Florida is No. 1 in book censorship, No. 47 in SAT scores

Perhaps you caught the recent story about how Florida is now the national leader in school book censorship. Yes, we’re No. 1 in censorship and 47th in SAT scores . What a completely unsurprising combination.The most recent story cited a report from the state’s own education department that listed 700 censored books and a report from PEN America that found another 4,000 or so books had been pulled from school shelves, at least temporarily.Gov. Ron DeSantis’ education officials responded with predictable gaslighting, asking you to ignore the facts. “Once again, far left activists are pushing the book ban hoax on Floridians,” a spokeswoman said. “The better question is why do these activists continue to fight to expose children to sexually-explicit materials.”First of all, there is no “hoax.” The state’s own list cites hundreds of books by authors like Judy Blume, Dean Koontz and Flannery O’Connor that have been pulled from school shelves. Those are facts. You can call dog poop caviar if you want. It’s still poop.Second, let’s look at some of the other books that have made headlines for being flagged and pulled at least temporarily. They include picture books: A true-life story of two male penguins who adopted an orphan chick in a New York zoo and a silly story called “No, David!” about a naughty little boy who, at one point, streaks down the street with his cartoon bare bottom exposed.If you think those books are “sexually explicit,” you need help.The state generally responds to these censorship stories by saying: “ Florida does not ban books .” That’s their cutesy way of saying: Blame local school officials. We haven’t cited any specific books. And that last part’s true, which is a big part of the problem. The state tells districts to remove “ inappropriate ” books — and threatens teachers and librarians with losing their licenses if they don’t comply — but then refuses to say which books are OK. It’s chaos by design.Of course some books don’t belong in schools. So cite them. Think about it: If you truly had a concrete, defendable list of books that you believe are dangerous for kids to read, you’d release it. There would be no confusion. Every school in the state would know which books are allowed and which ones aren’t.But to this day, the state has refused to produce a list of the books it believes are inappropriate — or even answer questions about whether certain books are OK when asked. Why do you think that is?Lawmakers passed intentionally vague laws. And there are only two reasons you’d ever do such a thing:1) You’re too incompetent to pass clear ones.2) Your attempt is to sow confusion.I’ve met enough Florida politicians to believe No. 1 is certainly an option. But it’s pretty clear that No. 2 has been the goal all along.Tell teachers that they’ll lose their jobs if they don’t remove all the right books and then refuse to tell them what those books are. What would you do if you wanted to keep your job?At first, I didn’t appreciate that chaos and confusion was the goal. So when I learned that Lake County officials had pulled the penguin book, “And Tango Makes Three,” from its shelves because school officials feared it violated the Parental Rights in Education law, I thought: Well, this seems like a pretty easy debate to settle. We’ll just ask the Florida Department of Education whether it’s OK for schools to carry “Tango.”Silly me. I thought I was dealing with honest brokers. The state refused to answer — on three different occasions.I also asked about other books that had been pulled from some school shelves, including Toni Morrison’s “Beloved,” again wondering if teachers would get in trouble for leaving that on the shelves. Again, no response.Doesn’t that tell you everything you need to know?The state is unwilling to define its own laws — not just to me, but in clear, comprehensive guidance to districts — because, again, chaos and censorship is the goal.To anyone still left defending this nonsense, I challenge you to finish this sentence:“I believe the state is right to threaten punishment for school officials who don’t censor inappropriate books and also right not to tell those officials which books are inappropriate because …”If you can finish that sentence, the Mad Hatter would be proud. (Sorry, that’s another book reference.) If you’re not already convinced of the nuttiness at play, let me direct you to Escambia County. Where the Pensacola News-Journal reported that the list of 1,600 books flagged included “eight different encyclopedias and five dictionaries.” And where the Tallahassee Democrat reported the district was recently in court arguing that it has the same right to censor that children’s book about an orphaned penguin chick as it does to censor ‘Playboy’ or a book about bomb making.”These are not serious people. But they are doing serious damage. And the important thing to remember is that it’s all by design. Scott Maxwell is the metro columnist with the Orlando Sentinel, where this column first appeared. © Tribune News Service

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