Three Reasons Florida’s Academic Chaos Bill is Bad

Of course, I refer to the misnamed Academic Freedom Bill.

Yesterday I blogged rather angrily about this bill advancing. Why is it that this bill makes me angry and caused me to call certain legislators liars? I want to be brief, for once in my life.

1. The bill is deceptive.
   The entire opposition to the Florida science standards was religiously based. The one group which claims not to be religiously motivated is ID supporters, and the sponsors claim this bill is not about ID. So what exactly does the bill accomplish? Its sponsors would have us believe that it prevents persecution, but if you eliminate all these options, then what is left? Science was always permissible!
2. The bill is cowardly
   By being vague, the sponsors allow themselves to lie about the content, but they also leave teachers and school administrators to interpret. Someone well down the chain of command is going to have to put their neck in the guillotine in order to discover just what this bill means. Will it be a teacher who believes he can teach creationism, yet finds himself fired? Or will it be an administrator who fires a teacher because she reads the bill as limiting the academic freedom to science, yet ends up in court because someone disagrees but nobody knows. The legislators are trying to pass responsibility to the local level.
3. Even if it was a good bill based on its content, it is micromanagement.
   There is a Board of Education to make decisions about schools. Having decisions made by the people designated to make them ensures responsibility. This bill creates chaos in the classroom, and likely in various school boards around the state. But do the legislators care? No, they just want to pander–or appear to be pandering–to certain voters with a bill they know is no good.

That’s why this bill makes me angry and why I referred to sponsors as liars. Just because the lies are standard political lies doesn’t make them any more moral.