Florida rejects 54 math books, claiming critical race theory appeared in some

I know you're being facetious about interns, but issues today go so far beyond this. There's an actual war on in Europe, inflation is the highest it's been since the 70's and the pandemic is still wreaking havoc on global supply chains. There are very real crises to deal with, but there's political hay to be made from culture war divisions.

Not because of some unique effect of social media; race in education has been that kind of culture war centerpiece for a long time; it was more than 25 years ago that a major national controversy erupted because of a single local school board decision on recognizing African American English as a distinct source language that students come with and which impacts teaching of Standard American English.

(It's true that decisions to impose a racist view of American society by the same faction that has pushed anti-CRT policies in the states where they have recently passed anti-CRT laws wouldn't be news, but that's more the same shift of the center on educational content that the anti-CRT movement is part of the response to than anything about social media.)

You'd hope they'd be a better source of news that better serves all political parties. (And avoid those that seem partisan.)

Title may as well have been "dear leader protects children".

I could also imagine it being something much more benign. I really wish we could see what it actually was so we could see if the DoE's judgement here was reasonable or not.

That's the thing, they don't. And this is all a farce to line the pockets of some publisher in bed with some lawmakers.

So what else could they do? Don't write about it?

This is not a new battle ground

Knowing past history of these types of things in other states I doubt there is much to hang a hat on.

Some Florida politicians have asked for the info and the media has filed FOIA or the Florida equivalent for the details.

Correct. DeSantis is using the journalistic practice of branding something as some flavor of offensive, without citing any examples. This is the first time I see journalists complain about it and demand specifics.

The books can still be bought and sold, they just wont be with public dollars.

Is Harry Potter "banned" now by most of Twitter too?

Writing textbooks for core subject areas, with material stirring controversy seems to be the new battleground for educators.

Ever notice how someone can create a hostile environment without doing anything hostile? Or someone can push right to edge, then back off, claiming "not my intent".

There is an analogous concept in physical therapy. You move a body part as far as you can, to test range of motion and limits. Then try it again, except the therapist assists you to move it farther, even supporting it while you rest a moment. Then you repeat the test, almost always going significantly farther.

You move the bar, the limit, the acceptable range of motion, or speech, or teaching social justice under the guise of core math.

That feels like enough to discuss to me.

Regardless of ones political stance, the ruthless drive to win at all costs is causing serious damage to our society.

In all actuality it is the idea that race doesn't exist, it's just something made up by people to exploit other people with different skin color.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory#Tenets

> cross-disciplinary intellectual and social movement of civil-rights scholars and activists who seek to examine the intersection of race, society, and law

In the country where I was brought up that was just part of history/society classes instead of a separate thing, but racial tensions in the US seems more extreme than anywhere else so maybe that's why it exists as a separate thing?

> Simply put, critical race theory states that U.S. social institutions (e.g., the criminal justice system, education system, labor market, housing market, and healthcare system) are laced with racism embedded in laws, regulations, rules, and procedures that lead to differential outcomes by race.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/02/why-are-sta...

Put another way, it's allowing the possibility that systems themselves can be racist.

However, I think you will find that the definition is heavily swayed by your political bent (especially if you are a politician).

Conservatives news sources spend alot of air time on the idea of this happening than reality. The general idea is that they don’t like unpleasant history for their children, that they preemptively call revisionist. This has now become a boogeyman in conservative leaning states and affecting real world things.

It's a tool used by some politicians to paint the other side as insane radicals. Insane news stories are pointed at and accused of being a result of CRT, and of course their own side would outlaw it.

That's why they ban books without even saying which books are banned: so they are seen as taking action against the enemy, CRT. In reality there is perhaps some corruption and they want to help a specific publisher.

    Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary intellectual and social movement of civil-rights scholars and activists who seek to examine the intersection of race, society, and law in the United States and to challenge mainstream American liberal approaches to racial justice. The word critical in its name is an academic term that refers to critical thinking, critical theory, and scholarly criticism, rather than criticizing or blaming people.

    A key CRT concept is intersectionality—the way in which different forms of inequality and identity are affected by interconnections of race, class, gender and disability. Scholars of CRT view race as a social construct with no biological basis. One tenet of CRT is that racism and disparate racial outcomes are the result of complex, changing, and often subtle social and institutional dynamics, rather than explicit and intentional prejudices of individuals.

    CRT scholars argue that the social and legal construction of race advances the interests of white people at the expense of people of color, and that the liberal notion of U.S. law as "neutral" plays a significant role in maintaining a racially unjust social order, where formally color-blind laws continue to have racially discriminatory outcomes.