TALLAHASSEE – Florida education leaders are clamping down on state-prohibited topics in school textbooks.
The State Department of Education put out a bid to publishers for new social studies textbooks, with specific instructions that they not contain anything related to “critical race theory,” or “social justice.” It’s essentially what happened with math textbooks earlier in the year.
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The state’s call to publishers came with a 29-page document outlining what is and is not allowed to be in the books.
A new section added to the standards lists eight components that signal the DeSantis administration’s interpretation of critical race theory.
For instance, anything that implies that “an individual’s moral character or status as either privileged or oppressed is necessarily determined by his or her race, color, sex, or national origin,” or, “an individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”
The policy also bans “cultural responsiveness” and “social justice,” both of which the administration says carry aspects of CRT, meaning, the state says students cannot be encouraged to “eliminate undeserved disadvantages for selected groups.”
The document also bans books from having any social emotional learning content, including lessons on:
- Identity and identification concepts
- Managing emotion
- Developing relationships
- Social awareness
While the governor has touted these policies as a means to prevent indoctrination in Florida schools, many critics of the policy say that it seeks to drum up the support of Desantis’ political base during his re-election bid by solving a non-existent problem.
In April, the state initially rejected 54 math textbooks that were submitted, due to the state’s standards. In the last month, however, the FDOE says 38 of those 54 were resubmitted after the prohibited content was wiped. They’ve now been added to the approved list.
Books are submitted, reviewed and adopted on a five-year basis. Last year was history books. This year it’s new social studies books, followed by science, humanities, computers and English language arts over the next few years.
All of them will be scrutinized in the same way, unless there’s a change in administration this fall.
News4JAX requested comment from educators and administrators Thursday afternoon. Many said they weren’t familiar enough with textbook standards to comfortably comment. Others said they were fearful of retaliation from their school board or the state.