Challenging Times

It is not hyperbole any longer to say that fundamental rights and the historic balances of power in the United States are eroding.  And some of them are happening right here, in our own backyard.

Whenever there is good news to share, we are always excited to share it with you. 

We also recognize when things are challenging.  And we have had some challenging weeks lately. 

It is not hyperbole any longer to say that fundamental rights and the historic balances of power in the United States are eroding.  We have seen a number of alarming moves in just the last few weeks that should make everyone pay attention.  And some of them are happening right here, in our own backyard. 

Let’s start with a broader view, first. 

The state of Louisiana has signed into law legislation that will require the Ten Commandments as they are written in the Christian Bible to be displayed in every classroom.  It has been deemed a ‘historical document’ that requires study in the same way the Bill of Rights or Mayflower Compact might be. 

Similarly, Ryan Walters, the Superintendent of Oklahoma, has issued a state mandate (no need to wait for elected officials to pass a bill) to include a copy of the Bible in every classroom and instruction on how it is “a necessary historical document to teach our kids about the history of this country, to have a complete understanding of Western civilization, to have an understanding of the basis of our legal system.”   

This is an obvious and overt violation of the First Amendment which sets forth that no religion shall be established by the government, and that no one’s right to practice shall infringe or infringe upon others’ rights to practice any belief of their choice.  And the lawmakers in Louisiana and Oklahoma have had an awfully hard time answering in interviews ‘what if the mandate was to display the five pillars of the Qur’an?’ 

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Those lawmakers maintain that the United States is a Christian nation with a Christian founding - studying the Bible is studying our country’s history.

So what are children in Oklahoma classrooms who are Muslim supposed to think when they are forced to study the displayed Ten Commandments?  How will Jewish students feel when they are handed a copy of the Bible in Oklahoma to study the influences of ancient Jewish civilizations on our rule of law?  A lot has been made lately about Judeo-Christian values—but people of Jewish faith study the Torah, Hebrew Bible, and Talmud - not The New Testament or King James Bible.

What are Jewish students supposed to think? 

You might be asking: what does this have to do with Florida?   

As we have covered recently, the state of Florida has already implemented curriculum standards that require the teachings of ancient Jewish principles as they relate to the founding of the United States.  These updates require instruction that the Bible is a foundational historical document that helped frame our Constitution.  That’s right! Religious dogma is already being taught in Florida classrooms. 

Civics 360 is a state-sanctioned educational program of cartoonish videos, somewhat like the PragerU programs we have covered here in the past.  In one particular video, they argue directly that Judeo-Christian values are a part of America’s founding.  Just as the rule change we wrote about strays from the historical, documented influences of Greek and Roman government on the U.S. founding, Civics 360 includes a lesson on religious dogma and their interpretation of the founders’ influences. 

Apart from this being highly suspect (considering the founders’ themselves specifically wanted religion kept out of government as evidenced by the First Amendment), some of the values they cite are actually not in the Constitution. 

For example: individual worth.  Civics 360 makes the case that ‘individual worth’ is the valuing of every individual life. 

Odd, considering the original Constitution codified slavery until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. 

Tough to say the founders’ were especially moved by ‘individual worth.’ 

If you are curious whether your district is teaching this particular program to your children, you can find a list of the districts' Civics Implementation Plans here. 

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Florida has been especially hard-pressed lately in defending its stance on freedom of speech and division of powers.  The Tallahassee Democrat ran an article recently regarding the state continuing to uphold its position that the books in school and public libraries are government speech, and therefore the government of the state has the right to censor them however they want. 

You read that right.  Florida’s state government believes the books in your students’ libraries are the government’s speech to limit as it sees fit, based on viewpoint. 

It’s actually even wilder.  Further on in the article, the state is quoted as arguing that the speech of college professors in Florida is also government speech, and they can, therefore, censor professorial speech in the state.  But let’s stay focused on primary and secondary education in Florida. 

Because it’s not great. 

We’ve been arguing for a while that the changes being made at the state level will eventually erode students’ educational rigor.  And we are seeing evidence of that this year in a material way. 

Did you know it is possible your student did not receive Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDs education as approved by your locally elected school board during the 23/24 school year? 

That’s because of some recent, absurd changes that have led to certain districts being so afraid to put out educational materials that may not meet the state’s approval. Rather than risk running afoul of the state, they decided not to teach these classes at all. 

Yes.  Schools in Florida are so afraid of the state government that they have deferred teaching basic, human health courses.  Let’s break it down. 

Due to changes made by HB 1069, a particular statute (1003.42) required for the first time in the 23/24 school year that all school districts obtain state approval of their Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDs curriculum before delivering it to students.  Here’s the problem.  The state did not review any materials submitted by districts until AFTER the school year ended.  That meant no district received the legally required state approval to teach the curriculum they had already invested in and approved locally with public input.

The deeper problem is that this impacted districts differently.  Smaller districts, often favored by the DeSantis government, decided either to pivot to the state’s recommended curriculum (easier to do with smaller populations) or teach the submitted curriculum anyway, assuming the state government would not enforce the statute.  And they have so far been proven right. 

Other districts, however, particularly the large ones that the DeSantis government has come down harder on, like Hillsborough and Orange (potentially Broward too, though they haven’t, as of this writing, confirmed they deferred), were too afraid.  That’s right: some of the largest districts in Florida feared that if they taught their locally approved materials without state approval, DeSantis would fire their superintendents and school boards and replace them with his own hand-picked agents. 

This is not an unfounded fear.  He’s done it in Broward for other issues around state noncompliance, and both Hillsborough and Orange have been threatened in the past.   

Fear of government retaliation is taking educational opportunities away from your students.  This year, it is reproductive health.  What will the state government decide next year can’t be taught unless politicians approve? 

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Finally, we’re coming up on another round of ‘end of year’ reporting of the books removed from schools based on the HB 1069 law.  And this is where we must remind you that whatever list the state releases will be incomplete. 

This is for several reasons.  The most startling is that the form continues to have the same poor wording we called out last year. Districts were asked if any formal objections were brought against books in their libraries between July 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024.  If the district answers ‘no,’ they did not have to fill out the rest of the form.

Except that leaves out hundreds of removals we know happened during the 23/24 school year.

For example, a district may not have received any challenges this year… but any books they have had in a ‘backlog’ of review from prior year challenges might have been removed from shelves this year.  So, that book goes unreported. This is true in districts like Marion, Brevard, and St. Johns.  The objections were filed in previous school years, but due to a lack of resources and the ever-changing guidance on the law delaying policy updates, the decisions on these objections were not finalized until the 23/24 school year. 

And the backlog is significant. 

Escambia County, due to both formal objections and an extensive internal review, at one point had 1600 books off shelves.  Given how terribly under-resourced schools are, how long do you think it will take for them to properly review all 1600 titles?  One year?  Two?  And in the meantime, how many of those books will fail to appear in reporting?

Clay County had over 460 formal objections in the reporting time frame that resulted in 225 full prohibitions and over 100 restrictions. That’s ONE district.  

Collier County removed over 315 books since the fall of 2023 entirely as a result of an internal review. None of those removals need to be reported to the state based on the way they asked their yes/no question. 

You cannot trust the list the state is going to issue.  It will not be fulsome.  It will not be complete. 

Even then, we can almost certainly be assured it is going to be startlingly long.

It has been a tough couple of weeks.  The country is going through a lot.  We are going through a lot at the local level here in Florida.  And it is very easy to get discouraged.

We cannot be. 

We need to keep pushing back against absurd, radical government overreach that wants religion taught in schools and books banned from libraries.

We have to keep going.

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