Where is the evidence for the state to reject 54 math textbooks? | Editorial

When is transparency not so transparent? When it comes to selecting math textbooks for Florida schools.

Republican lawmakers recently passed a law they said would give parents more of a say in the books taught in classrooms and found in school libraries. They covered up the movement with an appearance of seeking transparency. Last week, the powers that be announced they had rejected 54 of 132 math textbooks, saying many of them included references to critical race theory and other “forbidden topics” and “unsolicited strategies.” (That’s 41 percent, since we’re doing math.)

Naturally, you can ask a simple question: What were the offending passages?

The state’s response: It’s none of your business.

In its announcement last week, the state did not provide any specific examples of objectionable content in books, and when asked, officials did not fill in the obvious omission. No no no. Floridians can’t handle that kind of truth. How about transparency?

The announcement, as transparent as a Russian press release, made it appear that state education officials were hiding something. Could it be that? If books were so offensive, if they were so full of “forbidden subjects,” extracting a few examples of offensive passages for us all to see would hardly have required much effort. Instead, we’re left to imagine the possibilities, like these two we came up with:

Offensive Question: A woman who committed a felony has served her sentence and wants to vote again, but first wants to pay all of her fines and fees, as required by the Legislature. How much does she owe? (Answer: Good question. Often no one can say for sure.)

Offensive Question: At the end of March, the state had 5,145,983 registered Republicans and 5,034,448 registered Democrats. There are 28 electoral districts. How many seats should be favored for the Republicans to win? (Answer: 14. Wrong! You mistook this for a math question. It’s about politics. According to Gov. Ron DeSantis’s personal maps of Congress, Republicans would likely win 20 seats and Democrats 8.)

It’s unlikely that the passages state education officials found offensive were so obvious, but why, oh why, did they want to keep the evidence to themselves? Could it be that your case is as flimsy as a damp paper towel? Could it be that they wanted to add political points without having to play any defense? Maybe they have their own definition of transparency?

“Show your work!” is the mantra of many math teachers. They do not accept an answer without students showing how they reached their conclusions. When it comes to rejecting math textbooks, state education officials wanted him to skip that step. Instead, we should all insist that they always show their work.

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Editorials are the institutional voice of the Tampa Bay Times. Members of the Editorial Board are Editorial Editor Graham Brink, Sherri Day, Sebastian Dortch, John Hill, Jim Verhulst, and Chairman Paul Tash. Follow @TBTimes_Opinion on Twitter for more opinion news.