A look at textbooks Florida rejected

After the Florida Department of Education rejected dozens of math textbooks last week, the big question was why.

The department said some of the books “contained prohibited topics” from social-emotional learning or critical race theory — but it has released only four specific textbook pages showing content to which it objects.

Using online sample materials provided by publishers to Florida school districts, The New York Times was able to review 21 of the rejected books and see what may have led the state to reject them. Because Florida has released so few details about its textbook review process, it is unknown whether these examples led to the rejections. But they do illustrate the way in which these concepts appear — and don’t appear — in curriculum materials.

In most of the books, there was little that touched on race, never mind an academic framework such as critical race theory.

But many of the textbooks included social-emotional learning content, a practice with roots in psychological research that tries to help students develop mindsets that can support academic success.

One example from marketing materials provided by the company Big Ideas Learning — whose elementary textbooks Florida rejected — features one common way teachers are trained to think about social-emotional learning.

A circular diagram names the five core skills students should develop: self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision-making, social awareness and relationship building. This framework was developed by CASEL, an education nonprofit.

Until recently, the idea of building social-emotional skills was a fairly uncontroversial one in American education. Research suggests that students with these skills earn higher test scores.

But right-wing activists such as Chris Rufo, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, have sought to tie social-emotional learning to the broader debate over the teaching of race, gender and sexuality in classrooms.

In a March interview conducted over email, Rufo stated that although socialemotional learning sounds “positive and uncontroversial” in theory, “in practice, SEL serves as a delivery mechanism for radical pedagogies such as critical race theory and gender deconstructionism.”

Gov. Ron Desantis of Florida has spoken more generally about socialemotional learning as a distraction, in his view, from math itself.

“Math is about getting the right answer,” he said at a Monday news conference, adding, “It’s not about how you feel about the problem.”

Stephanie M. Jones, a developmental psychologist and expert on social-emotional learning at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, disagreed.

“Feelings arise all the time — they arise when we’re doing work at our offices, and when kids are learning things,” she said. “It makes sense to try and engage those feelings or grapple with them in order to be more effective at the thing we’re doing.”

Many of the rejected textbooks do prompt students to consider their emotions. In a Mcgraw Hill fifthgrade book, students are encouraged at the beginning of the school year to write a “math biography” reflecting on their feelings about the subject and how they expect math skills could help them enjoy hobbies or achieve goals.

“A math biography is a way of helping kids,” Jones said. “There is a fair amount of evidence that indicates that if you can surface your uncertainty and anxiety about something, it’s easier to grapple with it and manage it.”

Teachers could read the biographies to learn which students need extra support, she added.

Some Mcgraw Hill pages include social-emotional prompts that have little to do with the math problems, such as one example from a fifth-grade book. Beneath an ordinary math problem, students are asked, “How can you understand your feelings?”

The textbooks that Florida rejected are filled with references to character traits such as perseverance and cooperation. A firstgrade textbook from the publisher Savvas Learning Co., formerly known as Pearson K12 Learning, repeatedly refers to the importance of “effortful learning,” “learning together” and having a “growth mindset.” Throughout the book, cartoon children pop up at the sides of pages to remind students of these ideas.

Over the past year, as Republican Party activists increasingly focused on what they call the excesses of progressive education, social-emotional learning came under fire.

In June 2021, the Florida Department of Education sent a memo to the publishers of math textbooks, advising them not to include “social-emotional learning and culturally responsive teaching” in their materials.

Timothy Dohrer, director of teacher leadership at Northwestern University, called that “shortsighted” and said research showed that incorporating socialemotional learning into texts helped students learn social skills.