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The Florida Department of Education is rejecting nearly half of the textbooks submitted for inclusion in next school year’s curriculum.
The reasons for rejecting 54 of the 132 proposed textbooks are because they include references to critical race theory and Common Core Standards inclusions.
Governor Ron DeSantis He said math textbooks “include indoctrinating concepts like racial essentialism, especially, strangely enough, for elementary school students.”
What is critical race theory
Critical race theory shifts the attention paid to intentionally racist prejudices and attitudes towards social processes considered to be the creators of racism, rooted in social relationships and practices, which go beyond individual desires.
What are Common Core Standards
Public schools that follow the Common Core Standards must follow guidelines or standards of education. For example, Common Core Math is based on concepts and skills that a student must apply to solve real-world math problems. These standards have been implemented for kindergarten through high school (K-12) in more than 42 states and serve as benchmarks for determining how prepared students are for life in college and the workforce. The ultimate goal is to make students more adept at solving real-world problems and more competitive in the workforce.
what happened in florida
According to the state Department of Education (DOE), a total of 54 math textbooks did not make the cut to be studied by students in Floridaa.
In a press release released Friday, the Florida DOE announced that Commissioner Richard Corcoran has approved the initial adoption list of math instructional materials that correctly aligned with “Florida’s Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking (BEST)” .
The reason 41% of submitted textbooks were considered “Not permissible” was due to those new state standards or because they had “prohibited content.”
“Reasons for rejecting the textbooks included references to Critical Race Theory (CRT), Common Core inclusions, and the unsolicited addition of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in math,” the Department wrote.
The Florida DOE added that the largest number of rejected textbooks (71%) were for students in kindergarten through fifth grade. And that despite having the most rejected books in state history, each basic math course and grade will have at least one textbook.
A total of 78 submitted textbooks have been included in the state’s adopted list.
Florida public school textbooks are revised by subject every five years. The next review will be for the social studies textbooks next month.
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