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 say in the books taught in classrooms and found in school libraries. They cloaked the move in a veneer of pursuing 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 “prohibited topics” and “unsolicited strategies.” (That’s 41%, since we’re doing math.)
Naturally, you might ask a simple question: What were the offending passages?
The answer from the state: None of your business.
In its announcement last week, the state did not provide any specific examples of objectionable content from the books, nor when asked did officials fill in the obvious omission. No, no, no. Floridians can’t handle that kind of truth. How’s that for transparency?
The announcement — as transparent as a Russian press release — made it seem like state education officials were hiding something. Could that be? If the books were so offensive, if they were so chock-full of “prohibited topics,” plucking out a few examples of offending passages for us all to see would hardly have taken much effort. Instead we are left to imagine the possibilities, like these two we made up:
Offending question: A woman who committed a felony has served her time and wants to vote again, but first she wants to pay all her fines and fees, as the Legislature requires. How much does she owe? (Answer: Good question. Often, no one can say for sure.)
Offending question: At the end of March, the state had 5,145,983 registered Republicans and 5,034,448 registered Democrats. There are 28 congressional districts. How many seats should Republicans be favored to win? (Answer: 14. Wrong! You mistook this for a math question. It’s all about politics. Under Gov. Ron DeSantis’ personal congressional maps, Republicans would likely win 20 seats and Democrats eight.)
It’s unlikely the passages the state education officials found offensive were that obvious, but why oh why did they want to keep the evidence to themselves? Could it be that their case was as flimsy as a damp paper towel? Could it be that they wanted to score 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 don’t accept an answer without students showing how they arrived at their conclusions. When it comes to rejecting math books, state education officials wanted you to skip that step. Instead, we should all insist that they always show their work.
