Florida Bans 41% of Math Textbooks

Speaker 0 00:00:00 So any of the books that don't meet the best standards are, are, um, are not gonna be appropriate for us to use. Uh, you do have things like social and emotional learning and some of the other things that are more political in there. Speaker 1 00:00:12 Governor Ron Desant speaks out in support of the Florida department of education's decision last week to ban 41% of math textbooks for public schools. This total to 54 of the 132 textbooks being rejected. 21% of the proposed textbooks were rejected on the basis of their inclusion of prohibited topics. One of which is critical race theory. According to the Florida department of education, others were reportedly banned for the inclusion of social learning and common core director of teacher leadership at Northwestern university in the school of education and social policy. Tim Dore is in his 30th year of education. Having been a teacher principal, and now an assistant professor and administrator for the master of science and education program, Dore has special expertise in social and emotional learning and ways in on Florida's decision to reject many textbooks. Speaker 2 00:01:07 I think it's a shortsighted decision. I don't understand it, uh, because it goes against what we know about good teaching and it goes against what we know about, uh, what is effective when it comes to teaching content. And SEL Speaker 1 00:01:23 DOR says the Florida department of education rejected social and emotional learning because they want to separate values from education. Speaker 2 00:01:31 So this idea that, uh, content should be taught in this sort of neutral way, that there is such a thing as a neutral approach to content is, is really ridiculous. Anytime we teach anything a, whether it's a textbook or an author and a story, uh, there are values being taught. Anytime we teach civics, uh, about democracy, we're teaching about values that we hold very dear Speaker 1 00:01:53 Doris says social and emotional learning is learning those skills that allow us to sort of understand ourselves better and understand people around us better, including self awareness, self-management social awareness, relationship building, and decision making. He said the publishers intended to intermix these concepts within the math curriculum. Speaker 2 00:02:14 And one of the things that we know is that it's better to teach those skills in connection with content. So if you teach someone about how to sort of be aware of how they're feeling or how to have to set goals, you could do that in a vacuum, or you could do that connected to maybe something that they're learning in us history, or maybe it's something they're learning in their algebra class Speaker 1 00:02:42 While do says it is the right of the Florida department of education to reject textbooks. He believes there was political grand standing in this case. Speaker 2 00:02:50 Usually these kind of decisions happen in committee rooms, not publicly, very rarely will a governor stand up or the department of Ed's secretary stand up and say, we are announcing that we're no longer teaching these. This was done for a very political reason to make a point to say, these are the kind of texts we like. And these are the kind of texts we don't like Speaker 1 00:03:13 While he's not an expert in critical race theory. DOR says this move is a part of the broader connecting social and emotional learning to terms like equity, diversity, and inclusion in the realm of education. He also notes that critical race theory has nothing to do with K through 12 education and is not being taught in schools. 71% of the textbooks were for kindergarten to fifth graders. According to the Florida department of education do says that classrooms and local administrations are becoming a space for a broader culture war. Speaker 2 00:03:45 So the fact is that when we start thinking about, uh, how can we make the world better? How can we change the culture of our country? We always come back to school at some point, because it's where we're working with kids in their first time, learning about the culture it's during a very, um, important part of human development. When, uh, people are learning things at a rapid pace, schools have become, uh, the, uh, the trenches in the war that's happening in our country, uh, between you know, about what we want our country to look like and how do we want it to operate? So we are seeing school board elections that are being contested in ways that we haven't seen before. We're seeing voters coming out for school, board elections, there, ways that we didn't see before, and we're seeing national organiz getting much more involved in local school board elections in a way that we haven't had before Speaker 1 00:04:50 The impact is far reaching do says that not only will the banning of these textbooks lead students to miss out on valuable skills, but teachers are also caught in the political crossfire. Speaker 2 00:05:01 If I'm a new teacher. Oh my goodness. The, the, the act of being a first year, second year or third year teacher is rough and we've made it rougher now because we've taken away the material that they could find in these textbooks that could make teaching better for them, you know, or more efficient or whatever, more impactful. So, yeah, I think that, uh, you know, we, we pile and more on the shoulders of our classroom teachers, we take away more and more of their, uh, tools that they can use. Uh, and it makes teaching a really difficult profession these days Speaker 1 00:05:34 Ultimately do said he believes that if people are against the Florida department of education's banning of textbooks, they need to create change through the politicals system. Live from Evanston, Illinois, Justine Fisher, w N U R news.