Florida is spinning downward into a pit of political ignorance.
The state rejected 54 math texts on grounds that some contained critical race theory, others referred to Common Core concepts.
The rejected books make up a record 41% of the 132 books submitted for review, the Florida Department of Education said in a statement.
Of them, 28 were rejected because they “incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including [critical race theory],” the statement said.
Critical race theory has been described by scholars as an examination of racism and its impact through systems, such as legal, housing and education. However, it is typically not taught in K-12.
Twelve books were rejected because they did not meet Florida’s benchmark standards, while 14 books were rejected because they both included prohibited topics and failed to meet curriculum standards.
The names of the rejected books were not included.
Since the names of the rejected books were not revealed, no one can judge how dreadful or how innocuous the content is.
State House Member Anna Eskamani said, “I get it. The goal of math is to solve problems which the Republican Party of Florida doesn’t like to do.”
Among grade levels, 70% of the math materials for kindergarten through fifth grades were rejected. Twenty percent of the materials for grades 6-8 were rejected, and 35% of materials for grades 9-12 were rejected.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Florida is spinning downward into a pit of political ignorance.”… a really good lead, says it all.
And Ron is going to bring this to the entire country soon!!! Gosh. Can’t wait.
Shouldn’t it be illegal for them not to make public which textbooks and what content they find offensive – so that the public can decide what is appropriate in a public school?
https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/see-the-54-math-textbooks-rejected-by-florida-department-of-education/2738681/
There must be a financial reason behind this. Someone has ties to a publishing company that will produce the textbooks that will be pushed on all schools.
I agree with you.
They have not provided any details. Florida’s future continues to be at risk. Could their schools be any worse than they are now? We shall soon see.
Well-Funded, far-right network, interconnected and adaptable! Researcher Michael Jensen/START Center found 244/816 people Jan 6th arrested, were w/ extremist organizations. School Board Crazies, Library Book Burners,White nationalists, anti-vaccination, militias, militant anti-abortion, QAnon and more.
https://start.umd.edu/people/michael-jensen
Beyond the 244, I’ll bet there are many more not detected by his research because they are silent, unofficial, or alias-using members or supporters.
Wow, Ms. Irwin! What a treasure trove!!! Fascinating!!!
and Christian nationalists.
The alleged organizers and promoters e.g. John Eastman, are they going to have a day in court?
I was about to throw up my hands in disbelief that START would ignore the connection between conservative religious zealots and anti- abortion and anti-LGBTQ campaigns. But then, in the very, long research list at the site, 7th from the bottom, I found Michael Jensen’s only title reference to religion. Quoting the finding, “Leftist groups tend to be less deadly than religious groups.”
Note to blog comment readers, be reassured, the focus of Jensen’s study was outside of the U.S. Conservative religion has its protection, in tact.
Since we cannot see the offending passages, it is obvious that DeSantis is employing the methods of Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy was successful for about four years in suggesting that he has various lists of communists, none of which would ever be identified but which would serve as a justification for the hearings he held for the purpose of stirring the pot he had prepared for making himself look like a paragon of American virtue.
A similar list was announced by Maximillian Robespierre during the height of the Great Terror during the French Revolution. Afraid they might be on his list, delegates to the governing body arranged his arrest and subsequent trip to the guillotine.
Fake lists have an interesting history. Time to call out the fake list.
They probably rejected them because of ethnic-sounding names used in examples of word problems. Seriously.
Or pictures of black children
Or someone saw references to criterion referenced tests.
So……….Does there EVER come a point in this censorship, denial and destruction of public education, at which students and parents are justified in seeking other alternatives AND demanding some share of the usurped per-pupil spending of tax dollars on this fake public education???? For some reason this is a very improper question on this blog.
That is a very good question and has been discussed. In fact, that is why Biden has rules about those alternative choices having to be transparent.
But why not discuss how to get rid of the politicians who censor and deny and destroy public education?
Remember, these folks destroying public education are the same ones who loved Trump U and believe that having for-profit education institutions that make their founders very rich and then go bankrupt or disband leaving their students learning nothing but leaving their CEOs very rich is a great thing!
Let’s discuss how good it would be to have lots of Trump Highs! And Trump elementary schools!
Seek other alternatives, but don’t expect the public to pay for you being connned into attending Trump U or sending your children to Trump Elementary. Sorry, but public money only goes to institutions that are overseen by the public.
And while Florida is working hard to make sure anyone who might not vote for the Republicans has a very hard time voting, as yet they haven’t blatantly acted like their idol Putin and declared that they will be in power for life.
As yet, it is still possible to vote out those right wing Republicans who trying to destroy public education so their friends can gey rich offering their own versions of Trump U.
Let’s discuss if you think using public money for Trump U for kids would be a good idea. Most parents think it is a terrible idea.
Are you suggesting that students should get public money to escape the public schools so they can attend voucher schools where they will be indoctrinated into the views of the religious group that sponsors them? I think that’s called surrender.
I am no more tolerant of fake schools run by religious zealots than I am of fake schools with fake curricula run by fake educators and politicians in Florida.
In a previous response to one of my similar comment a couple of months ago, you defended your position against charter/voucher/alternative schools by using the word “most,” to characterize their illegitimacy.
Which is it? Are there ANY legitimate alternatives out there? Or is EVERY alternative corrupt and improper?
And why is it either/or? Why is it surrender? Can we not wage a legal fight against the destruction of public education AND at the same time, demand our own children get the tax dollars and protection from indoctrination that they are legally entitled to, AND do it on our own, with our share of our tax money if necessary?
Would YOU submit YOUR children and YOUR tax dollars if your local school was run by DeSantis’s finest??
Very straightforward principle: public money goes to public schools, under democratic governance and auditing. If you prefer a private alternative, pay for it yourself.
Mark: Are you making the argument that those who are disrupting education for all should be rewarded by doing what they want us to do? Perhaps there should be another question. If the disruption of public education has proceeded to a point at which no public education is possible, why should we not seek out these people and have them arrested and tried for fraud?
Roy: Are you saying that we should sacrificed our children’s education and future by participating in the disrupted and fake education that is being instituted NOW in some schools, districts and states? THAT is what they want us to do.
To your other question, of course we should TRY to have them arrested and tried. Keep the pressure on. But how’s that working out? How’s that worked out over the last decade?
Reply to NYC public school parent, April 19, 2022 at 11:43 am
“But why not discuss how to get rid of the politicians who censor and deny and destroy public education?” WE ALREADY DO THAT.
“Sorry, but public money only goes to institutions that are overseen by the public.” EVEN IF THOSE SCHOOLS ARE ‘TRUMP SCHOOLS’ OVERSEEN BY A PUBLIC WHO HAS VOTED IN TRUMP AND HIS ILK?
“Most parents think it is a terrible idea.” OBVIOUSLY, AND I SAID SO IN THE FIRST TWO LINES OF MY ORIGINAL POST
Sorry, for some reason, the site printed several of my paragraphs in small print.
Mark,
You seem to be trying to convince a few liberal parents that their interests will be served by supporting something that greatly benefits the far right at the expense of the most vulnerable children.
Republicans often successfully make folks vote against their own self-interests and support policies that hugely benefit the very rich by convincing them that they will get a little benefit and all the harm done to other people’s children isn’t important.
If and when the Republicans do what you suggest they are doing — establish their own “Trump schools” as public schools — then the problem isn’t going to be solved by giving vouchers to folks. That is playing right into their hands. You are suggesting giving vouchers BEFORE the Republicans have completely taken over schools which will hasten the move to privatizing all of public education.
If you really have integrity, then what do we have to lose by opposing vouchers to hasten the privatization of public education before the state has taken over schools?
And you didn’t address the parents who have kids who have kids who are not cost-efficient for private “voucher” schools to teach. What happens to them?
When we live in the country you believe we are heading to, where the right wing has replaced democracy with autocracy, having vouchers doesn’t make a difference. You think Russia giving parents vouchers to send their kids to private schools that are supposedly not run by the state makes it all okay? At that point, when you have given up on democracy, how exactly do vouchers help?
Has the state of Florida provided the public with the specific citations they found in these 54 math textbooks that they identify as being problematic?
Shouldn’t they be obligated to do that? Did they even do that?
And if the media is reporting on this story without enlightening the public about what – specifically – is the problem in every single one of these banned textbooks, how do we know it isn’t just because the authors were Jewish or Muslim and that alone made these books suspect?
If Florida banned all dogs and cats for showing pro-CRT tendencies, the lazy media would simply present that as “Florida officials say that they found evidence of CRT in dogs and cats” and the reporters would decide it was not their business to find out more because the public only needs to know that Republicans say something is bad and that is “evidence” that readers should consider to be as important.
I bet that I could find evidence of bias somewhere in the math books that are “acceptable” that is no different than the supposed evidence that the Florida officials claim justifies rejecting these math books.
latest news is that they have narrowed things down to using only “one publisher.” Now doesn’t THAT smack of a profit game…
In this morning’s newspaper there is an article from Gary White of ‘USA Today’ about a speech DeSantis made in Polk County. The recent video of the speech has been removed, and the full article is behind a paywall. DeSantis speech is full of bias and lies about transgender students, library books with pedophilia in a middle school and the dumping of “illegals” in Florida with the implication they could be shot by those protecting their land. He also mentions that he will be involved in school board elections because “we have to protect our values.” He also stated that if Stacey Abrams wins the Georgia election, he will use his revived FL militia to “protect the border.” The author mentions questions that were asked by members of the audience that DeSantis chose to ignore. A better sleuth than I can probably find the full article online, although I have the one that was in the local newspaper. I have a feeling that the full text of this article will become harder to find as the right wing will try to suppress it.
If the NYT fired their self-important stenographers with connections and hired real journalists, they would be writing these kinds of stories every day.
This is a ridiculous, blanket station. If this is a real problem, give us real examples with names, dates, examples, and witnesses.
Mark,
Please cite the problematic passages in those math textbooks.
Give us the real examples, with pages, names and witnesses.
Here’s Ron’s rehearsal for the 2014 race:
2024
Smooth talker, hence I am sure he has a criminal record.
Haaaa!!!
ROFL!!!
Only a political genius like Ron De[ExpletiveDeleted] can turn a prosaic bureaucratic exercise like approving state textbooks into Owning The Libs.
Totally love this legislator’s response: “I get it. The goal of math is to solve problems which the Republican Party of Florida doesn’t like to do.”
DeSantis is just another, smarter demagogue than Trump, but perhaps even more dangerous. People need to see him for the threat that he is. He must not become president!
They probably want questions like: “if Jesus had 2 fishes and 5 loaves of bread, how many people could he feed?
LOL
That’s a good one.
Or maybe they could recount the 2020 election
Haaaaaaaaa!!! ROFL!!!
Word Problem: Florida has a 16 percent African American population. The state has 27 Congressional districts. Is it possible to redraw election maps so that there are white majorities in every district? Show your work.
Teacher Answer Key: See Ron DeSantis’s latest Congressional Districting Proposal.
Uh-oh! Maybe there were word problems based on this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX_Vzl-r8NY
All too real, but many refuse to see this.
The questions that immediately came to my mind upon reading this:
Are these new texts that were submitted to the education department for review, or are they texts that are currently being used in K-12 classrooms in Florida?
Are new texts required to be approved by the education department prior to their use in K-12 classrooms in Florida? If so, is that a longstanding policy?
If it is longstanding policy for texts to be submitted for review by the education department prior to their use in K-12 classrooms in Florida, is it also longstanding policy for the education department to publish the names of all rejected texts along with the reasons for their rejection?
That’s what I was wondering also, are these books already in the classroom or books being considered for classroom use. I assume it is the latter, texts not yet in the classroom.
I believe that in NJ, approval of text books is done at the local level not by the state board of ed. If I am in error, please correct me.
These text books are not yet in the classroom, they are being “evaluated-ha-ha.” From CNN, 4-19-22: Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, called for transparency on how the state’s department of education made the decision, including examples of “objectionable” content and details about those who reviewed the textbooks and their qualifications.
“As it stands now, only one publisher’s full suite of K-5 math textbooks is available to Florida districts, and we don’t have a detailed understanding of why,” Spar tweeted. “The state has an obligation to ensure that every child is getting the math instruction they need with the highest quality materials.” end quote
If the state allowed only one publisher’s math textbooks, I would want to know which one, and why the others were rejected. Sounds like the fix was in for somebody’s uncle, who has a stake in the winner.
As I indicated in a previous post (awaiting moderation) math book writers often become multimillionaires. It’s a big and powerful industry. Especially publishers of books about topics which are taught at every college and high school like calculus or algebra I and II. Books on these topics are at least 3 times bigger than they need to be. Many kids have developed shoulder and spine problems carrying them around. These books can be used as weapons,and for that, I think they are more useful than for teaching.
Joe,
One of the issues is that there was a time when folks acted in good faith and the Republicans took over the professionalism and turned public institutions over to hacks.
That wasn’t the case in the old days where Republicans may have had different views of public goods and services, but they usually appointed people interested in making programs work to help people.
Now Republicans get ahead by supporting hackery, and anything except extreme support for hackery makes you a pariah in the Republican party.
The truth doesn’t matter. Facts don’t matter. Supporting hackery is all that matters.
Debating questions of what was done in the past before hacks who specialize and are rewarding for lying and deceiving took over the Republican party and many state agencies is misdirection. We don’t have debates in this country — we have one party – the Democrats – speaking the truth in pursuit of policies that would help people and another party – the Republicans, who have embraced lies in their pursuit of power.
Right before the start of the pandemic, a conservative Governor in Ohio appointed a health commissioner based on qualifications. The health commissioner happened to have been a democrat, but was not particularly political nor was that job political.
But in the current Republican world, having a health commissioner who spoke the truth was not allowed. She was threatened and made an object of hate until she finally left.
And that treatment she received proves that those who blame the democrats for not reaching out to those Republican voters has always been a huge lie. The health commissioner spoke of kindness and never blamed the covid-deniers, She did nothing but treat all the folks in Ohio in the most respectful way. And she got trashed and threatened.
I used that example because too often we see right wing apologists trying to normalize what the Republican party has become by citing something in the past as if it was relevant to the discussion. Too often those folks normalize the Republicans doing these nasty, horrible things by blaming other people! (like the trans activists who supposedly have infiltrated public schools).
The rejection of textbooks in the past – if that did happen on occasion – was not politicized the way the Republican Party has done.
Can you imagine NY State announcing they had rejected 50 math books because of their pro-white supremacist, anti-Semitic and anti-democratic content and writing a press release presenting the state officials as heroes saving democracy from far right Putin-loving terrorists? Imagine the NYT writing story after story taking them at their word that they were hard at work saving children from the white-supremacist, anti-democracy pro-Putin corruption in those textbooks?
That’s pretty much what this seemed to be in Florida, with the media not even blinking an eye asking for evidence.
Máté– I have been sharing the high jinks in FL math book selection with my ElecEngr husband– suggested he write a math textbook to triple our nest egg. He said nah, too much work– better to offer himself as a consultant to review proposed math textbooks for “objectionable material.” 😀
DeSantis complained i his press release that the companies had “slapped a coat of paint on old ideas” or something to that effect. This makes me think that the books might be from companies they used before. Textbooks are usually derived from previous resources. I assume it would be difficult to re-invent the wheel every time a new adoption comes out.
My experience in recent years is that consolidation of textbook companies has left a pretty narrow choice for schools. We have not adopted textbooks for years here. I sort of make up my own material.
Given the huge consolidation of the textbook industry, I’m surprised they had so many choices. And, Roy, you are quite right. “New” textbooks are typically updates of existing ones. Bob Shepherd worked in the industry. He will share his wisdom.
I do not even open a “new” calculus book. They are all the same. Publishers come up with new editions every year but the change is minimal and useless. But if there is no new edition then students will use used books, which is not useful for the publisher. For God’s sake, calculus is over 300 years old. There is nothing new there in these new, heavier and heavier books, but bloat.
One calculus book author was Stewart. He became a multimillionaire from writing his book.
Calculus made James Stewart a millionaire. Starting in the late 1970s, when the Canadian-born mathematician published his first calculus textbook, Stewart wrote over 30 bestselling calculus textbooks. Last year alone, he sold 500,000 books, from which he made around $26 million.
https://www.fastcompany.com/3052267/the-house-that-calculus-built
There are 19 state textbook adoption states. These, especially Texas and California, but also Florida and North Carolina, tend to determine the content for the rest of the country because the purchases made by states in an adoption year are big prizes. So, textbook publishers arrange their product development cycles in order to deliver to these states, and they massage their content to meet the published adoption requirements from those states. This has been going on for a long, long time, and for a long, long time, it has been a drag on innovation in textbooks. In my years in the industry, we often had lists of forbidden topics, driven by Texas. Evolution, for example. Young people dating. Drugs and alcohol and tobacco.
I wrote a book about textbook and test censorship: The Language Police. That’s how I met Bob, who was very helpful.
A great book!!!
Yeah, I also read that great book, Diane.
Florida recently changed its policy so that individual districts can buy off the state adoption list. THIS IS A VERY GOOD THING because it allows for diverse offerings from a greater number of publishers. The adoption state policy led to less competition in the industry because only big publishers with a lot of development funds could afford to meet all the insane state requirements.
can buy off-list
What is all the new found outrage. Just because it has become Gods waiting room, for a lot of ingrate Northerners. Northerners who took their Pensions and dollars down there to escape the taxes and living costs associated with the States they earned their living in. Does not mean that we should forget that the State was part of the Confederacy. And still is basically a —– hole. Of course if not for voter disenfranchisement it might not be.
It was in Florida as a preteen 1963 that I had my first experience with the Jim Crow South. As two very elderly Black Men with canes stepped into the gutter to allow this White boy to pass on the sidewalk. Must be tough to give up that type of privilege. Or even admit it existed.
Ironically 1963 was a century after the New York City Draft riots erupted during the Civil War. Directed at the N_____ war, appealing to working class whites in the city, instigators fueled the fire by appealing to the racists in New York City.
Let us not forget that Donald Trump, who launched his campaign by descending the stairs at Trump tower with a racist diatribe aimed at Latinos is a product of New York City.
Racism has always transcended geography. Indeed it permeates almost all cultures.
No need for the history lesson . Many of those Northerners who retired
down to Florida received their pensions in NYC.
What ,there is racism in NYC ? Couldn’t be! Staten Island was captured in the civil war!. It is not part of the City. I agree racism does transcend geography as does the denial of its existence. In Commack Long Island where they held anti CRT school board demos and took over the school board in an election. They have to show pictures of Black people to prove to the children they exist. (it’s sarcasm Diane)
As for the Orange buffoon he lost the Election District he came down the escalator in. Now if the City would only seize his Buildings for tax fraud.
Is there any serious way to confront the idiocy of banning math books?
Lots of northerners go down (is saying down there a geographical bias?) there because they’ve had enough of the winters, the snow, the sleet, the freezing rain, the long months of virtual confinement, having to clear ice and snow from the car, sidewalks, driveways, etc. I would love the warmer weather, flowers and plants year round. A former neighbor now lives in FL and I am so jealous of her winter time temps in Naples, FL, while I am freezing my arse off in NJ. The right wingers drive her nuts. But I could NOT tolerate DeSantis, a GOP controlled state and all the Trumpsters in FL.
But you aren’t envious of the steaming heat from May through October.
Flor-uh-duh is not an ___hole, Joel. Its shape is that of a different portion of the anatomy.
Can the whole state be Boca Raton? I can’t touch your comment on Diane’s page besides I left a fill in. Sadly as one of Diane’s favorites says “The South Won The Civil War”
The extent of racism in Minnesota, Wisconsin, South and North Dakota and Iowa surprised me. It reached my awareness starting in 2016.
When I moved, as a very young man, from Indiana to Boston, I expected to find a lot less racism there. Wow, was I in for a surprise!
Ah, Joel, that’s the way it was all over the South. Racism and white privilege. But it’s illegal now in many states to say that.
THIS!!!!
And in Commack .
DeSantis hasn’t been nearly as effective as he needs to be. Critical Race Theory has been digging in my flowerbeds again.
Love it! Have you noticed that Critical Race Theory has really ruined the weather lately? It’s been unusually cold for this time of year.
Haaaa!!!! Remember the good old days when it was the Pinkos doing all this stuff?
I can assure you that math teachers don’t have time to teach CRT. I would love to know exactly what they are calling “critical race theory” because it is not taught in public schools. I cannot “vouch” for private schools, pun intended. CRT is not tested on the state test; therefore, it is not taught. Private school don’t have any such accountability in Texas, so who knows what they teach.
“not tested on the state test; therefore, it is not taught.” Unfortunately, in other contexts this principle can debase the quality of the curriculum from the knowledge and skill of a good teacher, to be manipulated whims of bureaucrats and politicians.
Haaa. Wonderfully said, Dr. Griffith!
I’d like to see some of the objectionable material.
Just a paragraph, please.
Nope. The “Sunshine State”–a name the place gets from both its climate and a so-called “Sunshine law” requiring government transparency, claims that it can’t give out that information because it has to maintain confidentiality with the publishers.
The educational materials industry, as you doubtless know from being a professor of mathematics, is given to fads. In the textbook industry, publishers typically do very cosmetic revisions of textbooks, mostly to put in new headings and special features related to whatever is hot on the education midway this carnival season. So, for example, if people are suddenly abuzz about “flipped classrooms” or “multiple intelligences” or whatever, then the publishers will churn out a new edition with some of that stuff added. Of late, one of the buzzes has been about “socio-emotional learning.” And that’s what DeSantis says the ban is about–that SEL is “stealth CRT.” He also said that math is all about getting the right answer, and Florida wants textbooks that concentrate on that. I thought that math was about patterns and thinking about patterns, but hey, that’s me.
I would be delighted to see any textbook, particularly a math text, that explains concepts step by step. My grandson has zero textbooks in his middle school. For visual learners that need review at home, a textbook is a great tool. I depended heavily on my math texts in high school and college. Expecting students to do most everything online denies students the opportunity to do their best work.
I spent a lot of years in depressing meetings inside textbook publishing houses, lead by people from the marketing department, about what buzz words we needed to be putting into the upcoming editions. Typically, these get larded onto the text until it is a confused jumble of interrupted lessons. Every couple lines, there is a “special feature” added to meet some faddish new state adoption requirement.
So, the Flor-uh-duh adoption committee objected to SEL “special features” and headings in the latest round of texts.
cx: led by
My God, Bob. Terrible.
Not long before he passed away, Senator Byrd showed some pages from contemporary K-12 textbooks on the Senate floor and exclaimed that it was no wonder that we have an epidemic of attention deficit disorder.
Yup. Most of my experience is in World Lang enrichment to PreK/K’s. But I also supplemented school lessons with conversational classes for a few Fr & Sp students from grades 4-12. Saw what was going on at school via their books & occasionally acquired my own. I found I had to buy the teacher’s version to get that nice layout at the beginning that shows what content the publisher actually intended to be taught. The text looked like pages from a pop-up-riddled clickbait website.
DeSantis just signed a new law making tenure subject to five-year reviews. This comes on the heels of a new law prohibiting the “teaching of CRT’ in public universities in the state.
So much for academic freedom in Flor-uh-duh.
Does the Fl DOE and governor approve texts for charter schools? What about the private and religious schools?
Here’s a breakdown of the answer, state by state, for charter schools.
https://ecs.secure.force.com/mbdata/mbquestNB2C?rep=CS1713
Private schools (partially paid for in some places with vouchers) are exempt from these rules. They can use “Algebra for God-Fearing White People” if they want to.
Some religious schools also alter the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance to include Catholic doctrine.
So, no. In Flor-uh-duh, charter schools do not have to use books from the state list. Oh, and here is a great overview of state-by-state textbook adoption policies and procedures:
Click to access 10923.pdf
A lot of the K-12 course materials industry is about understanding and navigating these.
Thanks for all the links and info.
Sorry, that last one is out of date. It’s been a few years since I worked in the industry. At the time, the state adoption bible (including state adoption procedures and polices) was published annually by the Association of American Publishers. However, this older document (from 2013) will give you a feel for the variations nationwide.
State adoption of textbooks is a TERRIBLE thing because meeting the insane, long lists of state adoption criteria requires enormous amounts of money that only the large educational publisher can afford to spend. The result of this is that there is much less competition in the textbook publishing industry. There has been some alleviation of this problem in recent years because of the dramatic shift from print to online instructional materials, which are cheaper to revise and publish than print ones are. However, this is still a huge problem in the industry. And, note that the whole purpose of Common [sic] Core [sic] was to create a single set of national “standards” that publishers could address “at scale.” Bill Gates claimed that this would lead to innovation, which was totally perverse, because what it leads to is a few big publishers being able to dominate the market because of the product development and marketing money that they can afford to spend. Before, a small publisher could do an innovative text and print enough copies to market in one or two states and build from there.
State adoptions and national standards both tend toward creating publishing monopolies and thus toward depressing innovation in pedagogical and curricula design. I really wish that politicians and the public generally understood this.
The online materials are even worse. The online “text” for my subject is only sets of articles written at such a high level (think collegiate for 9th graders) that they’re unusable. None of the teachers that I know of use the “textbook.” All those millions of dollars wasted.
I agree. The online materials are really bad. I did large-scale reviews of these a few years back as competition research for one of the ed book publishers. I was really appalled.
I was a principal at an elementary school in Charlotte where our test results improved dramatically. This didn’t happen because we followed some scripted text or magic business model, but because we developed our own math packets and reading programs based on the expertise of a very effective teaching staff. We even toyed with the idea of going text book free. I’m sure this would have been discouraged by the state had they seen what we were doing. The big problem coming from states like Florida and Tennessee is that these decisions to ban textual content is about controlling the message. There is a significant reason why Southern states are at the bottom of educational outcomes. The authoritarian practices with governance have been a part of our political culture since our founding. Keeping the populous fat and ignorant has always been seen as a good thing by the agricultural elite.
After spending years risking my neck to oppose standardization and businesses trying to “scale up” their products by forcing everyone to use them, I see a magnificent silver lining atop the dark cloud of race-based censorship herein. Florida rejected books because of references to Common Core: the bane of education, the ultimate product scale up vehicle, and the dumbest of corporate education “reforms” of all time. It is a very good thing when states, and better yet districts, and better yet school site math departments refuse to buy textbooks that other states/districts/departments buy. Diversity and autonomy must be our goals, not our enemies. Big silver lining.
Florida claimed they rejected books because of references to Common Core but that seems quite nonsensical.
I would like to see some examples of “references to Common Core” in these rejected math books that are supposedly so awful.
In fact, I would like anyone to tell me what a “reference to Common Core” would look like in a math textbook! What does that even mean?
Common Core has become the same type of bogeyman as “socialists” and “CRT” — words that are often cited that are supposed to scare people. The co-opted and lazy journalists act as stenographers who believe the job of a journalist is to dutifully quote a right wing Republican who is presented as caring only for what is best for students who invokes some favorite bogeyman and then include some disclaimer using a quote from someone identified as a pro-union shill whose motives are questionable.
The Common Core tests are terribly designed but that is entirely different than a math textbook being terrible because it may use some of the ideas from the Common Core curriculum that I suspect the good teachers here would have no problem with. It is the testing that warped the curriculum — and I say that as a parent who thought what my kid was learning was a huge improvement over what I had learned in the era long before Common Core. But the testing was awful.
Maybe the campaign against texts is a way to force students into personalized learning online. Florida replaced state tests with online shorter tests that will be part of their every day work. That is personalized learning.
Not only that, but most states are using standards that ARE the Common Core, just renamed.
Atrocious. The ignorant censoring the now-to-be-left behind.
Yeah, that Pythagoras is just too woke. Having a squared hook up with b squared is unacceptable to Desantis cubed…
Love it! Thanks for the laugh!
The Obama’s are learning first hand how private schools operate. Today, it’s reported that Michelle’s brother filed a lawsuit against the private University School of Milwaukee. The school appears to acknowledge that the sons of Michelle’s brother weren’t allowed to re-enroll.
Powerlessness for the education consumer in the private sector- who knew? (sarcasm)
Maybe some influential Dems like those at CAP will rethink taxpayers footing the bill for private schools.
And, it appears that Florida is now running the U.S. (FL & the Libertarian group, Health Freedom Defense Fund, which filed the lawsuit) FL judge rules–affecting all of us–to lift federal mask mandates. Not looking like Biden Admin. was going to appeal, but minutes ago, world news reported that they will if recommended by the CDC. Won’t hold my breath.
(Will continue wearing a mask so I won’t have to breathe other people’s breath.)
https://crooksandliars.com/2022/04/mallory-mcmorrow-will-not-let-hate-win
I am a retired teacher in Florida with >35 years experience in public school education. I am writhing at home as I read what is happening to our education system! Teachers are being villainies like never before in my life. I wish we could gather a troop of teachers to travel the country and have education rallies while we TELL THE TRUTH!!! I am sick of the lies made by power-hungry people who are willing to use our
children as pawns in their narcissistic endeavors! They want to privatize our schools – and we all know the reasons!!! We have a really ineffective teachers’ union in FL;therefore teachers have NO voice in our own profession!!!
Amen. Send your colleagues to this place, Ms. Hargrove. A lot of truth gets told here.
Good idea! Back in 77 the farmers drove their tractors to DC to protest AG policy. Maybe teachers need to converge on DC with their blackboards
I’m down for that! Truly.
The only publisher approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Department of Education for K-5 mathematics is Accelerate Learning, a company out of Houston, Texas.
“In the subject area as large as mathematics for grades K through five, it is unusual for there only to be one publisher to choose from.”
–snip–
The Carlyle Group, a global investment firm, acquired Accelerate Learning on Dec. 20, 2018, according to the firm’s website.
During that time, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin was the co-CEO of the firm. After 25 years with the company, Youngkin resigned in 2020 to run for office in Virginia.
The first thing Youngkin did as governor of Virginia was sign an executive order to “end the use of inherently divisive concepts, including critical race theory, and restoring excellence in K-12 public education in the commonwealth,” a measure that’s comparable to DeSantis’ “Stop WOKE Act.”
https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2022/04/19/desantis-textbooks-florida-woke-one-publisher-allowed-k-5-math-classes/7357965001/
Really… It makes sense. The entire thing is a scam to make money. They sacrifice children to keep people stupid and rake in the bucks off the tax payers.
Democraticunderground.com
Thanks for this. Makes everything clear.
Thank you for the research!
This is breathtaking!!!!
I still can’t get over this, Ms. Irwin!!! I shouldn’t be shocked, knowing what I do about corruption in politics at every level, but this is still shocking. And disgusting. And predictable.
Governor DeSatan thinks that demanding the 2 + 2 always equals 4 is a form of tryanny.
Governor DeSatan thinks that demanding that 2 + 2 always equals 4 is a form of tyranny.
To paraphrase Tom Joad, in The Grapes of Wrath:
A person ain’t got a soul of his or her own, just a little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody, and then . . . then it don’t matter. Whatever happens, I’ll be all around in the dark – I’ll be everywhere. Wherever you can look – wherever there’s a migrant family walking a thousand miles to apply for amnesty so that the children can eat and live safely, I’ll be there. Wherever people are shouting down some white woman who called the cops on folks for barbecuing while black, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way people stood up to the thugs with badges who came to arrest them at Stonewall. I’ll be in every Pride parade. I’ll be in the way trans kids laugh when they’re accepted for who they are, and in the way women walk out on the company that wants to arbitrate away their right not to be pawed at. I’ll be in the crowd taking pictures when the cops are beating up some black kid. I’ll be standing between the woman on the subway wearing a hajib and the young men taunting her. I’ll be in the cell with the guy talking to the law school students who’ll find the DNA evidence to exonerate him. I’ll be at the factory gates with the poor people sick of being sick, of being poisoned. I’ll be with the pigs in the transport truck heading to the slaughterhouse, with the chickens in the battery cages. I’ll be in the next desk over cheering on the kid who writes, “My mind is not standardized enough to formulate the required responses” and nothing else on the standardized test. When the old people march on the capitol to protect their healthcare and Social Security and extend Medicare to all because it’s cheaper and more decent and every other country has done it, I’ll be there. And when the young people working at McDonald’s or Walmart fight not just for a living wage but for a union as well, I’ll be there, too.
Bob,
What you wrote is profound and important to remember,
the tyranny of the past 200+ years of history and the present- rich over poor, straights over gays, whites over blacks, conservative Christians over other religious, and men over women.
Thank you, Linda!
Thanks for the parody. I had quite forgotten this part of the book. Grapes of Wrath was a profound experience.
This and Moby Dick are tied in my mind for the title of Greatest American Novel.
My wife participated in the first Women’s March, we both participated in the science march, my son and I participated in the march for our lives, and we both participated in the George Floyd protests. In all cases millions participated. Between 10 and 20,000 participated in the insurrection at the Capitol while Trump tries to claim it was “millions.” The press makes little effort to correct him. All we seem to hear is that there seems to be little that can be done about mounting illiberalism outside of convicting a few thugs for vandalism. We can overcome this rabid minority that insists on alternative facts. Perhaps the media will someday report that we continue to show up for democracy.
Wonderful, Paul. Warm regards to you and your family!
Raw Story reports that Di Santis provided an example to support his allegation. It is from Missouri- the wording in a math problem that was posted on the internet. The publisher has taken the paragraph down.
An explanation provided is that someone with access to the page content (or, a hacker), doctored the wording to be offensive. Given the dirty tricks for which right wingers are known, it shouldn’t surprise anyone.
The word problem was so obnoxious, no person except an unreasonable ideologue (or, conspiracy theorist) would believe it wasn’t a rogue contrivance created for political or financial gain.
“Math books? We don’t need no stinkin’ math books.”
– Average High School Math Student
https://www.calculatorsoup.com/
Florida bans math books upon finding out the numbers in them were developed by brown people from the middle east.
That Avicenna! Subversive!
HAAAAA!!! Hilarious, LetThem!!!!
Muslim numbers cannot be up to no good.
haaaaa!
Once upon a time, not so very long ago this would have been material for a comic film, in the realms of ‘Canadian Bacon’ or ‘Wag The Dog’, even a Simpson’s episode….
And now the laughing has stopped.
It’s going to get worse when the Pugs win both the House and Senate this fall and the presidency in 2024 because the Dems try to field a “moderate” against DeSatan. Welcome to the Fascist Idiocracy.
I did not support Joe Biden in the primaries. I was wrong. He has proved to be an outstanding president. I am so grateful that he is in the Oval Office at this time of the crisis in Ukraine. Experience matters.
Speaking as a Brit Bob who has felt the USA is my adopted nation and thus tried to get inside the various ‘american’ cultures and mindsets, I have reached this conclusion.
Americans of all sorts have an ingrained sense of independence and a sceptical view of government in general.
If The Right do take hold and try and impose their will across the nation, they will meet resistance from individual cities, groups, areas, communities in varying forms.
In short the nation will become by degrees ungovernable, as those on the White Panic Right would try and have it.
I have said this often, US commentators and politicians should look to the experience Northern Ireland / Ulster went through from the 1960s until the end of the 20th century.
That Right grouping are fools with no sense of History or the soul of the entire USA.
Extremely well observed, determined!!! Yeah, if the right-wingers get control of all the levers of power and start passing their anti-voting, anti-LGBTQX, anti-abortion, anti-dissent, pro-surveillance legislation, they are going to meet massive resistance in the streets. Fasten your seatbelts. Turbulence ahead!
Win America Back you guys!! Give ’em Hell!
Well said!
Thank you.
I never did travel to the USA. Part of me wishes I could be there now joining in the fight back for its Heart and Soul.
Keep on keeping on you guys.
This goes so much deeper than math. The satanic wordsmiths of the ultra-right are attacking anything that moves toward diversity or even independent thought. Where the hell is the Democratic Party!
Their racist White Panic agenda is so obvious, there would have been a time it would have only been suitable material for a comic script.
Sadly they have been gathering and festering. The mainstream media for too long treated them as material for ‘reality’ freak shows giving them public access. And thought it ‘could never happen’.
As a brit, I loved SNL, but was critical of them for making Trump a figure of fun. There is nothing funny about the forces which placed their Action Toy in the Whitehouse.
No more mocking of them. Gloves off. Win back the Heart and Soul of America by exposing them for what they are.
If ‘White Folk’ of middle ground are comfortable thinking it does not concern them, they should think again. It will start in subtle ways, with the polite knock on the door and several folk asking you if you are ‘coming to church’ or ‘going to the rally’ or rattling a tin for fund raising, but if you give the wrong answer, they won’t be so friendly anymore and might start asking why (in a clipped tone) you have not got an American Flag flying in your front garden or from your house (and in some regions suggesting, strongly that actually the Confederate Flag is really a sign of independence from Deep Government- and you should ‘think about that’).
‘It couldn’t happen here’….. Think again. 6th January 2020-think again.
Thanks, Paul.