Florida lawmakers are making good on their promise to ease regulations on the state’s public schools while curbing school book challenges under bills making their way to the governor's desk.
The measures cut many of the reporting requirements on public schools, giving them greater control over their budgets and making changes to the way students are promoted. It took the Senate less than three minutes to clear the regulatory bills.
The measures stopped short of eliminating some standardized testing, as bill proponents initially wanted.
Also going to DeSantis is a plan to curb schoolbook challenges which have become prolific in some school districts. That provision cleared in a separate proposal that lawmakers have approved. DeSantis told reporters in February that book challenges have gone too far, while maintaining that the concept of book banning—which his administration has been heavily criticized for—is a hoax.
"We like people wanting to be involved in what’s going on [but] to just show up and object to every single book under the sun, that is not an appropriate situation here. And we’ve seen that occasionally," said DeSantis.
The plan to curb school book challenges includes charging a fee to some people who file them. That language is in a bill backed by State Representative Jennifer Canady.
“We are working very hard to get to a place where bad actors who file frivolous claims are stopped, and yet we maintain the freedom for people to have conversations about what we ought to have in front of our children," she said on the House floor.
And while lawmakers have moved on easing red-tape on public schools, and trying to curb book bans, they’ve taken the state’s anti-woke campaign to a new place: teacher prep programs. The measure uses similar language to a controversial law that’s currently mired in the courts that bans diversity, equity and inclusion language in schools and businesses—and applies it to teacher training programs. That measure does not heave nearly the same amount of broad support—with Democrats largely opposed.
Still, lawmakers have made good on a significant number of their education priorities as the 2024 legislative session draws to a close.
