The Miami Herald says that districts have the final say over which textbooks are used in their classrooms. However, Governor Ron DeSantis is trying to compel all districts to adopt only the textbooks approved by the state.
Sommer Brugal writes that under current law, the districts will decide.
Despite the chatter among district leaders about the announcement, and confusion about why certain titles were omitted from the state’s approved list, however, Florida’s law remains clear: Individual school boards — not state officials — ultimately have the responsibility for selecting instructional materials. Furthermore, a district may spend up to 50% of its state funds for books that are not on the department’s list of recommended titles.
Rachel Thomas, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education, on Wednesday doubled-down on the notion: “The department does not dictate curriculum decisions,” she said in a statement. “But we hope those decisions are made by all states and districts in consultation with parents around the issues their children are actually facing.”
In other words, regardless if a book or curriculum is on or off the state’s list of approved materials, a school board still has the authority to purchase it for the district. (The list is the “initial adoption list,” according to the state education department, and has yet to be finalized.)
Earlier this month, district staff presented to the School Board the recommended textbooks, which a review committee had selected. The list included K-5 math books from publishers such as Big Ideas Learning and Savaas Learning Company, neither of which are included on the state’s approved list…
In other counties, such as Orange and Pinellas counties, the list of unapproved texts is important because they’ve already selected their new math books for the 2022-23 school year. None of the books either district picked for elementary math classes were on the state-approved list.
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article260563017.html#storylink=cpy
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Only only one publisher is now allowed for K-5 math classes in Florida. Accelerate Learning’s website says their math book for Florida was “built from the ground up to the Florida B.E.S.T. by practicing educators using the flexible 5E lesson model.”
The K-5 math books were ACTUALLY created in partnership with Houston TX Rice University. No grassroots/ground up about it
The Carlyle Group, a global investment firm, acquired Accelerate Learning on December 20, 2018. During that time, Virginia Gov. Glen Youngkin was the firm’s co-CEO. We all know what Youngkin did to public school systems the moment he took office.
DeSantis and Youngkin are in it for the money. If a math book filled with the calculations required to run a successful narco-trafficking operation stood to financially benefit the backers of these 2 thugs, well they would all gladly cash in on the curriculum.
They hide behind the smokescreen of book burning and the witch hunt torching of public schools.
Yes, textbooks are big money. So, they are a double win. With money and authoritarian control of what students will learn and think about the grand prize for future worker bees to exploit.
I thought real public school textbooks were purposefully written to cause thinking to build a literate, well rounded citizen. I was brought up to compare and contrast, research, and to make my own conclusions. If you look at the new Florida history curriculum, it tells students what to think with things to memorize and use to fill in the test blanks.
For students not going to private schools adequate seems to be the new keyword here. Our State Surgeon General used adequate as the standard for care. The implication of some Americans not being worthy of any more than adequate is sad though we as a nation accept the high child poverty rate. I bet math problems about that would also be banned.
Additionally, Florida has extra mandates that are not part of any specific class yet teachers are responsible to cover them every year. If they are not part of the curriculum, and there is no specific class where they are taught, and the textbooks or reading books don’t cover them teachers are still responsible. Some cover the very areas that the State wants to control the narrative. What stress instructors must be experiencing.
Evidently Florida is a pay to play state where businesses have to follow will of the lawmakers to not have unfavorable business conditions. I doubt that the governor allow the changes he wants to impact the taxes of voters but you can bet, he will renegotiate with Disney for his own political advantage and more than anything else to manipulate his media coverage.
Smokescreens in the land of what is supposed to be Sunshine Laws to assure transparency? Yup, it’s business as usual to skirt the laws concerning money, where it goes, and how it’s used. The money trough is deep, wide, and dark for politicians but when citizens want to propose a Constitutional Amendment, there are restrictions. If you read State laws that have to do with businesses, the machinations and extent to which lawmakers go to manage what result they want is far from what citizens are led to believe when told about out great “free” State unless it means that lawmakers are free to do as they want without restrictions if they are sneaky enough.
Here’s a warning to unsuspecting people and business wanting to move here.
It would be nice if this discussion included some discussion of the huge range of mistakes in K-12 textbooks. Almost twenty years ago, I was one of the science content review folks on middle and high school science textbook committees for my local district. There was a huge range of number of mistakes. The administrators picked the books that aligned with common core, even though they had the most mistakes and were ranked last by the district teachers on the committee.
Excellent point.
Maybe some of Florida’s school districts will have “woke” and “unwoke” classes letting the parents decide what math/history/English classes their student attends.
The one with the textbook Adolf Hitler DeSantis approved or the one the school district adopted that wasn’t on the fascist approved list.
How would Deplorable DeSantis get around that, after all it would be the parent’s choice?