DeSantis Decries 'Incredibly, Incredibly Disturbing' Books In School Libraries, Pushes Education Law

 

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore/CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr

At a news conference on Friday he signed a curriculum transparency bill, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) decried some of the books found in public school libraries. Ron held this news conference in Daytona Beach in Florida

DeSantis said:

Unfortunately, we have seen some books in some of these libraries I mean you're talking about kids in middle school some of the stuff that has ended up there is incredibly disturbing stuff and again as an adult, you're free to consume what you want. 

We have the ability to choose what is appropriate for different age groups. Adults have access to what they want to have access to. But when you're talking about some of these kids particularly these young kids you know to have some of this really graphic stuff in there is not in the best interest of the families. And the students and so parents are going to have the ability to have their voice heard and it also sets curriculum standards in terms of teacher professional development, and the curriculum making sure those align with required instruction and state standards.

So, for example, you know we don't have common core we don't have critical race theory we want to make sure again we are doing education, not indoctrination and so this is going to be a really significant win for parents in the state of Florida. It will really continue to show people that, we are for our kids getting that good education but not being subject to indoctrination here's the thing this is important you have some groups that want to take away classic books like to kill a mockingbird. But they want things like genderqueer a memoir which is a cartoon-style book with graphic images of children performing sexual acts, that is wrong that has no place in the schools.

They want to eliminate mice and men but lawn boy a book containing explicit passages of pedophilia is somehow accepted as being okay. And so parents understand when they see this they understand how to blow the whistle on this. I think we just need to make sure that they are equipped to be able to do what needs to be done to defend the education of their kids.

So we are excited about this legislation. Sunlight is the best disinfectant when you're talking about it and when you see some of this stuff, and again I don't think most teachers want to do this but you know, how this curriculum comes to be. 

You know there are certain companies that do it. The school boards do certain things and so there is a whole lot of moving parts so what ends up being in that classroom or in that library we don't necessarily have the parent doesn't necessarily have control but at that point, once it's there or is going to be proposed.

You have the opportunity to review there are procedures that will be in place and if it violates state standards if it's not consistent with what we've set out under Florida law, then the parent can prevail, So I think these are well-meaning reforms and I think it's gonna help give parents a lot of confidence, that they can send their kids to school and they'll get an education but they're not necessarily going to be indoctrinated to things that are very very questionable. [After this people Applause Gov. DeSantis Speech and later journalists asked questions]

Watch Gov. DeSantis, complete interaction with the media: