New Victim of the Culture Wars: Multiplication Tables
Ya just never know what the hell Florida is going to do next.
The Florida Department of Education announced it has rejected dozens of math textbooks submitted by publishers for schools, saying they “contained prohibited topics” including critical race theory.
And, you know, adding and subtracting.
The fun part is that these are elementary school math books. Are some of the word problems being done with names not found in Shakespeare or the Bible?
Holy cow, wait until they find out that Arabic numerals are being taught, too. Here’s betting DeSantis will demand we start doing doing multiplication tables with Roman numerals.
State Rep. Carlos Smith (D) tweeted Saturday that DeSantis was “hysterically pulling math books outta FL schools claiming they ‘indoctrinate’ kids with CRT.”
- “This isn’t just crazy right-wing pandering— next they’ll spend MILLIONS of tax dollars forcing schools to buy math books from GOP campaign donors,” Smith added.
Oh yeah, check to see how many textbook sellers are donating to DeSantis.
Now let’s not rush to judgement. I remember vividly to this day being taught CRT in my 3rd grade math class 68 years ago in Pennsylvania, and I still bear the emotional scars!! So I can appreciate the Florida Department of Education’s concern about protecting young and malleable minds from this socialist propaganda.
1I don’t think De Santis sees math books with word problems, as much as he sees math books with word solutions:
“If a sitting governor approves 10 publishers of text books in his state, how many of those publishers will make contributions to his campaign? If each of them contribute $1 million dollars, how much in total will the governor receive from them for his reelection campaign?”
2DeSantis et al have learned so well from the Russian oligarchs. What will happen when he and his funders are turned out?
3I’m just waiting for the Ivy League and all other private colleges that are really hard to get into to announce they won’t even consider applications from graduates of Florida public schools.
4As we all know here, the nuttier the claim, the more it excites the repugnantican voters. Can’t wait till it leaks out which math books were tossed and what math problems are so potentially harmful to young student minds.
5A quick search of “CRT math” yields:
Critical Race Theory (gosh, who would have expected that?)
Chinese Remainder Theorem
Criterion Referenced Testing
Calculus Readiness Test
Cognitive Reflection Test (a lawyer thing)
Culturally Responsive Teaching
C Runtime Library (a Microsoft thing)
Charitable Remainder Trusts
CRT (abbreviation for Credit, as in credit hours)
Combat Results Table
Combinatorial Reprocity Theorems
And the evergreen Cathode Ray Tube. I’m pretty sure that’s what they’re complaining about.
6You missed crazee repugnantican thinkers. Dirty minded thinkers they are.
7Math, the kryptonite of Qcumber conservative politicians. So, what Ron is really confessing: he’s as corrupt as pRick Scott the Medicare thief.
May two words really scare the guilty: forensic accountant.
8I attended and then graduated from a public high school in Florida 64 years ago. I still have the math textbooks I used in that school. We were required to buy them [yes, poorer students were subsidized] because the math teachers did not approve of the math textbooks selected by the State Textbook Committee, considering them substandard.
9Well, there are binary numbers after all and those could lead to non-binary numbers and Republicans can’t have gay numbers
10I’m sure that the many various number and numerary systems are enough to totally befuddle the typical Rethug.
Hexadecimal might scare them, but just lay the Sexagesimal numeral system on them and watch their tiny minds explode [hint- most common usage is with time].
[I frequently worked in binary, octal, decimal, hexadecimal, rarely quaternary and duodecimal, when troubleshooting, coding/recoding in large systems; with many embedded smaller systems.]
11Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange? On a red cover?
How many colors are missing from the (GAY!) rainbow?
Indoctrination starts young!
Decimal arithmetic? Non-binary! Augh!
(/s, in case it’s not obvious)
12It`s funny how Vlad the Mad, Mr Wig (Trump) and now Mr DS, ALL belong in the Mad House .
13OK, so all those oppositional Republicans are actually confessing that they hated math when in school and usuually passed the course with a D or sometimes, mistakanly with a C!”I bet they don’t know how to balance their own checkbooks!
14Wouldn’t you know they’d eliminate math twenty some-odd years too late for me. It could have been Calculus and would have made me happy–it took me six tries to pass Calculus. And I don’t believe I’ve wanted or needed to use it since.
15I and several other mathematicians have been trying to find out just what was in the rejected textbooks that made their little pointed heads explode. So far the only response is an image from a homework assignment in Missouri, one which was not from a textbook but instead set by a teacher there. The assignment was ridiculous … but not as ridiculous as using it as a reason to reject textbooks in Florida. It was posted by a Florida legislator, not DeSantis or one of his henchmen.
Almost everyone I know is coming to the same conclusion as folks here: it’s a ploy to dump current publishers who aren’t ponying up to the DeSantis fund, and get more generous souls as the suppliers.
maggie @14, it seems that you’ve taught math for business majors before. I’ve had students explain to me that D is optimal, since it indicates the minimal effort to pass the course. A C is a sign of failing to properly allocate time in your college career. An A or B is a sign that you’re headed for a career that terminates in mid-management at best.
16Steve@7 Thinkers??”?? Not even dirty ones!
17Obviously was trying to come up with crt word’s. Think thinkers was a bad choice. Try “tomfools” which is the opposite of “thinker”. Never heard that word but I “think” it fits. Hope you enjoy Lake Oswego.
18