Under the direction of Florida Citizens Alliance and our incredibly valued supporters, a science textbook review was conducted to determine whether the textbook publishing companies seeking to have their textbooks adopted by school districts adhere to Florida’s state statutes. This process was similar to what we had done last year with social studies textbooks.
Below, you will find the results of the textbook review.
The minority of the textbooks reviewed contained significant errors or should not be considered for adoption. Some social-emotional learning permeated these textbooks.
However, the biggest issue was the presentation of evolution as the only theory, leaving out the creation theory.
The other equally troubling objection is the presentation of climate change as man-made, ignoring any other justification, science, or theory that has been credibly introduced.
Our Conclusions:
- The standards and state benchmarks, which have both evolution and climate change in them, need to be updated to have the presentation of more than just one theory. The textbooks also need to reflect this as well.
- The textbooks with social-emotional learning need to be updated not to include those portions.
- Minor and moderate changes should be addressed with the publishers to ensure the best education for students in Florida.
- The state legislature must update state statutes to allow citizens to review teacher’s editions of textbooks. This step is essential to empower our community and ensure transparency in the education system, making us all active participants in shaping our children’s learning.
Methodology:
In preparation for the textbook review, our twenty-three reviewers went through an extensive training process. They read articles about Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), viewed and participated in a training session, and were taught to identify omission of facts, factual errors, slants, biased half-truths, incorrect terminology, and printing and formatting errors. In addition they used the new B.E.S.T. standards and state benchmarks to assess the textbooks they read.
