Florida residents could soon get the power to alter science classes

[Exotica]

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02434-y


Policymakers in the United States are pushing to give the public more power to influence what educators teach students. Last week, Florida’s legislature started considering two related bills that, if enacted, would let residents recommend which instructional materials teachers in their school district use in their classrooms.

The bills build on a law enacted in June 2017, which enables any Florida resident to challenge the textbooks and other educational tools used in their district as being biased or inaccurate. In the five months after the state's governor approved the law, residents filed at least seven complaints, including two that challenge the teaching of evolution and human-driven climate change, according to the Associated Press.

But the bills approved this month by the education committees in the state's Senate and House of Representatives go a step further, because they would allow the public to review educational materials used in class and to suggest alternatives. “They would make it easier for creationists, climate-change deniers and — who knows — flat-Earthers to pester their local school boards about their hobbyhorses,” says Glenn Branch, deputy director of the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, California. The final decision on whether to follow the recommendations still rests with the school boards.

Roundabout route

Attempts to influence what students learn typically tend to tackle the issue head-on, with measures aimed at changing state education standards. Last year, Idaho’s legislature scrapped all references to human-driven global warming from the state’s science standards. And an Iowa bill introduced on 12 February would do something similar by removing guidelines to teach evolution and the effects of human activity on climate (see 'Targeting education').

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[Old Vet]

1. Here come the classes on Jesus-Horses...........(Dinosaurs)

[Exotica]

2. yep

[spanone]

3. America, where you're free to be as stupid as you wish.

[magicarpet]

4. Creeping Fundamentalists Christian Dominionist Theology

Betsy DeVos must be rejoicing the giant step backwards in American education.

Just burn all the science, biology, chemistry, and history books of learning - all that is needed is to teach from the buy-bull with emphasis on the Old Testaments.

[Igel]

5. And, if materials that teach Creationism are approved,

is there something in the legislation saying that progressives, secularists, or Democrats are prohibited from repeating the process?

If the current textbooks aren't creationist and slight climate change, could a parent protest that and push for an alternative that stresses climate change? Or is the language used openly biased to one side or the other?

This is the kind of legislation that has an upside and a downside for advocates of either side. However, mostly it has a downside for the school system, because get 5 families on each side and they can hit that birdie back and forth across the net for years, tying up curriculum committees.

I'm into my 8th year of teaching. I've used a textbook for maybe a total of 10 days, none of them in the last year and a half. For one course in high school we didn't even *have* textbooks. It would be interesting to see how that's handled.

As for public review and suggestions, great. Texas already allows that, to a very large extent. The state issues a list of authorized materials that it'll put money towards. Then the school districts decide which to use. Teachers don't have to use those: They can use other materials, and often do.