A recent debate has appeared discussing whether or not parents should have a say in the selection of instructional materials, which include library books, and textbooks. Since July of last year, Florida has been responsible for pulling more than 200 books from the shelves of middle school and high school libraries. Allowing parents to have a voice in determining this factor is clearly reasonable considering that some books accessible to students are not ideally “appropriate”.

Florida has already taken multiple books into quarantine, which had been pulled from school shelves for carrying inappropriate and or disturbing material. Leaving this state to having the third largest number of school book ban incidents.

Some of those books include, but are not limited to, The Rape of Nanking, Extremely Loud and Incredibly
Close, The Kite Runner, and The House of Spirits. Fortunately Florida’s governor has made an effort to try and censor more controversial books in school. In doing so, Desantis passed house bill 1467, providing parents with more of a say when it comes to what books will be available in school libraries. “It will force all elementary schools to provide a searchable
list of every book available in their libraries or used in instruction. School boards must let the public know when they plan to consider approving new instructional books and allow anyone to comment. Any objections to the material, by a parent or not, must be reported to the state.” stated by the Eagle News.

Luckily, parents are now being granted the accessibility to the list of available book so they can make sure the material their students are bringing into their homes are age-appropriate.

In addition, DeSantis has shown support for the Florida Education Commission as state leaders recently rejected 41% of the proposed math textbooks for the next academic year. “Math is about getting the right answer…it’s not about the problem or introducing some of these other things. There’s a right answer and there’s a wrong answer.”

Parents should have a say in the material their students are bringing home. Some kids may not be able to determine whether it is appropriate or not and that is when parents should be able to come in and have a say about what materials their children are being exposed to.