Florida Gives Examples After Math Books Rejected for CRT, Other Issues

Days after it was learned that Florida had rejected dozens of math textbooks that included references to Critical Race Theory and for having other issues, the state's department of education has released examples of some of the passages that were flagged as not meeting their standards.

The Florida Department of Education said Thursday that the examples were provided to them by the public.

"Based on the volume of requests the Department has received for examples of problematic elements of the recently reviewed instructional materials, the following are examples provided to the department by the public and presented no conflict in sharing them," the department said in a disclaimer on their website. "These examples do not represent an exhaustive list of input received by the Department."

One example shows a bar graph with the heading "Measuring Racial Prejudice, by Age" with a second bar graph titled "Measuring Racial Prejudice, by Political Identification."

Another example titled "Adding and Subtracting Polynomials" features a math model used to "measure bias."

"What? Me? Racist? More than 2 million people have tested their racial prejudice using an online version of the Implicit Association Test," the example reads. "Most groups' average scores fall between 'slight' and 'moderate' bias, but the differences among groups, by age and by political identification, are intriguing."

Another example has an "SEL Objective," referring to Social Emotional Learning, that reads "students build proficiency with social awareness as they practice with empathizing with classmates."

The department said they rejected 54 textbooks out of the 132 submitted, about 41%.

The highest number of books rejected were for grade levels K-5, where 71% were not appropriately aligned with Florida standards or included prohibited topics and unsolicited strategies, the department said.

In addition to references to CRT and SEL, the books were rejected for inclusions of Common Core, which has been removed from Florida classroom instruction, the department said.

Although the books listed in the document were not approved, education officials said that publishers may appeal the state's decision.

"The Department is continuing to give publishers the opportunity to remediate all deficiencies identified during the review to ensure the broadest selection of high quality instructional materials are available to the school districts and Florida’s students," the department said on their website.

Critics have said the book rejection was just the latest by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other state leaders to wage political culture wars in classrooms.