Update: After this story originally ran, the Florida education department issued several screenshots of 鈥減roblematic examples鈥� in the textbooks. 鈥淭hese examples do not represent an exhaustive list of input鈥� received by the agency, it said. We have updated the story accordingly.
In an unusual move, the Florida education department and other instructional materials for purportedly including principles of social-emotional learning, aspects of the earlier Common Core State Standards, or the tenets of 鈥渃ritical race theory.鈥� But state officials have yet to specify what precisely they found lacking in the books.
Here鈥檚 what we know so far about this decision and what it could mean for districts at large.
Why now? Is there historical context for this decision?
Under Gov. Ron DeSantis, the state has become notably more heavy-handed on what students should learn.
In 2019, DeSantis signed an executive order to do away with the Common Core State Standards, the shared reading and math expectations used in dozens of states, and to replace them with new state-written expectations. That same year, he signed a bill requiring an overhaul of the state鈥檚 middle school civics course.
The civics-course revisions, unveiled in 2021, requiring students to 鈥渆xplain the advantages of a federal system of government over other systems,鈥� for example. Also that year, Florida joined 14 other states in passing a regulation restricting how race and racism are taught in schools.
The recent math situation could be a sign of things to come. In 2023, the state will conduct an adoption process for social studies, a field that has been thrown into disarray by the debates about critical race theory and whether issues around race should be taught in the classroom.
(Critical race theory is an academic concept that investigates how racism can be embedded in policy. It is not a curriculum, but politicians, parents, and pundits have said its tenets can be woven into lessons.)
Wait, wait: What is textbook adoption, anyway?
Not all states conduct a state-level adoption, but Florida is (That鈥檚 according to the last analysis, which dates from 2013.)
The adoption process generally consists of reviewers looking at the usability of the materials and gauging their 鈥渁lignment鈥� with the state content standards鈥攂roader lists of expectations for what students should know and be able to do at each grade level.
To an extent, the process is always subjective; what one person considers 鈥渁ligned,鈥� another may not.
What states do with this information differs. A few decades ago, more states restricted districts鈥� purchases made with state funds to materials the state had stamped with its seal of approval. But in the past few years, states have gradually devolved more responsibility to local districts.
Louisiana, for example, now puts materials into three tiers and has created incentives for districts to select from the top tier. But it doesn鈥檛 require that they do so.
Current Florida law, in general, specifies that districts must use . They can go off-list for the other half.
In practice, districts don鈥檛 always have the capacity to run their own analyses of alignments, so the state-level reviews are still quite influential.
What rationale has the Florida education department given for rejecting so many math books this year?
So far, not much of one.
When putting out its bid specifications last year, the state included 鈥渟pecial considerations鈥� for publishers. It specified that their materials must not include vestiges of the common core, social-emotional learning principles or culturally responsive teaching.
It says the rejected materials failed to meet those special considerations, going so far as to cast the rejected materials as 鈥渋ndoctrination.鈥�
But the agency has steadfastly refused to provide examples of what it objected to. It鈥檚 not even clear whether the problem the state had with these materials had mainly to do with common core, SEL, or critical race theory. Education Week, alongside other news outlets, has pressed for more detail.
DeSantis later said in a press conference that the sample materials from the publishers are 鈥減roprietary.鈥� Yet other states that conduct large-scale adoption processes have given out details of what they felt was lacking in publishers鈥� submissions鈥攅ven when they haven鈥檛 made the actual materials public.
California, for example, puts out detailed documents that list down to the page number errors or pieces of lessons that reviewers felt did not align to its curriculum specifications. (See, for example, .)
Louisiana鈥檚 review process also releases or lacking in each textbook.
The Florida education department did not respond to a query about why it has refused to release reviewers鈥� notes or scoring sheets. It is not even clear who the reviewers were鈥攖he state uses only three for each set of materials, according to the state鈥檚 adoption rules. (District officials and teachers only provide feedback on those materials that the state reviewers approve.)
At least two publishers whose elementary materials were rejected, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Savvas Learning Company, told Education Week that they hadn鈥檛 been given a full accounting of why their submissions had been rejected. A McGraw-Hill spokesperson also said the company was seeking 鈥渄etailed feedback from the department.鈥�
The New York Times 鈥攂ut it鈥檚 not clear if those were included in what that publisher submitted for the Florida bid. Curriculum companies often tailor their core series to meet states鈥� particular specifications.
Florida allows publishers to appeal and make changes to their materials, so this initial rejection is probably not the end of the story, either.
UPDATE: In response to mass inquiries about the textbook rejections, Florida officials released four examples from the materials it deemed problematic. One of them explicitly refers to social-emotional learning, which the agency said it did not want to see in materials. One of them says only that students should 鈥渂uild proficiency with social awareness as they practice empathizing with classmates,鈥� a prompt that apparently also violated the state鈥檚 prohibitions on SEL content.
The other two screenshots deal with a mathematics example that draws on data from the Implicit Association Test 鈥攁 social-science tool that purportedly measures subjects鈥� implicit bias. 69传媒 are apparently to use math knowledge to add polynomial equations and analyze the underlying mathematical models in this test鈥攖hough the lesson goal is not entirely clear because the lesson prompt is truncated in the picture. In introducing this activity, the textbook says: 鈥淲hat? Me? Racist? More than 2 million people have tested their racial prejudice using an online version of the Implicit Association Test.鈥�
The department has not specifically said what is objectionable in this lesson. While it mentions racism, what鈥檚 posted does not appear to do any of the things in the state鈥檚 new law about critical race theory, such as promote the ideas that 鈥渁n individual should feel guilt or anguish because of their race or sex,鈥� that people are inherently racist or sexist because of their race or sex, or that 鈥渞acial colorblindness鈥� is a bad thing.
But were these rejected materials otherwise good?
Many of the rejected books, especially those at the elementary level, got above a 4 on a 5-point scale for alignment, so they were otherwise decent, according to
Some secondary books that did not have 鈥減rohibited content鈥� got lower alignment scores and were apparently rejected for that reason.
Does Florida鈥檚 decision mean districts won鈥檛 be able to purchase the other math materials?
Probably not. Districts likely will still have some flexibility to select other materials.
Though districts must use , they can Those materials must still align to the state鈥檚 content standards and other rules, however.
This appears to mean districts could still choose math materials that include some SEL components. It鈥檚 harder to say about race-related issues, given that critical race theory has evolved into a subjective term and the state education department hasn鈥檛 been clear about what, specifically, it considers CRT.
But there are still some unclear points here. Quite a few districts had already purchased materials before the review was complete鈥攑rocurement timelines aren鈥檛 on the same schedule as these reviews鈥攁nd now it鈥檚 not clear what will happen. That鈥檚 the case in Pinellas and Orange counties, the Associated Press reported, and in Collier County, Fla., which adopted some materials now excluded from the state list, at its March 29 board meeting.
Collier County 鈥渋s waiting for additional information from the [Florida education department] regarding instructional materials that have been added to the state鈥檚 adoption list, as a result of publisher appeals and revisions,鈥� it said in a statement.
While districts have more flexibilities than they did a few decades ago, Florida has also given parents and laypeople more tools to challenge parts of any curriculum. A 2017 law, for example, allows them to contest materials that aren鈥檛 鈥渁ccurate, objective, or balanced鈥� via quasi-judicial hearings.
How could critical race theory be integrated into a math course, anyway?
The CRT debate has mostly impacted social studies classes鈥擴.S. History, civics, current events鈥攁s well as literature classes.
So how did math get thrown into this? It鈥檚 not entirely clear.
For a long time, the math field has been cleaved into different pedagogical camps鈥攅ducators who favor a traditional, procedural-and-algorithmic approach, and those who favor more application, problem-solving, and exploratory teaching. Increasingly, both sides have claimed the mantle of social justice鈥攖hat their approach is what will help close large opportunity gaps in math scores between low-income and wealthier students, and Black students and white students.
(This is a subtext in what鈥檚 currently a searing debate over a revision to California鈥檚 math framework.)
There has also been some interest in K-12 in ethnomathematics鈥攖he idea that the discipline has some non-Western roots. (Algebra is derived from the work of classical Islamic scholars, for example, though that is not widely known nor taught to K-12 students.)
As part of this approach, some scholars have noted how math or math applications have historically been used to deny opportunities to people (via the three-fifths clause of the United States Constitution, for example, IQ tests, and gerrymandering.)
Separate from that debate, math can be a powerful tool for making sense of civic questions and understanding the world, as Education Week has reported.
