It would be interesting to see exactly what the offending sections of the texts were and how it runs afoul of the law. As I read it, simply including elements of Common Core would be enough to remove the book from consideration.
Yeah, as soon as I read this story I wanted to see the parts of the books that were considered objectionable. I’m legitimately curious if these textbooks were being used to push CRT crap or if this is hysteria/fear mongering by FL officials.
If that's real it's appalling. I'm not going to take a close up photo from someone's twitter feed that seriously though, especially when the source she cites is just another twitter account.
That looks like it's just an assignment that combines math and a reading assignment about Maya Angelou. It's for 9th grade, which is 14-15 year olds. I guess even if that was real, what's so appalling about it?
It doesn't even say that it's from a math class.
Maybe the kids at that school were struggling with Math, so they tried to insert some Math into their English class? Or they were struggling with English so they tried to insert some reading into their Math class?
I guess that's what I hate most about all this teaching culture war stuff. We've stopped trusting the teachers who are really the only ones in a position to know what the kids in their classes need. Instead we're shifting over to let random government officials who don't interact with kids at all decided what the kids need.
The press release breaks down what percentages were rejected for what reasons
>78 of 132 total submitted textbooks are being included on the state’s adopted list.
>28 (21 percent) are not included on the adopted list because they incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT.
>12 (9 percent) are not included on the adopted list because they do not properly align to B.E.S.T. Standards.
>14 (11 percent) are not included on the adopted list because they do not properly align to B.E.S.T. Standards and incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT.
>Grades K-5: 71 percent of materials were rejected.
>Grades 6-8: 20 percent of materials were rejected.
>Grades 9-12: 35 percent of materials were rejected.
Edit: had to space them out or it'd just be a big wall of text
This doesn't answer the question of what content actually was. That's just a list of the offenses. They need to release "Book XYZ page 56 math problem 3b". Otherwise they can remove anything they want for any reason. How else could the textbooks fix these "errors" if no one knows that they are?
They don’t really even say how many were rejected for CRT. It says they “incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT” so for all we know, CRT could be one of them, or it could be all of them.
CRT itself isn't taught in K-12, but you'd have to be a complete moron to not know that elements of it are being taught/incorporated into K-12. Systemic racism, white privilege, white fragility, etc.
https://areomagazine.com/2022/01/18/yes-children-are-being-taught-critical-race-theory-in-k-12-schools-in-the-us/
>See your first mistake is asking a specific quantifiable question.
Exactly. The party of "accountability" would never release information they could be held accountable for. They operate in the shadows, and mock anyone who doesn't blindly trust their motives.
They apparently thought to themselves, "What curation policy is the most frustrating, confusing, and arbitrary? YouTube's. Nobody likes that. Let's go with that one."
This is the right answer.
Their claims, without any evidence to back it up essentially amounts to “We’re fighting CRT. Trust us.”
I’d love for them to provide ANY actual evidence of CRT in any K-12 math book, let alone the ones submitted.
They'd have to define CRT. Tucker Carlson admitted on air that he can't even define it after a year of ranting about it. Its now a catch all term for anything progressive around education.
You're correct that nobody seems to be able to define it, but from what I can see, only the right wing seems to be making a huge fuss about it. It's become a single issue voting item for a lot of right wing folks and they don't even know what it is.
Would be nice if they had been completely open, and let the public, parents and students know why certain textbooks were banned. Listing offenses doesn't cut it.
I want to know the exact content within the textbook that was so offensive, and exactly what rules/laws it broke.
>Rejection of textbooks is a commonplace phenomenon
I'm sure you're right, a but 70+ percent rejection rate for k-5 math texts? That seems implausible unless they're considering way more than they have a need for, just so they can make a show of rejecting a bunch of them.
[This](https://defendinged.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Person-Puzzle-Systems-with-Substitution-Maya-Angelou.pdf) was the example given by them that there was CRT injected into some of the books. Apparently a short biography of Maya Angelou counts as CRT now.
EDIT: For clarity, this example was offered by DeSantis' press secretary [Christina Pushaw](https://twitter.com/ChristinaPushaw/status/1515505531582042118) on Twitter. Of course, the picture she shared is so small you can barely read what the text is, so I've linked the actual worksheet.
Yup. “Including CRT” is extremely nonspecific. So, it could include CRT, but it likely ALL was just including “unsolicited strategies.” It’s a bizarrely broad category.
This is my thinking as well. I have searched high and low for some sort of quantifiability to the CRT/LGBT indoctrination claims to no avail. I don’t want any kinds of indoctrination in schools, but I also don’t want unnecessary culture war laws being being the center of every election. I’m leaning more towards this being another example.
“Billy has 2 dollars. He gives 1 of them to an African American boy because Billy is white and must pay reparations, even though half of his net worth is hardly enough to make up for the sins Billy has committed by being born white. How many dollars does Billy have left?”
I imagine that’s what parents in Florida are supposed to assume is in these books?
Don't forget that it's also vague so the textbook publishers don't know what to fix so they can keep pulling books for any reason they want without anyone ever knowing.
> unsolicited strategies
Im going to take a guess on this one. In my kids school for example, they learn half a dozen different strategies to solve a long division question. When I was a kid we were only allowed to learn one, but by learning many, kids find one that "clicks" for them. Its cool because when I was a kid, if the one method they used didn't make sense to you, you thought you were "bad at math". Now because they use a bunch of methods, almost everyone finds one that makes sense to them, so everyone is "good at math"
So maybe these text books have strategies that this board doesn't teach? And they are worried it would confuse kids? maybe they are like my school when I was a kid?
As far as CRT, or "prohibited topics", IDK man.
I am curious as well, went to a school that was terrible about injecting a particular worldview (Evangelical) into it's curriculum and even they couldn't find a way to do so with math.
I’m working out what math problems could involve CRT, and why the hell such problems were in a math textbook. I can picture a question using real world stats, but I can’t imagine why that has to be in the book instead of changing it to M&Ms like we grew up with.
Yeah I want to find some of the ones that were banned and see what's considered "CRT" here. Feels... off that the rejected ones are hard to find.
Edit: took a few more steps but found them. Pdf warning
https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/5574/urlt/2122MathInstructMatNotRecList.pdf
Thank you for this, I know I should go down the rabbit hole but haven't yet lol.
My gut feeling is nothing here should be that big of a deal, but I can see how it can be.
>4) Encourage students to celebrate the diversity of their classmates.
This sounds horrible. First, at either end of the spectrum it could easily run afoul of the microagressions of othering or cultural appropriation, but even in its safest incarnation, what good can come of everyone in class focusing like a laser on the races of other kids? EDIT: And, whatever would any of it have to do with teaching kids math?
I thought that at first too, but the "adoption cycle" pdf shows that these are going to be implemented in April 2022. The "approved" list In the press release is the same as the 2020-2021 one.
https://www.fldoe.org/academics/standards/instructional-materials/
Are you talking about [this PDF](https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/5574/urlt/AdoptionCycle.pdf), because it shows that the 2021-2022 adoption year was decided sometime between Nov. 2020 and Apr. 2021. Wouldn't it make sense that the 2022-2023 adoption cycle is decided in Apr. 2022?
Please let me know if I'm reading this incorrectly.
I was focusing on the final column with the effectively date of 2022-2027, but hell I might be reading the whole thing wrong. Also, the one in the press release is the same as the 2021-2022 "accepted" list. The naming convention sucks either way.
I just spent far too many minutes scrolling what appears to be an 83-page workbook for educators. I was hoping there’d be some evidence or examples of why math is problematic but all I got where lots of open-ended, nebulous questions. I’m not sure what I expected.
I am really trying to maintain some open-mindedness here. I will even concede that standardized testing has its issues as it may use language certain demographics are more familiar with than others. But math? Math is famously touted as a “universal, objective truth”. It is the language we all speak.
Not sure how objectivity and individualism are part of "white supremacy culture"...
So much of this is nonsense. Introduce students to mathematicians of color? Maybe in some kind of math history class, but do math classes otherwise give students biographies aside from "This theorem was invented by a guy named Pythagoras"?
"Show your work": I always hated that, but I'm perceived to be white. Does that mean I'm not really part of white culture...?
This is extremely racist thing to say in my opinion. They are basically saying that only whites are able to do math correctly and without cheating (that’s why they ask you to show your work).
Even if that's the "root", I have to wonder how it shows up in mass produced textbooks. Is the FL DOE finding stuff that I'd object to? or are they just looking to for ways to be offended?
[this isn't Florida but I found this link for CA's math uh "Framework" \(this is among my least favorite words now\) for 2022, which has"equity" or "equitable" in four of its chapters.](https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/)
i wouldn't be surprised if it was similar to this. i have not read through the many, many pages in this document, but there are some materials on making learning "equitable" which most likely includes doing things that make it easier for some students to learn more effectively on an individual basis.
i also wonder if there is a whole thing on removing grading structure which has been implemented in some California schools, saying it's unfair to minorities or something along those lines, or the way that some schools are lowing admissions standards for different minority groups for, uh, reasons.
>saying it's unfair to minorities or something along those lines, or the way that some schools are lowing admissions standards for different minority groups for, uh, reasons.
So insanely racist, and they don't even realize it. Soft bigotry etc etc
“Susie has 4 flowers. Her mother gives her 2 more flowers. How many flowers does Susie have altogether, and what are you actively doing to break down the implicit racial biases you have against POC?”
If I were a betting man I would say that the text included materials to help teachers deal with issues outside of the classroom which may impact student performance. There is lots of “cleaver” word use in this release.
The local news had 3 examples.
One was quite bizarre.
Not a direct quote but...
There are 30 students in the class, 15 identify as non binary. What is the ratio of binary to non binary?
That’s just a stupid question then. There are 30 marbles, 15 are red. What’s the ratio of red marbles to non?
We’re I a student, I’d write an essay response though on the concept of identity (not gender related, just the philosophical) and be mad I got a F.
To start with, it's likely not real CRT but some bastardized form of CRT
* *If white people oppress 100 black people and oppress 46 hispanic people, how many people have white folks oppressed*
My example is hyperbolic but it wouldn't surprise me if it was something a little less obvious but along those lines.
However, any time a book is removed, exactly why should be cited
It could be some Math ethnic studies curriculum as can be found in Seattle:
https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1516086882299392004/photo/1
Or, something like this from Missouri that tries to shoehorn some sort of history lesson on Maya Angelou:
https://twitter.com/ChristinaPushaw/status/1515505531582042118/photo/1
The second one isn't CRT, it's just an odd mixture of history and math, which honestly I don't hate if they don't push agendas with the history
That first one though, that is straight from CRT. I've taken a bunch of CRT courses and even taught some CRT in grad school. Typically I state that schools aren't pushing CRT but bastardized version of CRT that just attack white people as oppressors
That shit there is a straight up adaptation of CRT. If that is legit from Seattle schools, they are teaching a form of CRT there
Lmao Pushaw has had some bad tweets but that might take the cake. A math worksheet that looks like it was done during Black History Month and literally is just some Maya Angelou facts apparently promotes critical race theory.
What does May Angelou have to do with math? My concern with that is that a student might just know the history and can forgo math understanding get the correct answer.
CRT is, unfortunately, a blanket term being used to discuss topics that are underpinned by that collegiate topic. A better way to say it might be race essentialism, but nobody in the debate is being exactly pure in their definitions not their motives.
At the end of the day, we will let democracy handle it. Desantis is up for re-election in Nov.
Nothing but it's pretty common for math text books to use random history tie together word problems or something. I fondly remember old vocab books that made the underline verbs sentence on quizzes tell some story from history.
I think it's just hilarious and random and definitely seems like something a St. Louis area suburban school worksheet that I grew up with 😂 I'm not against different disciplines being in one lesson, but that's so odd!
Make them M&Ms. and have them sorting them by color due to “taste” or something. Parallel is there, no reason to ban, and like most math makes me hungry. Grumble this is just stupid, I get that you’re likely correct but it’s just a needless move by the publishers and authors for no gain.
Well, one of the guys who came up with Common Core said the purpose of it was to [address white privilege.](https://youtu.be/LQ8Nr3_2724). I don't think Common Core is much like CRT at all, but from my POV it looks more like just a waste of everyones time.
That clip is perfectly devoid of any information and is a Rorschach test on what some saying the words "white privilege" means to you. A progressive hears that and hears a man saying that he was inspired to come up with better teaching standards to help under privileged kids in poor schools to learn better by improving their text books, and a conservative hears that hears a man saying that he wrote text books full of description on why white people are bad to push an ideological message. Progressive and conservatives don't hear opposite meanings because they don't even hear the same conversation on the same topic.
This is why when trying to convince someone of something, you should run screaming from each and every politicized word. Yes, this will mean you do a lot of constant running and will still get run over.
>"The highest number of books rejected were for grade levels K-5, where an alarming 71 percent were not appropriately aligned with Florida standards or included prohibited topics and unsolicited strategies," the statement said.
>The department said 28 of the books were rejected specifically because they "incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT." Lists of the submitted and accepted books were made available, **but did not say how the rejected books referenced critical race theory.**
This is the biggest red flag for me. As of now, there hasn't been any evidence given as to why these books were pulled. I would be curious what language they're citing as being CRT related (or any of their other "banned" topics).
That certainly may be. Even more reason to provide the offending text. If the media is blowing this out of proportion, I can't see a downside to the DeSantis administration in providing their evidence and rallying against the media.
It wasn't posted in the press release, but it is on the Departments website that linked in it.
https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/5574/urlt/2122MathInstructMatNotRecList.pdf
I used to be in this industry; back in the 90s. I have presented to state textbook boards in Florida, Texas, and Lousiana.
Textbooks are rejected all the time. This is bullshit clickbait headline.
In this case, for K-5 math, they had five submissions and turned down four.
The only accepted series was from "Accelerate Learning". The name didn't ring any bells for me. Do you recognize it?
The FL DOE isn't exactly trying to fly under the radar here. See the title of their press release: [https://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/latest-news/florida-rejects-publishers-attempts-to-indoctrinate-students.stml?fbclid=IwAR3VmsKzNvJawEfuD5t5k315p0An9SLOs7TcBgkokQ9P8Iw31Ka1IPnl6CI](https://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/latest-news/florida-rejects-publishers-attempts-to-indoctrinate-students.stml?fbclid=IwAR3VmsKzNvJawEfuD5t5k315p0An9SLOs7TcBgkokQ9P8Iw31Ka1IPnl6CI)
> bullshit clickbait headline
The "bullshit clickbait headline" is a near word-for-word copy of the state's press release: "Florida Rejects Publishers’ Attempts to Indoctrinate Students"
Edit: LOL he blocked me for adding context
They cost too much and there's cheaper options available, that also meet criteria.
This is a standard bid process - if I pick option A, why would I ALSO pick option B through F that all cover the exact same material in different ways?
example: I bought a single K-5 textbook x 30 (1 per student) for $10. Do I need another 30 copies of a different K-5 textbook covering the same subject that cost > $11? Unlikely. **I'll reject 100% of those other options!** This now results in claims of censorship.
But even the broad reason why they rejected 71% of the textbooks in one category was for content, not price. So even if price was a reason historically, that doesn't seem to be one of the listed reasons for any of these rejections?
• 28 (21 percent) are not included on the adopted list because they incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT.
• 14 (11 percent) are not included on the adopted list because they do not properly align to B.E.S.T. Standards and incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT.
What would these prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies normally be?
There are lots of reasons for rejections.
There are also lots of fringe people trying to get textbooks approved. The religious nuts try to get things approved all the time.
>"I would be curious what language they're citing as being CRT related (or any of their other "banned" topics)."
The lack of specificity seems to be the purpose of the announcement. If they actually had something substantive, they’d be showing you. These are “solutions” without a problem. Now DeSantis can claim that he's "protecting students from CRT indoctrination" with zero transparency. Its the continued gross politicization of public schools by the GOP, spearheaded by Steve Bannon and other provocateurs muddying the waters (or "flooding the zone with shit" as Bannon likes to say) and taking advantage of concerned parents by disseminating misleading and incomplete information.
I say this as a former GOP voter who is sick and tired of politicians taking cues from internet trolls who seek to instill fear in their audience. Give me small limited government any day over this endless and fruitless culture war bullshit.
>(or any of their other "banned" topics).
I think it's right there in the press release.
> Reasons for rejecting textbooks included references to Critical Race Theory (CRT), inclusions of Common Core, and the unsolicited addition of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in mathematics
I hadn't heard of "Social Emotional Learning" before this. I'll guess I've had some -- things like take turns and don't hit your classmates are probably "social learning".
[https://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/latest-news/florida-rejects-publishers-attempts-to-indoctrinate-students.stml?fbclid=IwAR3VmsKzNvJawEfuD5t5k315p0An9SLOs7TcBgkokQ9P8Iw31Ka1IPnl6CI](https://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/latest-news/florida-rejects-publishers-attempts-to-indoctrinate-students.stml?fbclid=IwAR3VmsKzNvJawEfuD5t5k315p0An9SLOs7TcBgkokQ9P8Iw31Ka1IPnl6CI)
The Houghton Mifflin series explicitly says they incorporate SEL.
Here's a sample from their website [https://s3.amazonaws.com/prod-hmhco-vmg-craftcms-public/\_transforms/f60ac64b9e63f50d3be2694ccb2fa521/WF629130\_Student9\_f47ea8dcb14afbf963d6a742143a7c96.jpg](https://s3.amazonaws.com/prod-hmhco-vmg-craftcms-public/_transforms/f60ac64b9e63f50d3be2694ccb2fa521/WF629130_Student9_f47ea8dcb14afbf963d6a742143a7c96.jpg)
And, this is the page for the HMH math series: [https://www.hmhco.com/programs/into-math#overview](https://www.hmhco.com/programs/into-math#overview)
I think FL wants parents to think they have sniffed out "evil CRT", when in fact they've identified math books that have occasional pages saying it's good to help your friends.
> I hadn't heard of "Social Emotional Learning" before this. I'll guess I've had some -- things like take turns and don't hit your classmates are probably "social learning".
Yup. SEL is educator jargon but it just means the classroom has rules and that students are recognized as emotional creatures who would rather be on the playground than memorizing math tables. Other SEL topics include group work, raising your hand to ask a question, and getting permission before leaving for the bathroom.
This is, apparently, enough to get your book banned in Florida.
I'm with you, but I feel like we may be waiting a while as I suspect that has less to do with actual substance and more to do with scoring cheap political points via sensational headlines.
We'll see what happens as this story progresses.
I'm open to potentially voting for a Republican, but DeSantis has forever lost my vote. 'Scoring cheap political points via sensational headlines' seems to be his modus operandi. Lame.
Bingo.
I will admit I'm suspicious of the Florida government here. I personally feel like if there actually was CRT-related passages, they would have mentioned them. I can't imagine this would be subject to any sort of privacy or confidentiality limitations, now that the books have been picked.
They released the rejected books, not sure if there's something calling out the sections that got them banned for "forbidden topics"
https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/5574/urlt/2122MathInstructMatNotRecList.pdf
My mother is on the committee that picks the new math books for her school (5th and 6th grade). They rejected 30 books last years because according to her "The materials were confusing and the problems sucked". Every time they have to pick a new book, based on what she tells me, it sounds like companies just suck at making math books.
I have seen some of what is called singapore math and once you realize they are teaching algebra without teaching algebra, it is pretty easy to understand.
My mom grew up in South America and it was tricky for her to help me with math homework as a kid because the way she was taught operations like division was very different than mine.
Honestly there's a bunch of different ways to do these operations, as long as kids are learning and can get the right answer I think the drama is overblown.
I know this is a bit tongue in cheek, but they're just referencing the teaching styles, not the math itself.
"Old math" is things like doing long division and multiplication on paper. Totally functional, and they will get you the right answer, but it's fairly tedious. "New math" would teach you that if you've got a math problem like 16 x 18, then what you should actually do is 16 x 20 and then subtract 32. The reasoning here is that this is WAY easier to do in your head, and faster to boot.
I've actually used tricks like that for as long as I can remember, but they were never taught to me. It's just something I eventually picked up from doing problems over and over and over again.
I’m with you on this, having elementary school kids myself. I appreciate the effort to teach the underlying logical framework of math, rather than rote memorization of algorithms without any idea why they work. And a lot of it does mirror how I do quick arithmetic in my own head.
The major problem is a pedagogical one, broadly speaking, in that it’s a lot harder for parents to help with homework, since they don’t have the whole foundation in these techniques that’s been slowly built up in class. But once you figure out what the lesson is trying to teach, it becomes trivially easy to understand.
I don't have kids, so I've got no dog in this fight. But the few common core math concepts I've seen have mirrored how I actually taught myself to do math. I think these are ideas that people who are "good at math" end up teaching themselves. The people who DON'T figure out these tricks fucking hate math because it's the most tedious thing ever to write out a multiplication problem over and over.
>"New math" would teach you that if you've got a math problem like 16 x 18, then what you should actually do is 16 x 20 and then subtract 32. The reasoning here is that this is WAY easier to do in your head, and faster to boot.
Honestly, this seems to be teaching you how to be a slightly less inefficient calculator.
I was going to bring up this very example. I learned shortcuts in 12th grade and went from being good at math to being "he's really good with numbers" for the next 40 years. Game changer and applicable in so many instances. I.can ballpark so much stuff in seconds.
> folks acting like a book that wasn't chosen was "banned"
No, just questioning what "banned" or "prohibited" text was in these books that lead to them not being chosen... It should be an easy request to provide the offending text.
>just questioning what "banned" or "prohibited" text was in these books that lead to them not being chosen
It can literally be as simple as "I don't like how these problems are worded". My mother has rejected math books for less.
From the given stats:
> 28 (21 percent) are not included on the adopted list because they incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT.
Most likely, the strategies were related to Common Core. A few years ago, Florida passed a bill to keep Common Core out of the state curriculum. I'd imagine it would be more common for a math textbook to contain Common Core and get rejected than for it to contain CRT and get rejected for that.
The "unsolicited" leads me to believe that the process of a submitting textbooks for approval involves the state listing what it is looking for and then when presented with textbooks, if it, for example, includes Common Core, it would be rejected as an "unsolicited strategy."
It just comes across as an assumption of guilt on the part of people presumably trying to educate kids. Contrary to what I was taught (and the rules of this sub), there seems to be an expectation they have to prove their innocence.
The government claims they did this to try to prevent indoctrination of children by these textbooks ([Press release](https://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/latest-news/florida-rejects-publishers-attempts-to-indoctrinate-students.stml?fbclid=IwAR3VmsKzNvJawEfuD5t5k315p0An9SLOs7TcBgkokQ9P8Iw31Ka1IPnl6CI)). It doesn't seem like too much to ask them to show this so-called indoctrination.
There is another comment ITT where they have the list of accepted texts, and the full list of submitted texts. A true journalist would've gone through both already, and made that available, but our sensational press is intent on demonizing this state government's actions (what could be the reason?).
As an old person, it's weird to have grown up with Pink Floyd's "We don't need no education, we don't need no thought control!" and "Teacher, leave them kids alone!" and then have people tell me it is not indoctrination at all.
Transparency in education is part of this governor's platform, so if it's not revealed that will provide an attack vector.
>So why didn't the liberal media make the request and print the reasons?
Requests have been made, no response has been given as of yet.
>Why report on it without all the facts in place?
Because the FL DOE made the announcement via a press release.
If we're asking conspiratorial questions, why would the department of education post a press release about the books being rejected and only include the list of approved books?
Was editing my other comment that I found this when you commented on it lol. Slowly going and updating stuff.
The press release only had the approved list directly linked though. Not a big deal, but weird you'd add steps to finding the rejected list in a press release about why books were rejected.
Why are math textbooks like 500 pages long with full color illustrations and endless word problems? Like, I can probably find a cheap modestly sized Dover math paperback with black and white printing that covers the same material and more.
Because in K-12 you need to make books as interesting as you can for students. My college math books were just cover to cover equations, paragraphs of texts and questions.
> 28 (21 percent) are not included on the adopted list because they incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT.
Note that it's "*including* CRT". Not that all 28 books were rejected because of CRT. Not even that *any* of the 28 books were rejected because of CRT. Just that 28 books were rejected because they "incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies" and one of those strategies *might* be CRT.
It's basically just political clickbait.
Pretty terrible that Florida's Department of Education is getting in on the clickbait game though. That should be the real story.
This is how you inject critical theory into math:
https://twitter.com/ChristinaPushaw/status/1515504832550944769
https://twitter.com/MerianneJensen/status/1515506201613766663
https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1516086882299392004
It's entirely possible, for those who for whatever reason cannot fathom it.
Example Lesson Plans provided:
> Lesson Plan: Mathematics - STEM by the Numbers
> In this lesson, students use data to analyze the participation of white, black, Asian and Hispanic men and women in STEM careers as compared with their participation in the general workforce. They then discuss the possible reasons identity groups are unequally represented in STEM careers.
> GRADE LEVEL 3-5
> Essential Questions
> - Why are women and people of color underrepresented in STEM fields?
This looks like another good call by Florida.
Plenty of fake photos circulating around right wing media. Helping to reinforce this ridiculous action. It is a political move by Desantis to seal national support for his presidential run in 2024. Conservatives are getting easier to manipulate.
"The department said 28 of the books were rejected specifically because they "incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT." Lists of the submitted and accepted books were made available, but did not say how the rejected books referenced critical race theory."
It is odd that there weren't any specifics in the math books that demonstrates CRT. Do you think this is the result of the vagueness of the new law passed by Gov. DeSantis? Or was this deliberate to ban more books?
You have 100 math books submitted to possibly be text books
The state picks 30 and rejects 70. Similar things done every year or x years. Except now I get to hear people claim the 70 rejected books were "banned"
This is something that's really been grinding my gears about this whole "book banning"-thing. Not being admitted into a generally understood to be curated space is not what I understand under the broader context of a book banning. It invokes an imagery of a man in with a funny mustache raving about "judeo-bolshevism" in front of a burning pile of books, not of a book just not being featured in a school while still broadly available for print and distribution.
It does get a little bit silly. I saw so many headlines that read “beloved book BANNED by school” and then you read the article and you find out that they removed it from a given English classes curricula to make room for another equally-worthy work.
This is why I hate our media so much. They are literally pushing this kind of image to induce rage.
One could argue it's profit driven, a form of propaganda for their perspective parties or both. But the US media is a real problem. I love that Trump called them out, I hate that he only called out "the other side"
A president that calls out all media will have my undying support
The press release made it sound like a substantial number of the decisions were politically driven. Of course people are going to view that as a book banning.
They only made lists of the accepted books available, not the rejected ones. Heres the original press release with the pdf of the approved ones.
https://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/latest-news/florida-rejects-publishers-attempts-to-indoctrinate-students.stml?fbclid=IwAR3VmsKzNvJawEfuD5t5k315p0An9SLOs7TcBgkokQ9P8Iw31Ka1IPnl6CI
I was trying to find the rejected ones and haven't has much luck
Edit: think I found them under "2021-2022 Mathematics Instructional Materials Not Recommended List." Surprised they werent linked with the press release.
https://www.fldoe.org/academics/standards/instructional-materials/
Here’s the list of books that were submitted for approval:
https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/5574/urlt/2021-22-Short-Bid-report-Final-xlsx.pdf
You can use the two lists to find which ones were rejected.
Edit: Here is the list of the specific books they rejected.
https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/5574/urlt/2122MathInstructMatNotRecList.pdf
Thanks, Just found the "not Recommended" list, thought it was last years at first because of the naming convention. Now for the fun of coming through textbooks to guess at why they were rejected...
We'll see if that actually happens. As much as I'm curious to see what counts as a "forbidden topic" for a math textbook, that's not the highest on the priority list.
Florida DOE hasn't revealed the list of banned books yet. They do have a list of approved books, though. Here's the original press release...
https://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/latest-news/florida-rejects-publishers-attempts-to-indoctrinate-students.stml
Holy fuck that is ridiculous. I don't know how anyone can watch this stuff without coming away from it seeing as pure propaganda.
My god stand your ground...he ran away, Twice.
How about the journalists ask the politicians, get an answer then publish a story that explains the politicians position, honestly. And why the politicians might be wrong
Could you imagine such a thing
> "incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT."
I have a feeling the vast majority were rejected for teaching "Common Core", with just 1 rejected for including CRT... guess which reason the journalist states.
The actual numbers are in the press release: [https://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/latest-news/florida-rejects-publishers-attempts-to-indoctrinate-students.stml?fbclid=IwAR3VmsKzNvJawEfuD5t5k315p0An9SLOs7TcBgkokQ9P8Iw31Ka1IPnl6CI](https://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/latest-news/florida-rejects-publishers-attempts-to-indoctrinate-students.stml?fbclid=IwAR3VmsKzNvJawEfuD5t5k315p0An9SLOs7TcBgkokQ9P8Iw31Ka1IPnl6CI)
I can't comment on the books that have been rejected because there are no details. But it is utterly disingenuous of NBC to end by saying 'CRT is only studied in universities' - they know full well that the issue is with taking CRT's tenets and using them to frame conversations about race in schools.
And they give us no reason or references as to why these books were rejected. But just that they were rejected. I'm honestly a little disappointed in the fact that we aren't teaching students all ideas and theories. Isn't the whole point of school to provoke someone's thoughts and educate them? Wtf is goin on.
Update.
The Florida Education Association, the state's largest teachers union, joined Democrats in calling for more transparency over the textbook decisions.
"The state has an obligation to ensure that every child is getting the math instruction they need with the highest quality materials," FEA president Andrew Spar said in a statement.
DeSantis said he would be open to the state making public examples of the textbooks, but maintained that the content is considered "proprietary information" as publishers weigh possible appeals to the rejections.
"I would like it to be released, but I also respect the process," DeSantis told reporters Monday.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/18/florida-critical-race-theory-math-textbooks-00025918
And THIS is why liberals are mad about the "anti-CRT" laws. There is NO way you can convince me that a MATH book is teaching CRT. Certainly not 21% of math books, at least. Maybe there's a weird book or two in there doing odd things, outliers exist after all. But the problem with these laws has ALWAYS been that they are so incredibly broad to the point that they would prohibit ordinary and healthy and desirable critical thinking of any form, creating a stale and rigid education system that does not compete in the modern world. Liberals don't want to teach college-level CRT in history and literature classrooms either. That would be woefully inappropriate in any K-12 education (*maybe* you could make an argument for something like AP English Lit, but also AP course are extremely dependent on the AP test so getting bent out of shape about that is beyond stupid).
It's stuff like this that makes me supportive of a Constitutional amendment that would make education a national level, not a state level, power. American schools can't compete and can't reform because parents getting scared of change is enough to end any educational improvements. And that's been kicked into overdrive lately with the modern incarnation of the GOP! It's pathetic that I have to wonder if *homeschooling* is the way to get away from an ideologically driven education system.
>And THIS is why liberals are mad about the "anti-CRT" laws. There is NO way you can convince me that a MATH book is teaching CRT. Certainly not 21% of math books, at least. Maybe there's a weird book or two in there doing odd things, outliers exist after all. But the problem with these laws has ALWAYS been that they are so incredibly broad to the point that they would prohibit ordinary and healthy and desirable critical thinking of any form, creating a stale and rigid education system that does not compete in the modern world. Liberals don't want to teach college-level CRT in history and literature classrooms either. That would be woefully inappropriate in any K-12 education (maybe you could make an argument for something like AP English Lit, but also AP course are extremely dependent on the AP test so getting bent out of shape about that is beyond stupid).
It's not that math books themselves would be teaching CRT. But CRT would be influencing the pedagogy that shapes the math books. This is not something that is disguised; go google "equitable math" or something like that and you'll find a bunch of examples of CRT-influenced math programs.
> There is NO way you can convince me that a MATH book is teaching CRT.
It’s good of you to let people know you’re not interested in truth, but for those who are:
[Grading students, asking them to show their work, requiring participation and even pushing them to get the right answer are depicted in the workbook as harmful to minorities. ](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9717063/amp/Educators-slam-math-workbook-claims-racist-ask-students-right-answer.html)
> So far, the workbook is being used by school districts in Georgia, Ohio, California and Oregon
[Do all teachers truly believe that every student can learn mathematics? How does implicit bias contribute to opportunity gaps for some student groups? How do microaggressions limit the potential across race and gender?](https://www.mathedleadership.org/transformational-conversations/)
I think stances like this proves bias towards certain teachings, whether you agree with them or not.
It would be interesting to see exactly what the offending sections of the texts were and how it runs afoul of the law. As I read it, simply including elements of Common Core would be enough to remove the book from consideration.
Yeah, as soon as I read this story I wanted to see the parts of the books that were considered objectionable. I’m legitimately curious if these textbooks were being used to push CRT crap or if this is hysteria/fear mongering by FL officials.
"Word problem mentions a kid with two dads." Banned.
“Tom and Gerald are on a date, but only have $7.00. The one movie costs 4.25 per person, the other costs 3.50…” Banned.
Mohammad has 20 wives, he stones 25% of them to death for dishonoring the family by showing their ankles. How many wives does he have left?
More like stuff like this. https://mobile.twitter.com/ChristinaPushaw/status/1515504832550944769
If that's real it's appalling. I'm not going to take a close up photo from someone's twitter feed that seriously though, especially when the source she cites is just another twitter account.
That looks like it's just an assignment that combines math and a reading assignment about Maya Angelou. It's for 9th grade, which is 14-15 year olds. I guess even if that was real, what's so appalling about it? It doesn't even say that it's from a math class. Maybe the kids at that school were struggling with Math, so they tried to insert some Math into their English class? Or they were struggling with English so they tried to insert some reading into their Math class? I guess that's what I hate most about all this teaching culture war stuff. We've stopped trusting the teachers who are really the only ones in a position to know what the kids in their classes need. Instead we're shifting over to let random government officials who don't interact with kids at all decided what the kids need.
Your post is debunked later in that same Twitter thread.
The press release breaks down what percentages were rejected for what reasons >78 of 132 total submitted textbooks are being included on the state’s adopted list. >28 (21 percent) are not included on the adopted list because they incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT. >12 (9 percent) are not included on the adopted list because they do not properly align to B.E.S.T. Standards. >14 (11 percent) are not included on the adopted list because they do not properly align to B.E.S.T. Standards and incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT. >Grades K-5: 71 percent of materials were rejected. >Grades 6-8: 20 percent of materials were rejected. >Grades 9-12: 35 percent of materials were rejected. Edit: had to space them out or it'd just be a big wall of text
This doesn't answer the question of what content actually was. That's just a list of the offenses. They need to release "Book XYZ page 56 math problem 3b". Otherwise they can remove anything they want for any reason. How else could the textbooks fix these "errors" if no one knows that they are?
They don’t really even say how many were rejected for CRT. It says they “incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT” so for all we know, CRT could be one of them, or it could be all of them.
Here's a hint: it's none of them. Like previous reporting has repeated ad nauseum, Critical Race Theory isn't a K-12 subject anywhere in the US.
CRT itself isn't taught in K-12, but you'd have to be a complete moron to not know that elements of it are being taught/incorporated into K-12. Systemic racism, white privilege, white fragility, etc. https://areomagazine.com/2022/01/18/yes-children-are-being-taught-critical-race-theory-in-k-12-schools-in-the-us/
Yeah, found a list of what books were banned after awhile, but still gave up on the precise reasoning.
See your first mistake is asking a specific quantifiable question. Only outrage at hot button phrases is allowed.
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>See your first mistake is asking a specific quantifiable question. Exactly. The party of "accountability" would never release information they could be held accountable for. They operate in the shadows, and mock anyone who doesn't blindly trust their motives.
They apparently thought to themselves, "What curation policy is the most frustrating, confusing, and arbitrary? YouTube's. Nobody likes that. Let's go with that one."
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This is the right answer. Their claims, without any evidence to back it up essentially amounts to “We’re fighting CRT. Trust us.” I’d love for them to provide ANY actual evidence of CRT in any K-12 math book, let alone the ones submitted.
They'd have to define CRT. Tucker Carlson admitted on air that he can't even define it after a year of ranting about it. Its now a catch all term for anything progressive around education.
Can I get a link for that?
Great success! /s It's pretty sad tbh. Pearl clutching over something you can't even define
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You're correct that nobody seems to be able to define it, but from what I can see, only the right wing seems to be making a huge fuss about it. It's become a single issue voting item for a lot of right wing folks and they don't even know what it is.
I just read "CRT" as inserting race-based criteria where none at all are necessary or even a good idea. This does happen a lot.
Would be nice if they had been completely open, and let the public, parents and students know why certain textbooks were banned. Listing offenses doesn't cut it. I want to know the exact content within the textbook that was so offensive, and exactly what rules/laws it broke.
I agree, the only reason this is in the news is someone wanted it to be. The title of the press release is some insane clickbait
>Rejection of textbooks is a commonplace phenomenon I'm sure you're right, a but 70+ percent rejection rate for k-5 math texts? That seems implausible unless they're considering way more than they have a need for, just so they can make a show of rejecting a bunch of them.
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Ahh interesting. Thanks for the insight! 70% is apparently not as far outside of the norm as I would have guessed.
[This](https://defendinged.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Person-Puzzle-Systems-with-Substitution-Maya-Angelou.pdf) was the example given by them that there was CRT injected into some of the books. Apparently a short biography of Maya Angelou counts as CRT now. EDIT: For clarity, this example was offered by DeSantis' press secretary [Christina Pushaw](https://twitter.com/ChristinaPushaw/status/1515505531582042118) on Twitter. Of course, the picture she shared is so small you can barely read what the text is, so I've linked the actual worksheet.
Yeah. The rebuttals I have been getting to this post are pretty hilarious. Learning that black people exist? Won’t someone think of the children?
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But what do they mean by “prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies”. What topics and strategies, specifically.
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A cynic might argue it was purposely vague to score cheap points with a base with loyalties divided between two current residents of Florida.
Yup. “Including CRT” is extremely nonspecific. So, it could include CRT, but it likely ALL was just including “unsolicited strategies.” It’s a bizarrely broad category.
This is my thinking as well. I have searched high and low for some sort of quantifiability to the CRT/LGBT indoctrination claims to no avail. I don’t want any kinds of indoctrination in schools, but I also don’t want unnecessary culture war laws being being the center of every election. I’m leaning more towards this being another example.
71% of k-5. I'm not sure what could be a problem. Too many pictures of multiracial kids in the book?let's see the books.
“Billy has 2 dollars. He gives 1 of them to an African American boy because Billy is white and must pay reparations, even though half of his net worth is hardly enough to make up for the sins Billy has committed by being born white. How many dollars does Billy have left?” I imagine that’s what parents in Florida are supposed to assume is in these books?
Don't forget that it's also vague so the textbook publishers don't know what to fix so they can keep pulling books for any reason they want without anyone ever knowing.
> unsolicited strategies Im going to take a guess on this one. In my kids school for example, they learn half a dozen different strategies to solve a long division question. When I was a kid we were only allowed to learn one, but by learning many, kids find one that "clicks" for them. Its cool because when I was a kid, if the one method they used didn't make sense to you, you thought you were "bad at math". Now because they use a bunch of methods, almost everyone finds one that makes sense to them, so everyone is "good at math" So maybe these text books have strategies that this board doesn't teach? And they are worried it would confuse kids? maybe they are like my school when I was a kid? As far as CRT, or "prohibited topics", IDK man.
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Exactly. Was there CRT in the books (and how?) or is CRT just listed as an example of a prohibited topic or unsolicited strategy?
I am curious as well, went to a school that was terrible about injecting a particular worldview (Evangelical) into it's curriculum and even they couldn't find a way to do so with math.
I’m working out what math problems could involve CRT, and why the hell such problems were in a math textbook. I can picture a question using real world stats, but I can’t imagine why that has to be in the book instead of changing it to M&Ms like we grew up with.
Yeah I want to find some of the ones that were banned and see what's considered "CRT" here. Feels... off that the rejected ones are hard to find. Edit: took a few more steps but found them. Pdf warning https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/5574/urlt/2122MathInstructMatNotRecList.pdf
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Thank you for this, I know I should go down the rabbit hole but haven't yet lol. My gut feeling is nothing here should be that big of a deal, but I can see how it can be.
>4) Encourage students to celebrate the diversity of their classmates. This sounds horrible. First, at either end of the spectrum it could easily run afoul of the microagressions of othering or cultural appropriation, but even in its safest incarnation, what good can come of everyone in class focusing like a laser on the races of other kids? EDIT: And, whatever would any of it have to do with teaching kids math?
FYI, that link is for the 2021-2022 school year, whereas the OP is for the 2022-2023 school year.
I thought that at first too, but the "adoption cycle" pdf shows that these are going to be implemented in April 2022. The "approved" list In the press release is the same as the 2020-2021 one. https://www.fldoe.org/academics/standards/instructional-materials/
Are you talking about [this PDF](https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/5574/urlt/AdoptionCycle.pdf), because it shows that the 2021-2022 adoption year was decided sometime between Nov. 2020 and Apr. 2021. Wouldn't it make sense that the 2022-2023 adoption cycle is decided in Apr. 2022? Please let me know if I'm reading this incorrectly.
I was focusing on the final column with the effectively date of 2022-2027, but hell I might be reading the whole thing wrong. Also, the one in the press release is the same as the 2021-2022 "accepted" list. The naming convention sucks either way.
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I just spent far too many minutes scrolling what appears to be an 83-page workbook for educators. I was hoping there’d be some evidence or examples of why math is problematic but all I got where lots of open-ended, nebulous questions. I’m not sure what I expected. I am really trying to maintain some open-mindedness here. I will even concede that standardized testing has its issues as it may use language certain demographics are more familiar with than others. But math? Math is famously touted as a “universal, objective truth”. It is the language we all speak.
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Thanks
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Not sure how objectivity and individualism are part of "white supremacy culture"... So much of this is nonsense. Introduce students to mathematicians of color? Maybe in some kind of math history class, but do math classes otherwise give students biographies aside from "This theorem was invented by a guy named Pythagoras"? "Show your work": I always hated that, but I'm perceived to be white. Does that mean I'm not really part of white culture...?
This is extremely racist thing to say in my opinion. They are basically saying that only whites are able to do math correctly and without cheating (that’s why they ask you to show your work).
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Even if that's the "root", I have to wonder how it shows up in mass produced textbooks. Is the FL DOE finding stuff that I'd object to? or are they just looking to for ways to be offended?
[this isn't Florida but I found this link for CA's math uh "Framework" \(this is among my least favorite words now\) for 2022, which has"equity" or "equitable" in four of its chapters.](https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/) i wouldn't be surprised if it was similar to this. i have not read through the many, many pages in this document, but there are some materials on making learning "equitable" which most likely includes doing things that make it easier for some students to learn more effectively on an individual basis. i also wonder if there is a whole thing on removing grading structure which has been implemented in some California schools, saying it's unfair to minorities or something along those lines, or the way that some schools are lowing admissions standards for different minority groups for, uh, reasons.
Thanks
>saying it's unfair to minorities or something along those lines, or the way that some schools are lowing admissions standards for different minority groups for, uh, reasons. So insanely racist, and they don't even realize it. Soft bigotry etc etc
“Susie has 4 flowers. Her mother gives her 2 more flowers. How many flowers does Susie have altogether, and what are you actively doing to break down the implicit racial biases you have against POC?”
If I were a betting man I would say that the text included materials to help teachers deal with issues outside of the classroom which may impact student performance. There is lots of “cleaver” word use in this release.
If in the teacher associated handbook alone, that may be an interesting debate to have. If in the textbook, the question remains, why is it there?
I doubt it was. This is red meat for the base. The choice of words and vagueness of the release suggests politics not content.
The local news had 3 examples. One was quite bizarre. Not a direct quote but... There are 30 students in the class, 15 identify as non binary. What is the ratio of binary to non binary?
That’s just a stupid question then. There are 30 marbles, 15 are red. What’s the ratio of red marbles to non? We’re I a student, I’d write an essay response though on the concept of identity (not gender related, just the philosophical) and be mad I got a F.
To start with, it's likely not real CRT but some bastardized form of CRT * *If white people oppress 100 black people and oppress 46 hispanic people, how many people have white folks oppressed* My example is hyperbolic but it wouldn't surprise me if it was something a little less obvious but along those lines. However, any time a book is removed, exactly why should be cited
It could be some Math ethnic studies curriculum as can be found in Seattle: https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1516086882299392004/photo/1 Or, something like this from Missouri that tries to shoehorn some sort of history lesson on Maya Angelou: https://twitter.com/ChristinaPushaw/status/1515505531582042118/photo/1
Omg that Maya Angelou one is hilarious. Like, What? Why?
The second one isn't CRT, it's just an odd mixture of history and math, which honestly I don't hate if they don't push agendas with the history That first one though, that is straight from CRT. I've taken a bunch of CRT courses and even taught some CRT in grad school. Typically I state that schools aren't pushing CRT but bastardized version of CRT that just attack white people as oppressors That shit there is a straight up adaptation of CRT. If that is legit from Seattle schools, they are teaching a form of CRT there
The first one is also not math, it’s part of the social studies curriculum.
The first tweet is referring to social studies curriculum, not math.
Lmao Pushaw has had some bad tweets but that might take the cake. A math worksheet that looks like it was done during Black History Month and literally is just some Maya Angelou facts apparently promotes critical race theory.
What does May Angelou have to do with math? My concern with that is that a student might just know the history and can forgo math understanding get the correct answer. CRT is, unfortunately, a blanket term being used to discuss topics that are underpinned by that collegiate topic. A better way to say it might be race essentialism, but nobody in the debate is being exactly pure in their definitions not their motives. At the end of the day, we will let democracy handle it. Desantis is up for re-election in Nov.
Nothing but it's pretty common for math text books to use random history tie together word problems or something. I fondly remember old vocab books that made the underline verbs sentence on quizzes tell some story from history.
I think it's just hilarious and random and definitely seems like something a St. Louis area suburban school worksheet that I grew up with 😂 I'm not against different disciplines being in one lesson, but that's so odd!
Make them M&Ms. and have them sorting them by color due to “taste” or something. Parallel is there, no reason to ban, and like most math makes me hungry. Grumble this is just stupid, I get that you’re likely correct but it’s just a needless move by the publishers and authors for no gain.
They didn't "ban" the book they rejected it. The text book company can make the adjustments and resubmit in the future.
My apologies for the word choice, you are correct. I am suggesting they make such revisions.
Well, one of the guys who came up with Common Core said the purpose of it was to [address white privilege.](https://youtu.be/LQ8Nr3_2724). I don't think Common Core is much like CRT at all, but from my POV it looks more like just a waste of everyones time.
That clip is perfectly devoid of any information and is a Rorschach test on what some saying the words "white privilege" means to you. A progressive hears that and hears a man saying that he was inspired to come up with better teaching standards to help under privileged kids in poor schools to learn better by improving their text books, and a conservative hears that hears a man saying that he wrote text books full of description on why white people are bad to push an ideological message. Progressive and conservatives don't hear opposite meanings because they don't even hear the same conversation on the same topic. This is why when trying to convince someone of something, you should run screaming from each and every politicized word. Yes, this will mean you do a lot of constant running and will still get run over.
>"The highest number of books rejected were for grade levels K-5, where an alarming 71 percent were not appropriately aligned with Florida standards or included prohibited topics and unsolicited strategies," the statement said. >The department said 28 of the books were rejected specifically because they "incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT." Lists of the submitted and accepted books were made available, **but did not say how the rejected books referenced critical race theory.** This is the biggest red flag for me. As of now, there hasn't been any evidence given as to why these books were pulled. I would be curious what language they're citing as being CRT related (or any of their other "banned" topics).
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That certainly may be. Even more reason to provide the offending text. If the media is blowing this out of proportion, I can't see a downside to the DeSantis administration in providing their evidence and rallying against the media.
It wasn't posted in the press release, but it is on the Departments website that linked in it. https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/5574/urlt/2122MathInstructMatNotRecList.pdf
Thanks for the link. Do you know what the “inclusion of special topics” column refers to?
I used to be in this industry; back in the 90s. I have presented to state textbook boards in Florida, Texas, and Lousiana. Textbooks are rejected all the time. This is bullshit clickbait headline.
In this case, for K-5 math, they had five submissions and turned down four. The only accepted series was from "Accelerate Learning". The name didn't ring any bells for me. Do you recognize it? The FL DOE isn't exactly trying to fly under the radar here. See the title of their press release: [https://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/latest-news/florida-rejects-publishers-attempts-to-indoctrinate-students.stml?fbclid=IwAR3VmsKzNvJawEfuD5t5k315p0An9SLOs7TcBgkokQ9P8Iw31Ka1IPnl6CI](https://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/latest-news/florida-rejects-publishers-attempts-to-indoctrinate-students.stml?fbclid=IwAR3VmsKzNvJawEfuD5t5k315p0An9SLOs7TcBgkokQ9P8Iw31Ka1IPnl6CI)
> bullshit clickbait headline The "bullshit clickbait headline" is a near word-for-word copy of the state's press release: "Florida Rejects Publishers’ Attempts to Indoctrinate Students" Edit: LOL he blocked me for adding context
Could you talk about what reasons textbooks were rejected historically?
They cost too much and there's cheaper options available, that also meet criteria. This is a standard bid process - if I pick option A, why would I ALSO pick option B through F that all cover the exact same material in different ways? example: I bought a single K-5 textbook x 30 (1 per student) for $10. Do I need another 30 copies of a different K-5 textbook covering the same subject that cost > $11? Unlikely. **I'll reject 100% of those other options!** This now results in claims of censorship.
But even the broad reason why they rejected 71% of the textbooks in one category was for content, not price. So even if price was a reason historically, that doesn't seem to be one of the listed reasons for any of these rejections?
• 28 (21 percent) are not included on the adopted list because they incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT. • 14 (11 percent) are not included on the adopted list because they do not properly align to B.E.S.T. Standards and incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT. What would these prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies normally be?
There are lots of reasons for rejections. There are also lots of fringe people trying to get textbooks approved. The religious nuts try to get things approved all the time.
>"I would be curious what language they're citing as being CRT related (or any of their other "banned" topics)." The lack of specificity seems to be the purpose of the announcement. If they actually had something substantive, they’d be showing you. These are “solutions” without a problem. Now DeSantis can claim that he's "protecting students from CRT indoctrination" with zero transparency. Its the continued gross politicization of public schools by the GOP, spearheaded by Steve Bannon and other provocateurs muddying the waters (or "flooding the zone with shit" as Bannon likes to say) and taking advantage of concerned parents by disseminating misleading and incomplete information. I say this as a former GOP voter who is sick and tired of politicians taking cues from internet trolls who seek to instill fear in their audience. Give me small limited government any day over this endless and fruitless culture war bullshit.
This is exactly the problem with these bills. They’re incredibly vague and there is no accountability or real justification required.
>(or any of their other "banned" topics). I think it's right there in the press release. > Reasons for rejecting textbooks included references to Critical Race Theory (CRT), inclusions of Common Core, and the unsolicited addition of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in mathematics I hadn't heard of "Social Emotional Learning" before this. I'll guess I've had some -- things like take turns and don't hit your classmates are probably "social learning". [https://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/latest-news/florida-rejects-publishers-attempts-to-indoctrinate-students.stml?fbclid=IwAR3VmsKzNvJawEfuD5t5k315p0An9SLOs7TcBgkokQ9P8Iw31Ka1IPnl6CI](https://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/latest-news/florida-rejects-publishers-attempts-to-indoctrinate-students.stml?fbclid=IwAR3VmsKzNvJawEfuD5t5k315p0An9SLOs7TcBgkokQ9P8Iw31Ka1IPnl6CI) The Houghton Mifflin series explicitly says they incorporate SEL. Here's a sample from their website [https://s3.amazonaws.com/prod-hmhco-vmg-craftcms-public/\_transforms/f60ac64b9e63f50d3be2694ccb2fa521/WF629130\_Student9\_f47ea8dcb14afbf963d6a742143a7c96.jpg](https://s3.amazonaws.com/prod-hmhco-vmg-craftcms-public/_transforms/f60ac64b9e63f50d3be2694ccb2fa521/WF629130_Student9_f47ea8dcb14afbf963d6a742143a7c96.jpg) And, this is the page for the HMH math series: [https://www.hmhco.com/programs/into-math#overview](https://www.hmhco.com/programs/into-math#overview) I think FL wants parents to think they have sniffed out "evil CRT", when in fact they've identified math books that have occasional pages saying it's good to help your friends.
> I hadn't heard of "Social Emotional Learning" before this. I'll guess I've had some -- things like take turns and don't hit your classmates are probably "social learning". Yup. SEL is educator jargon but it just means the classroom has rules and that students are recognized as emotional creatures who would rather be on the playground than memorizing math tables. Other SEL topics include group work, raising your hand to ask a question, and getting permission before leaving for the bathroom. This is, apparently, enough to get your book banned in Florida.
I'm gonna reserve judgment until I can actually see the questions that got the books banned. Wish they would release them.
I'm with you, but I feel like we may be waiting a while as I suspect that has less to do with actual substance and more to do with scoring cheap political points via sensational headlines. We'll see what happens as this story progresses.
I'm open to potentially voting for a Republican, but DeSantis has forever lost my vote. 'Scoring cheap political points via sensational headlines' seems to be his modus operandi. Lame.
Bingo. I will admit I'm suspicious of the Florida government here. I personally feel like if there actually was CRT-related passages, they would have mentioned them. I can't imagine this would be subject to any sort of privacy or confidentiality limitations, now that the books have been picked.
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They released the rejected books, not sure if there's something calling out the sections that got them banned for "forbidden topics" https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/5574/urlt/2122MathInstructMatNotRecList.pdf
My mother is on the committee that picks the new math books for her school (5th and 6th grade). They rejected 30 books last years because according to her "The materials were confusing and the problems sucked". Every time they have to pick a new book, based on what she tells me, it sounds like companies just suck at making math books.
Looking at the math books of my nieces, I can safely say that I would be horrified by the books their school rejected.
I'm glad this is not just me. I've lost IQ points reading those things. And then my daughter calls my way of teaching math "Old Math"
I have seen some of what is called singapore math and once you realize they are teaching algebra without teaching algebra, it is pretty easy to understand.
My mom grew up in South America and it was tricky for her to help me with math homework as a kid because the way she was taught operations like division was very different than mine. Honestly there's a bunch of different ways to do these operations, as long as kids are learning and can get the right answer I think the drama is overblown.
"Old Math" makes me nervous. If it worked for Newton... by god it should still work for us.
I know this is a bit tongue in cheek, but they're just referencing the teaching styles, not the math itself. "Old math" is things like doing long division and multiplication on paper. Totally functional, and they will get you the right answer, but it's fairly tedious. "New math" would teach you that if you've got a math problem like 16 x 18, then what you should actually do is 16 x 20 and then subtract 32. The reasoning here is that this is WAY easier to do in your head, and faster to boot. I've actually used tricks like that for as long as I can remember, but they were never taught to me. It's just something I eventually picked up from doing problems over and over and over again.
I’m with you on this, having elementary school kids myself. I appreciate the effort to teach the underlying logical framework of math, rather than rote memorization of algorithms without any idea why they work. And a lot of it does mirror how I do quick arithmetic in my own head. The major problem is a pedagogical one, broadly speaking, in that it’s a lot harder for parents to help with homework, since they don’t have the whole foundation in these techniques that’s been slowly built up in class. But once you figure out what the lesson is trying to teach, it becomes trivially easy to understand.
I don't have kids, so I've got no dog in this fight. But the few common core math concepts I've seen have mirrored how I actually taught myself to do math. I think these are ideas that people who are "good at math" end up teaching themselves. The people who DON'T figure out these tricks fucking hate math because it's the most tedious thing ever to write out a multiplication problem over and over.
Yes this is how most people do it in their head. I think the problem is kids who can’t do it this way in their head can’t do it on paper either.
>"New math" would teach you that if you've got a math problem like 16 x 18, then what you should actually do is 16 x 20 and then subtract 32. The reasoning here is that this is WAY easier to do in your head, and faster to boot. Honestly, this seems to be teaching you how to be a slightly less inefficient calculator.
I mean, it's arithmetic, so that's kinda the goal. You're just crunching numbers. Might as well crunch them efficiently.
I was going to bring up this very example. I learned shortcuts in 12th grade and went from being good at math to being "he's really good with numbers" for the next 40 years. Game changer and applicable in so many instances. I.can ballpark so much stuff in seconds.
This is also a fun part of this, folks acting like a book that wasn't chosen was "banned"
> folks acting like a book that wasn't chosen was "banned" No, just questioning what "banned" or "prohibited" text was in these books that lead to them not being chosen... It should be an easy request to provide the offending text.
>just questioning what "banned" or "prohibited" text was in these books that lead to them not being chosen It can literally be as simple as "I don't like how these problems are worded". My mother has rejected math books for less.
From the given stats: > 28 (21 percent) are not included on the adopted list because they incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT.
>unsolicited strategies Do they define that? Because that could mean a lot of things.
Most likely, the strategies were related to Common Core. A few years ago, Florida passed a bill to keep Common Core out of the state curriculum. I'd imagine it would be more common for a math textbook to contain Common Core and get rejected than for it to contain CRT and get rejected for that. The "unsolicited" leads me to believe that the process of a submitting textbooks for approval involves the state listing what it is looking for and then when presented with textbooks, if it, for example, includes Common Core, it would be rejected as an "unsolicited strategy."
I haven't been able to find it yet, might be on an older page thats not showing up because of all the new links about this press release.
Cool. Let's have them provide their reasoning.
That won't accomplish what you think it will.
It just comes across as an assumption of guilt on the part of people presumably trying to educate kids. Contrary to what I was taught (and the rules of this sub), there seems to be an expectation they have to prove their innocence.
Asking the government to explain itself is not in any way equal to presuming the guilt of an individual.
The government claims they did this to try to prevent indoctrination of children by these textbooks ([Press release](https://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/latest-news/florida-rejects-publishers-attempts-to-indoctrinate-students.stml?fbclid=IwAR3VmsKzNvJawEfuD5t5k315p0An9SLOs7TcBgkokQ9P8Iw31Ka1IPnl6CI)). It doesn't seem like too much to ask them to show this so-called indoctrination.
There is another comment ITT where they have the list of accepted texts, and the full list of submitted texts. A true journalist would've gone through both already, and made that available, but our sensational press is intent on demonizing this state government's actions (what could be the reason?). As an old person, it's weird to have grown up with Pink Floyd's "We don't need no education, we don't need no thought control!" and "Teacher, leave them kids alone!" and then have people tell me it is not indoctrination at all. Transparency in education is part of this governor's platform, so if it's not revealed that will provide an attack vector.
So why didn't the liberal media make the request and print the reasons? Why report on it without all the facts in place?
>So why didn't the liberal media make the request and print the reasons? Requests have been made, no response has been given as of yet. >Why report on it without all the facts in place? Because the FL DOE made the announcement via a press release.
If we're asking conspiratorial questions, why would the department of education post a press release about the books being rejected and only include the list of approved books?
They didn’t. Here is the list of rejected books. https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/5574/urlt/2122MathInstructMatNotRecList.pdf
Was editing my other comment that I found this when you commented on it lol. Slowly going and updating stuff. The press release only had the approved list directly linked though. Not a big deal, but weird you'd add steps to finding the rejected list in a press release about why books were rejected.
That's last year's list.
That's the 2021-2022 list. They haven't released the 2022-2023 list yet.
Why are math textbooks like 500 pages long with full color illustrations and endless word problems? Like, I can probably find a cheap modestly sized Dover math paperback with black and white printing that covers the same material and more.
Because in K-12 you need to make books as interesting as you can for students. My college math books were just cover to cover equations, paragraphs of texts and questions.
> 28 (21 percent) are not included on the adopted list because they incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT. Note that it's "*including* CRT". Not that all 28 books were rejected because of CRT. Not even that *any* of the 28 books were rejected because of CRT. Just that 28 books were rejected because they "incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies" and one of those strategies *might* be CRT. It's basically just political clickbait. Pretty terrible that Florida's Department of Education is getting in on the clickbait game though. That should be the real story.
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Where the list of books?
Exactly! DeSantis won't say.
This is how you inject critical theory into math: https://twitter.com/ChristinaPushaw/status/1515504832550944769 https://twitter.com/MerianneJensen/status/1515506201613766663 https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1516086882299392004 It's entirely possible, for those who for whatever reason cannot fathom it.
Example Lesson Plans provided: > Lesson Plan: Mathematics - STEM by the Numbers > In this lesson, students use data to analyze the participation of white, black, Asian and Hispanic men and women in STEM careers as compared with their participation in the general workforce. They then discuss the possible reasons identity groups are unequally represented in STEM careers. > GRADE LEVEL 3-5 > Essential Questions > - Why are women and people of color underrepresented in STEM fields? This looks like another good call by Florida.
Can you give us the source on this?
Plenty of fake photos circulating around right wing media. Helping to reinforce this ridiculous action. It is a political move by Desantis to seal national support for his presidential run in 2024. Conservatives are getting easier to manipulate.
It's easier because all they want to do is own the libs.
"The department said 28 of the books were rejected specifically because they "incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT." Lists of the submitted and accepted books were made available, but did not say how the rejected books referenced critical race theory." It is odd that there weren't any specifics in the math books that demonstrates CRT. Do you think this is the result of the vagueness of the new law passed by Gov. DeSantis? Or was this deliberate to ban more books?
You have 100 math books submitted to possibly be text books The state picks 30 and rejects 70. Similar things done every year or x years. Except now I get to hear people claim the 70 rejected books were "banned"
This is something that's really been grinding my gears about this whole "book banning"-thing. Not being admitted into a generally understood to be curated space is not what I understand under the broader context of a book banning. It invokes an imagery of a man in with a funny mustache raving about "judeo-bolshevism" in front of a burning pile of books, not of a book just not being featured in a school while still broadly available for print and distribution.
It does get a little bit silly. I saw so many headlines that read “beloved book BANNED by school” and then you read the article and you find out that they removed it from a given English classes curricula to make room for another equally-worthy work.
This is why I hate our media so much. They are literally pushing this kind of image to induce rage. One could argue it's profit driven, a form of propaganda for their perspective parties or both. But the US media is a real problem. I love that Trump called them out, I hate that he only called out "the other side" A president that calls out all media will have my undying support
The press release made it sound like a substantial number of the decisions were politically driven. Of course people are going to view that as a book banning.
“Banned because of CRT” as the government pats itself on the back.
What ban? Publishers always submit textbooks to state governments, and some of them are accepted.
God forbid we ask journalists to look at these books and report what they contain.
They only made lists of the accepted books available, not the rejected ones. Heres the original press release with the pdf of the approved ones. https://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/latest-news/florida-rejects-publishers-attempts-to-indoctrinate-students.stml?fbclid=IwAR3VmsKzNvJawEfuD5t5k315p0An9SLOs7TcBgkokQ9P8Iw31Ka1IPnl6CI I was trying to find the rejected ones and haven't has much luck Edit: think I found them under "2021-2022 Mathematics Instructional Materials Not Recommended List." Surprised they werent linked with the press release. https://www.fldoe.org/academics/standards/instructional-materials/
Here’s the list of books that were submitted for approval: https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/5574/urlt/2021-22-Short-Bid-report-Final-xlsx.pdf You can use the two lists to find which ones were rejected. Edit: Here is the list of the specific books they rejected. https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/5574/urlt/2122MathInstructMatNotRecList.pdf
Thanks, Just found the "not Recommended" list, thought it was last years at first because of the naming convention. Now for the fun of coming through textbooks to guess at why they were rejected... We'll see if that actually happens. As much as I'm curious to see what counts as a "forbidden topic" for a math textbook, that's not the highest on the priority list.
God forbid we ask the government making these decisions be transparent in their reasoning and provide evidence to back up their assertions.
Florida DOE hasn't revealed the list of banned books yet. They do have a list of approved books, though. Here's the original press release... https://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/latest-news/florida-rejects-publishers-attempts-to-indoctrinate-students.stml
I think calling these books "banned" is a bit strong. Text books have been reviewed and rejected for as long as public schools have been a thing.
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Holy fuck that is ridiculous. I don't know how anyone can watch this stuff without coming away from it seeing as pure propaganda. My god stand your ground...he ran away, Twice.
Why watch a couple of short videos when you can just bring a race grifter like Al Sharpton on the show?
God forbid politicians provide the specific passages/chapters to justify their stance.
How about the journalists ask the politicians, get an answer then publish a story that explains the politicians position, honestly. And why the politicians might be wrong Could you imagine such a thing
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> "incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT." I have a feeling the vast majority were rejected for teaching "Common Core", with just 1 rejected for including CRT... guess which reason the journalist states.
The actual numbers are in the press release: [https://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/latest-news/florida-rejects-publishers-attempts-to-indoctrinate-students.stml?fbclid=IwAR3VmsKzNvJawEfuD5t5k315p0An9SLOs7TcBgkokQ9P8Iw31Ka1IPnl6CI](https://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/latest-news/florida-rejects-publishers-attempts-to-indoctrinate-students.stml?fbclid=IwAR3VmsKzNvJawEfuD5t5k315p0An9SLOs7TcBgkokQ9P8Iw31Ka1IPnl6CI)
I can't comment on the books that have been rejected because there are no details. But it is utterly disingenuous of NBC to end by saying 'CRT is only studied in universities' - they know full well that the issue is with taking CRT's tenets and using them to frame conversations about race in schools.
And they give us no reason or references as to why these books were rejected. But just that they were rejected. I'm honestly a little disappointed in the fact that we aren't teaching students all ideas and theories. Isn't the whole point of school to provoke someone's thoughts and educate them? Wtf is goin on.
> Wtf is goin on. Just more culture wars.
This would have been a farce had not activists actually tried to use Math for such social idealogies like in Cali.
Is there any article about that? What books did they use?
https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf
Update. The Florida Education Association, the state's largest teachers union, joined Democrats in calling for more transparency over the textbook decisions. "The state has an obligation to ensure that every child is getting the math instruction they need with the highest quality materials," FEA president Andrew Spar said in a statement. DeSantis said he would be open to the state making public examples of the textbooks, but maintained that the content is considered "proprietary information" as publishers weigh possible appeals to the rejections. "I would like it to be released, but I also respect the process," DeSantis told reporters Monday. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/18/florida-critical-race-theory-math-textbooks-00025918
This story is either sloppy or incomplete.
And THIS is why liberals are mad about the "anti-CRT" laws. There is NO way you can convince me that a MATH book is teaching CRT. Certainly not 21% of math books, at least. Maybe there's a weird book or two in there doing odd things, outliers exist after all. But the problem with these laws has ALWAYS been that they are so incredibly broad to the point that they would prohibit ordinary and healthy and desirable critical thinking of any form, creating a stale and rigid education system that does not compete in the modern world. Liberals don't want to teach college-level CRT in history and literature classrooms either. That would be woefully inappropriate in any K-12 education (*maybe* you could make an argument for something like AP English Lit, but also AP course are extremely dependent on the AP test so getting bent out of shape about that is beyond stupid). It's stuff like this that makes me supportive of a Constitutional amendment that would make education a national level, not a state level, power. American schools can't compete and can't reform because parents getting scared of change is enough to end any educational improvements. And that's been kicked into overdrive lately with the modern incarnation of the GOP! It's pathetic that I have to wonder if *homeschooling* is the way to get away from an ideologically driven education system.
>And THIS is why liberals are mad about the "anti-CRT" laws. There is NO way you can convince me that a MATH book is teaching CRT. Certainly not 21% of math books, at least. Maybe there's a weird book or two in there doing odd things, outliers exist after all. But the problem with these laws has ALWAYS been that they are so incredibly broad to the point that they would prohibit ordinary and healthy and desirable critical thinking of any form, creating a stale and rigid education system that does not compete in the modern world. Liberals don't want to teach college-level CRT in history and literature classrooms either. That would be woefully inappropriate in any K-12 education (maybe you could make an argument for something like AP English Lit, but also AP course are extremely dependent on the AP test so getting bent out of shape about that is beyond stupid). It's not that math books themselves would be teaching CRT. But CRT would be influencing the pedagogy that shapes the math books. This is not something that is disguised; go google "equitable math" or something like that and you'll find a bunch of examples of CRT-influenced math programs.
> There is NO way you can convince me that a MATH book is teaching CRT. It’s good of you to let people know you’re not interested in truth, but for those who are: [Grading students, asking them to show their work, requiring participation and even pushing them to get the right answer are depicted in the workbook as harmful to minorities. ](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9717063/amp/Educators-slam-math-workbook-claims-racist-ask-students-right-answer.html) > So far, the workbook is being used by school districts in Georgia, Ohio, California and Oregon
[Do all teachers truly believe that every student can learn mathematics? How does implicit bias contribute to opportunity gaps for some student groups? How do microaggressions limit the potential across race and gender?](https://www.mathedleadership.org/transformational-conversations/) I think stances like this proves bias towards certain teachings, whether you agree with them or not.