The Florida Department of Education has removed dozens of mathematics textbooks from state classrooms, citing the “divisive concepts” and “unsolicited strategies of indoctrination” included in the works.
The department announced Friday that 54 textbooks would be removed from elementary and pre-school classrooms after their publishers’ requests for approval were denied. Of these, 28 were denied for including “critical race theory” concepts, the department said. Critical race theory, per Florida law, is an ideology which makes students “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of…race, color, sex, or national origin.” In March, the Florida legislature passed the ‘Stop W.O.K.E. Act’ to ban its instruction in public schools, a measure awaiting Governor Ron DeSantis’ signature.
Additionally, the Department rejected 26 textbooks which, per Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran, ran afoul of the state’s “Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking” (B.E.S.T.) standards, which emphasize “reading, writing, and arithmetic.” These standards were promulgated by the Department in 2021, after DeSantis issued an executive order to ban federal ‘Common Core’ education standards in the state, previously adopted during the Obama Administration.
Some of the rejected textbooks were submitted by McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Savvas Learning Company (formerly known as Pearson K12 Learning) — national education publishing houses, whose math textbooks are in use in several other states.
The department further accused publishers of attempting to “slip…prohibited and divisive” concepts into the submitted textbooks. “It seems that some publishers attempted to slap a coat of paint on an old house built on the foundation of Common Core, and indoctrinating concepts like race essentialism, especially, bizarrely, for elementary school students,” said DeSantis.
Criticism from Democrats swiftly followed the decision, with DeSantis being accused of “censorship” by Florida State Rep. Anna Eskamani. Another Democrat, Rep. Carlos Guillermo-Smith, claimed that DeSantis was turning Florida’s schools “into a political minefield.”
The decision leaves Florida’s schools with the option to use textbooks produced by one publisher: Accelerate Learning. Based out of Houston, Texas, the company claimed its textbooks were “built from the ground up to the Florida B.E.S.T,” in partnership with Rice University. Per its website, however, Accelerate Learning is reported to have donated to organizations such as NAACP, Black Lives Matter and Equal Justice — organizations which have expressed support for CRT.