Tag: pressing

Florida approves K-12 social studies textbooks after pressing publishers to tweak content

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“To uphold our exceptional standards, we must ensure our students and teachers have the highest quality materials available — materials that focus on historical facts and are free from inaccuracies or ideological rhetoric,” Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. said in a statement Tuesday.
The textbook adoption process for social studies was expected to face intense scrutiny in Florida following the state education agency denying dozens of proposed math textbooks last year for containing “impermissible” content, including lessons on critical race theory.
Conservatives in Florida, led by DeSantis, have ramped up criticism about what students are reading and learning in school, particularly surrounding race, gender, and sexual orientation through legislation and rulemaking alike. The Republican-dominated Legislature during its 2023 session passed a bill tightening rules for local book objections by requiring schools to yank challenged works within five days of someone flagging it, a shift opponents equate to “book banning.”
The state is also engaged in a high-profile dispute with the nonprofit College Board after state education department officials rejected its African American studies AP program for initially including coursework on queer theory and intersectionality. The objections angered many Black leaders across the country, with some accusing DeSantis of stoking a cultural fight to boost his presidential aspirations, as the course remains in limbo today.
Florida as of Tuesday accepted 66 of 101 social studies books submitted by publishers for use in the state, according to the Department of Education. Even with 35 books still pending approval, this marks a major jump from last month when the state initially rejected 81 books for various reasons.
The agency on Tuesday cited several examples of publishers modifying books after the state flagged them, such as an “inaccurate description of socialism” in one middle school book that claimed the political philosophy “keeps things nice and even and without necessary waste” and “may promote greater equality among people while still providing a fully functioning government-supervised economy.” The publisher stripped that language in a change to the textbook posted by the state.
The DeSantis administration also spurred one publisher to remove a section in a middle school textbook about “New Calls for Social Justice,” which mentioned the Black Lives Matter movement and Floyd police killing in 2020. This piece of text detailed that “while many American sympathized” with Black Lives Matters, “others charged that the movement was anti-police.”
Florida determined this content broached “unsolicited topics,” yet critics pan the state’s decision to reject it.

“Look at the revisions they are celebrating & ask yourself if you trust [Florida] to write our history,” the Florida Freedom to Read Project, an organization that monitors local book challenges, wrote in a tweet.
DeSantis officials, meanwhile, credited the Florida Department of Education for pushing publishers to rethink their proposals to the state.
“The political indoctrination of children through the K-12 public education system is a very real and prolific problem in this country,” DeSantis press secretary Bryan Griffin wrote in a tweet Tuesday.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

May 10, 2023
Two House panel chairs are pressing Lloyd Austin on whether personnel records beyond the Air Force were improperly released during the last election cycle.

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The Air Force has confirmed release of the military records of seven GOP congressional candidates.

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#House #panelchairs #pressing #Lloyd #Austin #personnel #records #Air #Force #improperly #released #election #cycle
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 23, 2023
War in Ukraine ‘distracts from our country’s most pressing challenges,’ DeSantis says

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Though DeSantis acknowledged that “peace should be the objective,” he warned that sending in troops, or advanced weapons like F-16 fighter jets and long-range missiles, “would risk explicitly drawing the United States into the conflict and drawing us closer to a hot war between the world’s two largest nuclear powers.”
His remarks come as Russia prepares to launch its highly telegraphed spring offensive into Ukrainian territory. Publicly, some GOP members of Congress have become split over the issue of the United States’ continued support for Ukraine, particularly the expense of supporting Ukraine against the Russian invaders.
DeSantis’ remarks put him generally in line with former President Donald Trump on the issue, who has said that defending the country from Russia is not a vital U.S. interest, but is vital for Europe.
In his statement, DeSantis emphasized the importance of prioritizing U.S. defense, particularly at the southern border.
“We cannot prioritize intervention in an escalating foreign war over the defense of our own homeland, especially as tens of thousands of Americans are dying every year from narcotics smuggled across our open border and our weapons arsenals critical for our own security are rapidly being depleted,” he said.
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#War #Ukraine #distracts #countrys #pressing #challenges #DeSantis
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 14, 2023
Warren, Whitehouse lead Democrats in pressing Gensler for strong climate rule

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The lawmakers say investors are demanding the information — and that Wall Street’s top regulator needs to “issue a strong climate risk disclosure rule as quickly as possible.” They called the idea of preemptively curtailing the rule’s Scope 3 and financial reporting components to head off legal risks “deeply misguided.”
“The proposed rules are necessary and overdue,” they wrote to Gensler on Sunday, adding that if the SEC waters down the plans the agency “would be failing its duty to protect investors.”
Among the others who signed the letter are Sens. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Tina Smith of Minnesota and Cory Booker of New Jersey. Democratic Reps. Jerry Nadler of New York, Katie Porter of California and Chuy García of Illinois also signed on, as did Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent.
Asked for comment, an SEC spokesperson said in an email that Gensler “responds to Members of Congress directly rather than through the media.”
Now nearly a year old, the SEC’s proposal has ignited a firestorm in corporate America and among GOP lawmakers. But the Democratic concerns from Capitol Hill about the rule’s future are an early sign of the pushback that the SEC will have to face from the left if the agency elects to ease up.
The final rule will need to be approved by three of the SEC’s five commissioners, including Gensler.
Driving the proposal is the SEC’s hope of providing investors with a glimpse — through standardized data and disclosures — into how companies are tackling climate change.
The threat of litigation has hung over the SEC for months, as industry groups like the National Association of Manufacturers and several state attorneys general have warned that they may look to challenge the rule in court and on the grounds that the SEC overstepped its authority with the rule — especially in looking to include Scope 3 emissions.

Democrats see Scope 3 as pivotal to the final rule’s success.
“Not requiring Scope 3 emissions disclosures would enable [fossil fuel companies] and other companies with similar types of emissions patterns to hide the vast majority of their exposure to climate risk from regulators and investors,” the lawmakers wrote. “For many companies and sectors, a greenhouse gas inventory that omits Scope 3 would be materially misleading to investors.”
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#Warren #Whitehouse #lead #Democrats #pressing #Gensler #strong #climate #rule
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 6, 2023