{"id":2945,"date":"2017-11-10T08:57:52","date_gmt":"2017-11-10T13:57:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=2945"},"modified":"2017-11-10T09:18:32","modified_gmt":"2017-11-10T14:18:32","slug":"marion-county-got-complaints-about-science-textbooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2945","title":{"rendered":"Marion County got complaints about science textbooks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Rather than use the traditional approach of choosing instructional materials from a list vetted and approved by the Florida Department of Education, Marion County is the first school district to forgo the list and review and select textbooks on their own. I posted that interesting news back in September<\/a>. Unfortunately, we haven’t heard much about the process or the motivations behind it since then. Why are they putting in the extra time, effort and expense to do it themselves?<\/p>\n

This seems like quite a newsworthy event and yet no media outlet has jumped on it until now\u00c2\u00a0<\/del>(edited to add: my mistake, other media outlets did report on this back in September, but none of those stores had any mention of science book complaints). The Orlando Fox News station interviewed superintendent Heidi Maier: Residents could have direct input on school textbooks<\/a>. Here’s an interesting tidbit (bold emphasis mine):<\/p>\n

“I said there has to be a way to chose our own and in statute there was, it’s called pathway A. Pathway B is using the state list, we chose to go with pathway A, so we will be able to choose our own textbooks,” said Superintendent Dr. Heidi Maier.<\/p>\n

Maier was receiving complaints about the district’s science and history books<\/strong>, along with complaints about low reading proficiency in students throughout the district. It’s a problem that teachers, we spoke to, say needs to be addressed through the text children are reading.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The reporter apparently didn’t follow up or report on what those science textbook complaints were about. I think a public records request to find that out for ourselves is in order.<\/p>\n

Marion County residents, please report in to us. Your activism is sorely needed.<\/p>\n

(Edited to add: Other media reporting\u00c2\u00a0here<\/a>, here <\/a>and here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rather than use the traditional approach of choosing instructional materials from a list vetted and approved by the Florida Department of Education, Marion County is the first school district to forgo the list and review and select textbooks on their … 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":[26],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-Lv","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2901,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2901","url_meta":{"origin":2945,"position":0},"title":"Marion County to review and approve textbooks on their own","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"September 24, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"There's a new wrinkle in the Florida instructional materials world. We already know that the Florida Department of Education is in the process of reviewing and approving new science textbooks that school districts could then pick from to purchase for their schools. We already know that two new laws could\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":3016,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3016","url_meta":{"origin":2945,"position":1},"title":"The time for action is now in Marion County","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 16, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Do you live in Marion County? If you don't, do you have friends, family or colleagues in Marion County? It's time to get work there. Marion County Public Schools recently issued this press release: MARION COUNTY \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Marion County Public Schools is the first school district in Florida to adopt\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":3224,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3224","url_meta":{"origin":2945,"position":2},"title":"Science textbook removed from adoption consideration in Marion County","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 10, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been doing my best to fill in the blanks and obtain updates on my earlier post\u00c2\u00a0March is a busy month for science textbook adoptions. In that post I listed every Florida school district and what each one's science textbook adoption schedule is. Unfortunately, there are a lot of blanks\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":2969,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2969","url_meta":{"origin":2945,"position":3},"title":"Teaching that global warming is caused by human activity is “blatant indoctrination”","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 26, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The Associated Press issued a story today about the new Instructional Materials bill approved by our Florida legislature and signed by our governor earlier this year:\u00c2\u00a0New Florida law expected to increase conflict over textbooks. Reporter Terry Spencer took on the massive task of asking every Florida school district for records\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":3348,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3348","url_meta":{"origin":2945,"position":4},"title":"Voter Guides II: “Both the strengths and weaknesses of evolution should be taught.”","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"August 12, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"A couple of conservative organizations recently released a new batch of voter guides for school board races in Indian River, Lee and Clay counties. In a previous post I highlighted voter guides for Lake, Marion and St. Lucie counties. The Indian River County voter guide, issued by the group Florida\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3348#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Your-Vote-Counts-297x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3322,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3322","url_meta":{"origin":2945,"position":5},"title":"News Roundup","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 24, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a quick roundup of recent news articles associated with current events Florida Citizens for Science has been involved in. Orlando Sentinel: Director stands up for his Christian voucher schools The director of three private Christian schools that accept state scholarships takes issue with Sentinel columnist Lauren Ritchie who\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3322#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2945"}],"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=2945"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2948,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2945\/revisions\/2948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}