{"id":2670,"date":"2017-04-11T19:13:25","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T23:13:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=2670"},"modified":"2017-04-11T19:16:40","modified_gmt":"2017-04-11T23:16:40","slug":"were-not-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2670","title":{"rendered":"We’re not alone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"stand-up-for-science-180\"<\/a>It’s wonderful to see that we’re not alone in our fight against the bad Instructional Materials bill working its way through the Florida legislature.<\/p>\n

Several anti-censorship organizations worked together to send a letter to our state legislators<\/a>, warning them about the bill. The signers include:<\/p>\n

— Joan Bertin, Executive Director, National Coalition Against Censorship
\n— Charles Brownstein, Executive Director, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
\n— Millie Davis, Director Intellectual Freedom Center, National Council of Teachers of English
\n— Fatima Shaik, Co-Chair, Children’s and Young Adult Book Committee, PEN America
\n— Brandon Haught, Board Member, Florida Citizens for Science<\/p>\n

The letters starts:<\/p>\n

As a coalition of organizations with considerable experience defending challenged books in the public school system, we write to raise our concerns about H.B. 989: Instructional Materials for K-12 Public Education. The bill threatens to undermine the quality of education in Florida by potentially inviting and facilitating wasteful, expensive, and viewpoint-based challenges to curricular materials and by permitting local school boards to deviate from state-approved curricula in favor of subjectively defined \u00e2\u20ac\u0153equivalent\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153better\u00e2\u20ac\u009d standards. We hope you will keep our considerations in mind when reviewing this bill and urge you to vote against it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is also an online petition circulating (not started by us) that has rounded up more than 10,200 signers<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0We encourage you to participate but please don’t stop there. The petition can’t replace your direct contact with state lawmakers via phone, email, or visits.<\/p>\n

Unless there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a strong public outcry against right-wing extremists\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 latest assault on science, many Florida students could soon be learning a curriculum shaped by political and religious dogma rather than academic standards.<\/p>\n

Tell Florida legislators and Gov. Scott: Stand up for science in the classroom. Oppose S.B. 1210\/H.B. 989.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s wonderful to see that we’re not alone in our fight against the bad Instructional Materials bill working its way through the Florida legislature. Several anti-censorship organizations worked together to send a letter to our state legislators, warning them about … 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-H4","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2741,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2741","url_meta":{"origin":2670,"position":0},"title":"Nature notes one bad bill; no one notices the other","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"May 12, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The science journal Nature published an article about antiscience bills that have cropped up across America, with a special focus on our very own Sunshine State:\u00c2\u00a0Revamped 'anti-science' education bills in United States find success. The piece focuses on the instructional materials bill that pretty much sailed through the state House\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":2391,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2391","url_meta":{"origin":2670,"position":1},"title":"National Coalition Against Censorship takes an interest","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 9, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The National Coalition Against Censorship has noticed the instructional materials bills filed in the Florida legislature that we here at Florida Citizens for Science are also tracking:\u00c2\u00a0Florida Bills Threaten Science Instruction and Freedom to Read In the end, these bills seem designed to empower ideologically-driven activists to shape what is\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":2575,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2575","url_meta":{"origin":2670,"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":2402,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2402","url_meta":{"origin":2670,"position":3},"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":2760,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2760","url_meta":{"origin":2670,"position":4},"title":"Yes, there is hope","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 5, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Most of my blog posts lately have been quite the downers as I report on bad bills approved by our legislature and the fallout we're already starting to see around the state. But every now and then there are some bright spots to enjoy. The Roar is a student paper\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":2920,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2920","url_meta":{"origin":2670,"position":5},"title":"Dixie County’s “inappropriate subject matter” book ban","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"October 14, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"On the Gulf Coast of Florida, west of Gainesville, is Dixie County, which recently attracted attention from the National Coalition Against Censorship. According to the NCAC, the school district's superintendent, Mike Thomas, issued a directive \"which prohibits the school district from purchasing and\/or using 'instructional materials (textbooks, library books, classroom\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2670"}],"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=2670"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2675,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2670\/revisions\/2675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}