Sure, sure; Ron's just trying to right the listing ship of education. Jesus.
More on the policy-free performative stupidity of Ron:
https://popular.info/p/inside-the-dange ... tbooks?s=w
"On April 15, the Florida Department of Education issued a dramatic press release: "Florida Rejects Publishers’ Attempts to Indoctrinate Students." In the release, Florida Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran announced that he had rejected 54 math textbooks submitted by publishers for the next school year. According to the Florida Department of Education, 26 of those math textbooks were rejected because they contained "prohibited topics," including Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Social-Emotional Learning (SEL).
To underscore the importance of this decision, the release contained a quote from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R). “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,” DeSantis said. Corcoran said the math textbooks were rejected because children deserve "a world-class education without the fear of indoctrination or exposure to dangerous and divisive concepts in our classrooms."
In a press conference on Monday, DeSantis defended the decision, focusing on SEL. Right-wing activists claim that SEL is CRT by another name but that is inaccurate. SEL focuses on the development of "critical thinking, emotion management, conflict resolution, decision making, [and] teamwork" — skills that are necessary for students to excel in school and in life. The term dates back to a 1997 book but the concept of character development dates back at least to Benjamin Franklin in the mid-1700s.
"You know, math is about getting the right answer and we want kids to learn to think so they get the right answer. It’s not about how you feel about the problem or to introduce some of these other things," DeSantis said. DeSantis noted that "most of the books that did not meet Florida standards… happened to be in the early grades."
Asked during the press conference what CRT would look like in a math textbook, DeSantis demurred, returning to SEL. "You do have things like social and emotional learning," DeSantis responded, "and some of the things that are more political in there."
But DeSantis' Communications Director, Christina Pushaw, was quite clear that the rejected math textbooks included CRT. She said people are free to "buy any CRT math textbook you want." (These textbooks, Pushaw claimed, teach kids that "2+2=4" is "white supremacy.") Pushaw emphasized that DeSantis would not "force Florida taxpayers to pay for this indoctrination."
CRT is a graduate-level academic framework which explores how "laws, policies, and procedures that function to produce racial inequality." This is sometimes referred to as "structural racism." It is not something you typically find discussed in a K-12 math textbook.
Notably, the Florida Department of Education, Desantis, and Pushaw did not provide any examples of how these math textbooks would indoctrinate Florida students. (The only "example" Pushaw provided was a math worksheet from Missouri that mentioned Maya Angelou.)
Florida eventually released a list of the 26 math textbooks rejected for "prohibited concepts" (the remainder were rejected for other reasons) but there was no information explaining the rejection. DeSantis said that he would not release examples because he respected "the process" and wanted to give publishers the opportunity to appeal. This concern for fairness to the publishers didn't stop DeSantis from issuing a press release accusing all of them of indoctrinating students with race essentialism and other concepts.
DeSantis appears determined to keep the contents of these textbooks secret. Popular Information reached out to the Florida Department of Education and asked for examples of content that caused the textbooks to be rejected. There was no response.
Popular Information, however, has obtained 8 of the 26 math textbooks rejected by Florida for “prohibited topics,” including textbooks for elementary, middle, and high school students. We then scrutinized these textbooks for any mention of race, emotion, or related topics. What we found bears no resemblance to the alarming assertions of Florida officials."