Florida Rejects Math Books With ‘References’ to Critical Race Theory

In its latest attempt to be the nation’s leader in restricting what happens in public school classrooms, Florida said it has rejected a pile of math textbooks submitted by publishers in part because they “contained prohibited subjects,” including critical race theory.

The Florida Department of Education announced on Friday that Richard Corcoran, the outgoing commissioner of education, approved an initial adoption list of instructional materials for math, but 41 percent of the submitted textbooks were rejected — most of them in elementary school.

Some were said not to be aligned with Florida’s content standards, called the Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking, or BEST. But others, the department said, were rejected for the subject matter. “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,” it said in an announcement on the department’s website.

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“It seems that some publishers attempted to slap a coat of paint on an old house built on the foundation of Common Core, and indoctrinating concepts like race essentialism, especially, bizarrely, for elementary school students,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) was quoted as saying in the announcement.

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Critics immediately attacked the rejection. State Rep. Carlos G. Smith (D) tweeted: “@EducationFL just announced they’re banning dozens of math textbooks they claim ‘indoctrinate’ students with CRT. They won’t tell us what they are or what they say b/c it’s a lie. #DeSantis has turned our classrooms into political battlefields and this is just the beginning.”

“No, this is not 1963,” state Sen. Shevrin D. “Shev” Jones (D) tweeted, “it’s 2022 in the ‘Free State of Florida.’ ”

DeSantis has been leading the charge in Florida to restrict what teachers can say and discuss in class on topics including race, racism, gender and history. {snip}

Last year, his administration set new rules banning “critical race theory,” and DeSantis is expected to soon sign into law the “Stop Woke Act” that codifies his executive order but also goes further, affecting not only what happens in schools but also the labor practices of private companies by restricting how they can promote diversity, equity and inclusion.

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