Florida Citizens Alliance was an early champion of allowing residents and parents in Florida to be able to review textbooks in order to make sure that the textbooks reflected current state standards and was free of objectionable material. In 2017 we successfully brought forward language and advocated for the passage of HB 989 which allowed residents in a county to be able to review and object to books being considered to be adopted. Since 2017 we have reviewed numerous textbooks across the state of Florida. In 2023 we published our executive summary on all the social studies books being considered in Florida.
Back when we got HB 989 passed and signed into law, we were able to achieve this with an exception, that Teacher’s Editions could not be reviewed. Ever since then we have worked tirelessly to remove this exception.
We believe that F.S. 1006.28 and F.S. 1006.283 both need to be updated in order to allow teacher’s editions to be reviewed by residents. This fix will be in line with the expansion of parental rights that the state has taken over in the last several years. Also many teachers editions have suggested supplemental materials that can be reviewed once this exception is removed. As for any test answers in the teacher’s editions, this can be moved to make it an appendix that is redacted or the textbook review will not have access to.
