting attention from the media and other organizations. We believe that the bills (House Bill 989 and Senate Bill 1210)\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":3147,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3147","url_meta":{"origin":2567,"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":2567,"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":2985,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2985","url_meta":{"origin":2567,"position":5},"title":"Another “controversial theories” bill filed and other bad news","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 29, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"My sincere apologies, folks. I have a laundry list of bad news to tell you about. Let's get right to it. \"Controversial Theories\" bill I've already told you about Senate Bill 966, introduced by Sen. Dennis Baxley, that proposes allowing school districts to adopt their own sets of educational standards\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Religious Liberties Act 2017"","block_context":{"text":"Religious Liberties Act 2017","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=33"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567"}],"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=2567"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2568,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567\/revisions\/2568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}