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Governor signs education reform bill into law
Aaron Mesmer reports
TAMPA, Fla. - Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law Tuesday a bill that will scale back book ban laws in Florida public schools.
The new law, HB 1285, would cap the number of challenges on school materials that an individual can make per year if they don't have a student enrolled in that district.
"You have some people who are taking the curriculum transparency, and they're trying to weaponize that for political purposes. And so that involves objecting to normal books," said DeSantis, during a news conference Tuesday in Jacksonville.
Previously, there were no limits in place on who could challenge books and other educational materials or how many challenges one person could submit.
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Lawmakers have criticized parents on both sides of the political aisle for abusing the system and, at times, overwhelming districts with the number of challenges.
During the 2022-23 fiscal year, there were more than 1,200 book objections in Florida, according to state records. More than half came from two counties: Clay and Escambia.
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"This is designed, like the governor mentioned before, to allow parents to have a say, allow parents to challenge books that shouldn't be in a school," said Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz. "But anyone who creates a cottage industry of going around the state and just creating challenges just to gunk up the system and put school systems in arrears as far as reviewing these books, that person won't be able to do it anymore."
A report by the non-profit organization Pen America found that Florida leads the nation in public school book bans with 1,406 books banned in total. That's about 40% of total book bans reported in the United States.
The change in law was part of a wide-ranging education bill; the governor said HB 1285 is also aimed at simplifying the process for parents to remove children from poor-performing schools and incentivizing districts to increase the number of Purple Star schools that support military families.