The
Florida Independent reports that a group known as Citizens for National Security announced that they were filing suit yesterday in Florida state court to enjoin the effectiveness of Florida
S.B. 2120 which, among other things (Sec. 21), calls for two state or national experts to review instructional materials that are up for adoption each year. A third expert is to resolve disagreements between the two. The complaint (
full text) alleges that this provision conflicts with the mandate in the state constitution to provide for a high quality system of schools:
15. It is not possible for two people to review all the textbooks in Florida within a 4 month period of time and thus Senate Bill 2120 renders it impossible for the Defendants to provide high quality education to all children in Florida as required by law....
17. The present danger of fundamentalist religion is often obscured, the negative influence of fundamentalism is downplayed and the teaching of one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all times, i.e. "evolution" is often ignored, questioned or denied due to the failure of this State to properly monitor its textbooks.
18. Rather than fix the problem, Senate Bill 2120 exacerbates the problem and renders it impossible for any meaningful review of textbooks to take place, and all but assures that the education of the students of Florida will be inaccurate, biased and substandard.
19. Prior to the enactment of SB 2120, Plaintiff CFNS had nominated close to 30 highly qualified lay citizens consisting of teachers, former teachers, education professionals and well educated citizens to serve on the State Instructional Materials Committee to review the textbooks to be used by the students of Florida. With the enactment of SB 2120, none of these nominees will have an opportunity to serve in this capacity and instead only 2 or 3 so-called experts who are hand-picked by Defendant FDOE will review all textbooks used in Florida.
