How Critical Race Theory Found Its Way Into Math Books

Numerous math textbooks were rejected by Florida’s state education department this past spring on the grounds that they contravened a state statute that forbids allusions to, among other ideas, critical race theory or the common-core learning standards.

The education department claimed credit for preventing publishers’ attempts to indoctrinate children after governor Ron DeSantis said that some of the textbooks featured “indoctrinating themes.”

A couple of months ago, the department rejected 54 of 132 math textbooks, with 28 of them allegedly including “prohibited ideas or unsolicited tactics” such as critical race theory, or CRT. It recently updated its list on its website, adding 37 math books to the “not recommended” category.

The Florida Department of Education announced that “publishers are aligning their instructional materials to state standards and removing woke content allowing the department of education to add 19 more books to the state adoption list over the past 17 days.”

The department released examples of what it calls “problematic elements” within textbooks recently reviewed and rejected by the department.

Among the activities highlighted by the FLDOE are graphics showing racial prejudice by age group and political affiliation, as well as a “social and emotional learning” instructional unit “designed to encourage student agency by focussing on students’ social and emotional learning.”

According to a Washington Free Beacon report, Minneapolis Public Schools approved more than $2 million worth of contracts in June for an elementary school math curriculum that would “contribute to an understanding of ethnic, racial, and cultural diversity representative of the student demographics in MPS.”

However, Jonathan Butcher, an education fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation said, “Critical race theory is something that can be and is being applied to all subjects, You have this argument that math is meant to combat white supremacy as opposed to giving students the tools they need to succeed in school and in life.” Noting that, “ Math is a tool of racial warfare instead of something that is supposed to prepare students to be successful in the job market or as they go off to college.”

The stated objective of race-based math standards, according to Butcher, is to close the math achievement gap between racial groups. He pointed out that in 2021, California adopted a series of changes to its math standards, and included in the changes was a section on “teaching for equity and engagement.”

“The best argument I think that those who advocate for critical race theory have is to say that students from low-income homes in urban areas are the ones who are most likely to struggle with math and science, But they argue that this is attributable to an oppressive structure in the United States or a set of laws and cultural mores that oppress people from minority ethnicities,” Butcher continued.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has contributed significantly to the field of so-called “equitable math.” The Gates Foundation is prominently praised on the website equitablemath.org, which offers resources for educators, including one on Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction, for their “kind financial assistance.”

The Charles E. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin received a $500,000 investment from the foundation in July 2021 to “promote equitable math educational opportunities and results,” even though the fund does not have “equitable math” among its stated grant recipients.

The program is the “basic concept that students and communities come from varied backgrounds and may have different ways of being and thinking, even in arithmetic,” according to the website, which acknowledges that “math problems… have proper answers.”

Butcher claimed that due to academic discrepancies between white children and black kids, math is a subject in which the American society “harbors white supremacy,” and that the Gates-funded program and others are striving to reform how math is taught from “how numbers operate and interact together.”

The text for Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction frequently uses the phrase “dismantling white supremacy.” The 83-page pamphlet contains 54 use of the phrase “white supremacy.”

The definition of white supremacy is the view that “white people and the ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and acts of white people are superior to people of color and their ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions,” in the materials given.

The program says in its introduction, “The framework for deconstructing racism in mathematics offers essential characteristics of antiracist math educators and critical approaches to dismantling white supremacy in math classrooms by making visible the toxic characteristics of white supremacy culture with respect to math.”

Butcher claimed that instructors are substituting allegations that arithmetic and the United States are “soaked with white supremacy” for the more important question of how to assist kids to succeed in math.

He said, “It is absurd, they changed the conversation from ‘how can we help kids from disadvantaged backgrounds succeed’ to ‘America has oppressive structures and math and science disparities are evidence of this.'”

Sources: Washingtonexaminer, Freebeacon, Msn