Moms for Libros: how the educational disputes raging in Florida will affect young learners this school year

There’s an educational war brewing in Florida and, with the new school year around the corner, kids will be sent to the front lines. 

After becoming the first state to enact laws making it easier for parents to challenge books that they deem ‘inappropriate,’ educators in Florida have been ensnared in a battle to determine which texts are considered safe.

However, Lissette Fernandez, mother of two, has never felt that communication was lacking between her and her kid’s teachers.  

“I think it's an excuse to allow censorship.” Fernandez says, “Parents always could reach out to their schools, to their administrators, to teachers, and even to the school board, and talk to them about any concerns they may have regarding materials that they might not want their children to review.”

Nonetheless, numerous books are being pulled from the shelves, most of them including themes of race or sexuality.

Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” and Amanda Gorman’s poem read during Biden’s inauguration, “The Hill We Climb,” are some of the titles that have been banned for specific audiences.

“Robbing children of the chance to find their voices in literature is a violation of their right to free thought and free speech,” Gorman expressed, feeling “gutted” by the news. 

The “concerned parents fighting back against politically motivated censorship” at Moms for Libros share this sentiment and are determined to defend the children’s right to an unbarred education. 

The organization, which was formed as a response to Moms for Liberty, doesn’t believe in “any type of type of censorship, or taking away children's rights to learn a complete history or have a complete education,” says co-founder Lissette Fernandez. 

“I want them to have an understanding that the world is much greater than they are in this tiny little community where they'll see a lot of people that are just like them,” says Fernandez.

When coupled with the new rules implemented by the Florida State Board of Education regarding the way black history will be taught in schools, it’s apparent that a war on education is being waged and the students will be caught in the crossfire. 

These new standards include teaching students that black people benefited from slavery because it taught them useful skills and portraying them as perpetrators of violence during race massacres. 

“I think it's horrific, that we're trying to take away the true history of what happened in slavery,” Fernandez explains, “they’re trying to take away the atrocities of what happened during slavery because some people's feelings may get hurt.” 

In an impassioned speech, Vice President Kamala Harris openly condemned this new framework which will be taught in schools K-12, saying that “it is not only misleading, it is false and pushing propaganda on your children.”

Harris’s diatribe against “extremists” who’re trying to replace “history with lies,” prompted a heated response from DeSantis. 

“In Florida, we are unafraid to have an open and honest dialogue about the issues. And you clearly have no trouble ducking down to Florida on short notice,” the governor of Florida said, “So given your grave concern (which, I must assume, is sincere) about what you think our standards say, I am officially inviting you back down to Florida to discuss our African American History standards.”

Harris declined the invitation, stating that “there is no roundtable, no lecture, no invitation we will accept to debate an undeniable fact: There were no redeeming qualities of slavery."

This comes months after the state banned the AP African American history course for lacking “educational value and historical accuracy,” and being “inexplicably contrary to Florida law.” 

This is not the first time that matters of the state have proven disruptive to students’ lives. 

Earlier this year, students were met with either barren or paper-covered bookshelves after the State Board announced that laws restricting books in school-wide libraries also applied to teacher’s classroom collections.

This meant that teacher’s classroom libraries might make them vulnerable to spending up to 5 years in prison or receiving a $5,000 fine. 

Moms like Fernandez worry that this will affect their children’s relationship with teachers. 

“The tension that's going on in schools, and the harassment teachers are facing and the fear they're facing of losing their licenses, it's gonna affect not only the teachers but the relationship that the kids have with the teachers,” Fernandez expressed.

More so, she fears that it will hurt them in their academic careers. “[This tension] is going to lead to lower test scores lower, and they're not going to learn as much because they're just going to be so stressed out. That's not a good environment for them.”

She also believes that these book bans are keeping children from accessing valuable resources that might help them learn more about themselves and others.

“It's books that teach children about their bodies,” she says, “things that some parents might not be capable of explaining at home, for whatever reason, so not, not allowing children to have access to books that explain what is going on with their bodies and the changes that they're going through during those very important times.” 

Not only that but “it creates a moment of crisis in them because they don't understand what's going on. And it leaves kids susceptible to people that might not have the best intentions towards them.”

Additionally, she thinks that by taking diversity out of the bookshelves, kids will be discouraged to keep reading since “[they’re] taking materials from kids that are maybe black, that are LGBTQ that are Hispanic, where they can see themselves inside that book, and maybe have an interest in it, which, if they have that interest, they're going to want to read it. And that's going to help them learn to read better, and increase those reading scores, that we're still desperately, desperately trying to increase.”  

However, Fernandez states that this decision shouldn’t fall upon parents or politicians, but rather on librarians. 

“The media center specialists and librarians only have our kids' best interest in mind, they are experts in their field. They have studied what kids need to grow and learn and become full adults. And we need to give them the freedom to be able to educate our children and personalized materials for them to become a better person.”

She fears that political agendas have gotten in the way of her children receiving the education they’re entitled to.

“There should be no politics and education, everybody should be on the same page when it comes to educating our children and having them be exposed to as much diversity and as much education as possible. And unfortunately, there are some bad actors in play right now that claim that it's for parents' rights. But they're not, it seems that it's only certain parents that are given these rights, not all parents.”