The Florida Department of Education announced Friday it has rejected 54 of 132 submitted textbooks, 41 percent, of the state’s adopted list for mathematics instructional materials. “The approved list followed a thorough review of submissions at the Department, which found 41 percent of the submitted textbooks were impermissible with either Florida’s new standards or contained prohibited topics – the most in Florida’s history.”
Progressives are outraged, calling the DOE under Republican Governor Ron DeSantis censorship. However, they are wrong. The textbooks were for “Florida’s initial adoption list. For mathematics instructional materials” to align with the state’s “Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking (B.E.S.T.) Standards.”
The Education Department’s press release identifies that the books were rejected for clear reasons: “Reasons for rejecting textbooks included references to Critical Race Theory (CRT), inclusions of Common Core, and the unsolicited addition of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in mathematics.”
Governor Ron DeSantis said of the situation, “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.”
“I’m grateful that Commissioner Corcoran and his team at the Department have conducted such a thorough vetting of these textbooks to ensure they comply with the law.” Commissioner Corcoran said “we’re going to ensure that Florida has the highest-quality instructional materials aligned to our nationally-recognized standards.”
The press release, titled “Florida Rejects Publishers’ Attempts to Indoctrinate Students” and gives a breakdown of the rejected materials:
• 78 of 132 total submitted textbooks are being included on the state’s adopted list.
• 28 (21 percent) are not included on the adopted list because they incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT.
• 12 (9 percent) are not included on the adopted list because they do not properly align to B.E.S.T. Standards.
• 14 (11 percent) are not included on the adopted list because they do not properly align to B.E.S.T. Standards and incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT.
• Grades K-5: 71 percent of materials were rejected.
• Grades 6-8: 20 percent of materials were rejected.
Grades 9-12: 35 percent of materials were rejected.
