The Florida Department of Education announced Tuesday that it has rejected 35% of social studies textbooks submitted by publishers, one year after a messy acceptance cycle for math books.
Social studies books were expected to be more controversial than math books, as these are topics that are likely to be divisive in the current political climate. Florida has banned the teaching of several ideas, including the idea that “equality of treatment under the law is not a sufficient condition for achieving justice.” Critics claim the state is trying to whitewash history.
Officials cited several examples of texts they rejected, including one in a middle school textbook with the heading “A new call for social justice.” The department said the text, which discussed the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013 and the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in 2020, had been removed from the book.
I was also shocked by the description in elementary school textbooks about people kneeling during the national anthem.
“Political indoctrination of children through the K-12 public education system is a very real and serious problem in this country,” Brian Griffin, a spokesman for Gov. Ron DeSantis, tweeted. He added that “all of the offending sentences have been caught and all of them have been fixed.” @GovRonDeSantis‘ clock. “
Others disagreed with that view.
“There’s so many emotions, but right off the bat I think it’s fear,” Hillsboro School Board member Jessica Vaughn said. “I fear the pattern of erasing and rewriting history, because to me this is outside the fascism cliché.”
The district has been waiting for this list for a long time. Some counties, including Pasco County, have completed their review of proposed titles but waited to act to see what the state would approve.
Other counties, such as Pinellas County, have decided to wait until next year to consider new social studies textbooks.
No one wants to be in the same situation as they were a year ago. That’s when they started buying new math books, only to learn that the state had rejected many of them because of politics.
Confusion ensued, and a public records request ultimately revealed that most of the state’s reviewers found no evidence that the math books were “woke” as the state had claimed.
Since then, most of the mathematics books that were not selected for the presentation have been accepted. However, the state had made it clear that it opposed certain ideas in the textbooks.
This view was further deepened when the government solicited bids for social studies textbooks. The specifications clearly state that “critical race theory (CRT) and its applied principles and social-emotional learning” are not allowed in the materials, and provide a list of topics that are deemed unacceptable. I am.
It included ideas such as white privilege. The state defines this as “an individual who, by reason of race, color, sex, or national origin, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.” It is explained that it is a concept of “there is”.
Critical race theory is a university-level field of study that promotes the idea that racism is embedded in American institutions, but it is also used as an umbrella term for many issues related to race.
Social-emotional learning is a strategy aimed at helping students manage their emotions and develop traits such as empathy.
The state announced Tuesday that it had accepted 65% of the 101 books it was considering.
However, in more than two-thirds of those approved, publishers had to make adjustments before receiving approval.
For example: An elementary school lesson on the national symbols might ask parents to “talk to their children about the national anthem” and “take this opportunity to discuss why some people choose to ‘kneel’ for the national anthem. “Protesting Police Brutality and Racism.” ”
That paragraph has been removed from the book.
The state asked publishers to rewrite and change the section on socialism in middle school textbooks.
The original text states that socialism “eliminates unnecessary waste and keeps things beautiful and fair.” He also said that a socialist society “could foster greater equality among people while providing a fully functioning economy under government supervision.”
The revised version cites Maoist-era China and Cuba as examples of planned economies. Moreover, critics say that planned economies have little human motivation and are “slow to develop and have little technological progress.”
“To maintain exceptional standards, we must focus on the highest quality educational materials available to our students and teachers – historical facts, and eliminate inaccuracies,” Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. said in a statement Tuesday. “We need to ensure that educational materials are available that are free of ideological rhetoric.” ”
Vaughn, of the Hillsboro School Board, said the information removed is important history. As a child, when she attended schools in Hillsborough, she was not taught about issues such as racism and redlining, so when she learned about it as an adult, she was upset. , she said.
“This whitewashes our history,” said Yvette Lewis, president of the Hillsboro branch of the NAACP. We are not giving our children the opportunity to actually learn the truth about African American history. Now there are teachers who are afraid of certain words. Like the word diversity. They think as if learning and understanding African American history is a bad thing. ”
Controversies over not only textbooks but also library books with sexual content have galvanized parent groups across the political spectrum.
Regan Miller of the Florida Freedom to Rely Project said of the textbook rejection: and does not take into account the needs of a diverse student body. ”
Miller said his organization will respond by encouraging critics to speak out to legislators and school board members. She has two children in Pinellas County schools, she said. She says, “I want people to have access to information that will help them understand the world and understand other people’s opinions, whether I agree with them or not.”
Times staff writer Jeffrey S. Solochek contributed to this report.
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