Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) defended the state’s decision to reject dozens of math textbooks over alleged indoctrination of students.
The Florida Department of Education (FDOE) rejected 54 out of 132 proposed math textbooks for the 2022-2023 academic for what it described as publishers’ “attempts to indoctrinate students.”
The FDOE argues that the books “included references to Critical Race Theory (CRT), inclusions of Common Core, and the unsolicited addition of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in mathematics.” The majority of rejected textbooks were for kindergarten through fifth grade.
“We want kids to learn to think so they get the right answer,” DeSantis told reporters Monday, Politico reports. Asked what a critical race theory math lesson would look like, DeSantis said “there’s a number of reasons” the state turned down the textbook proposals aside from CRT.
“You do have things like social and emotional learning, and some of the things that are more political in there,” DeSantis said of the rejected text books without providing any examples.
FDOE officials released a list of books on Monday that were rejected. They have not yet provided examples from those textbooks that allegedly indoctrinate students.
As news of Florida banning math textbooks spread, DeSantis’ press secretary Christina Pushaw responded to the criticism by tweeting a photo of a math assignment she claims was given to students in a Missouri public school district earlier this year.
The assignment included a question that asked if the late poet Maya Angelou had been “sexually abused by her mother’s” boyfriend, brother or father. Another question asked if she had “worked as a pimp, prostitute” and bookie, drug dealer or night club dancer to support her son as a single mother.
“How does this help kids learn algebra, exactly?” Pushaw wrote. “No wonder China is winning.”
“So instead of having a hissy fit because @GovRonDeSantis banned CRT math textbooks, ask yourself why CRT is being injected in math instruction to begin with? I promise you, in China kids aren’t learning about pimping in math class,” she added.
She did not provide any examples of CRT from the 54 math textbooks Florida banned either.
