Travel Day

What I'm reading in the car

Yeah, not our car

We’re getting out of Chicago for a short trip to see family in Minneapolis. Nice. In the meantime, here’s what I’m reading.

Culture Wars . . . Ongoing

Subtopic: Censorship

For people who hate to read, they sure get worked up over books.

‘It came to my attention a few weeks ago that pornographic filth has been discovered at the Llano library,’ wrote Bonnie Wallace, a 54-year-old local church volunteer. ‘I’m not advocating for any book to be censored but to be RELOCATED to the ADULT section. … It is the only way I can think of to prohibit censorship of books I do agree with, mainly the Bible, if more radicals come to town and want to use the fact that we censored these books against us.’

Libraries, across the country, are perennial targets for fundamentalists’ ire. But this new wave of repression is broad and deep. Most literature can be deemed “inappropriate” by someone or other. Not only are right-wing extremists (not “conservatives”) targeting libraries to ban books, fringe groups are sneaking their adherents onto the library boards.

A majority of Americans are opposed to book bans, but a vocal minority is currently dominating the national conversation. . . . And yet, attempts to ban books from libraries are rising at an unprecedented level across the country. The American Library Association reported more than 729 attempted bans of 1,597 individual books in 2021 alone.

It’s so bad that the American Library Association initiated a national campaign to push back against book bans.

Librarians and other library workers are underpaid, they are technically skilled and highly educated, and they are front line workers dealing with the public. Now they have to deal with hostility and threats from the MAGAs.

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You may have heard that the state of Florida has rejected 54 math textbooks. They have reasons

spanning the inclusion of critical race theory to Common Core learning concepts. . . . The rejected books make up a record 41% of the 132 books submitted for review.

Critical race theory has been described by scholars as an examination of racism and its impact through systems, such as legal, housing and education. However, it is not taught in K-12. [emphasis mine, m.o.]

Twelve books were rejected because they did not meet Florida's benchmark standards, while 14 books were rejected because they both included prohibited topics and failed to meet curriculum standards.

The names of the rejected books were not included.

So Florida politicians prefer not to disclose which books were rejected for which reasons. Hmmm.

Here is an interesting juxtaposition. Compare the selections below: an article from UK newspaper The Guardian (US edition) reporting on the rejection of the math textbooks, and the statement by Florida authorities announcing the rejection of these texts.

The Guardian

Department officials disapproved an additional 11 books “because they do not properly align to Best Standards and incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT.” . . .

The release does not list the titles of the books or provide any extracts to offer reasons why the books were removed. The announcement follows a series of hardline measures by Republicans in the state to alter teaching in schools as conservatives thrust the issue of critical race theory into the country’s ongoing political culture wars.

Florida Department of Education Press Release

Florida Rejects Publishers’ Attempts to Indoctrinate Students

Tallahassee, Fla., April 15, 2022 – Today, Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran approved Florida’s initial adoption list for mathematics instructional materials properly aligned to Florida’s Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking . . . . The approved list followed a thorough review of submissions at the Department, which found 41 percent of the submitted textbooks were impermissible with either Florida’s new standards or contained prohibited topics.

‘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,’ said Governor Ron DeSantis. ‘I’m grateful that Commissioner Corcoran and his team have conducted such a thorough vetting of these textbooks to ensure they comply with the law.’ . . . The instructional materials process allows Florida to prevent publishers from incorporating inappropriate, ineffective, or unsolicited concepts and strategies into instructional materials that will dilute the quality of Florida’s nationally-recognized education system.

Which of the above quotes read like a description of something that happened (and can be shown to have occurred) and which one sounds like puffed-up state propaganda? You decide.

Concluding on lighter note: this latest Florida contretemps has motivated our best writers and deep thinkers to act.

Dana Milbank performed a public service by reviewing one of the rejected textbooks to identify the prohibited topics indoctrinating Florida’s children. Upon examining “Precalculus with Limits” Milbank expressed his disgust with the inappropriate material he found in the high school math text. (“If this is Precalculus With Limits, I’d hate to see the kind without limits.”)

It’s important to understand how math is poisoning our children’s minds. Luckily, the Florida GOP protects the kids from exposure to a textbook that

mentions “regression” and other forms of deviancy (“define conics in terms of eccentricity,” it commands); it tries to promote forbidden teachings about sexuality in requiring young people to identify “the product of conjugate pairs.”

Some of its indoctrinating concepts are merely gross (“Gaussian elimination”), while others are downright disgusting. “The focal chord perpendicular to the axis of the parabola is called the latus rectum,” it says on Page 702. It goes on to tell Florida’s children to “find the length of the latus rectum.” I don’t even want to know how that is done.

An even greater service to the public is rendered by Carlos Greaves, who has compiled a full list of math concepts unacceptable to Florida’s Commissar, excuse me, I mean Commissioner of Education.

Calculus: We stand firmly against any field of mathematics that requires integration.

Multiplication: We believe only certain numbers should be allowed to multiply with one another.

Polygons: We reject the notion that anything can have more than one side.

Set Theory: We oppose any concept that recognizes the “simple majority” or “plurality” of a group.

Equal Signs: We believe in equality, obviously. Just not the way they’re doing it.

Prime Numbers: The only prime number the State of Florida recognizes is 17—the age at which a woman is in her prime.

Square Roots: No mathematical concept that encourages using radical symbols should ever be taught in schools.

Non-Binary Operations, the Transitive Property, Cis(x), and Homogeneous Spaces: You’re not allowed to say any of these words in Florida.

Division: This one is OK with us.

Remember to tip your waitress.

See you on Tuesday!

Keep scrolling down (below Notes) to reach the comments, share, and like buttons.

Notes:

Ayana Archie, Florida rejects 54 math books.

Carlos Greaves, Math concepts the State of Florida finds objectionable.

Annie Gowen, Censorship battles’ new frontier: Your public library.

Oliver Laughland, Florida rejects 54 math books over “prohibited topics”.

Dana Milbank, DeSantis saves Florida kids from being indoctrinated with math.