Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday claimed he has “woke math’s” number, and he doesn’t like it.
The Republican railed about the mysterious (and nonexistent) form of mathematics in a speech in Tampa to the conservative group Moms for Liberty, who are opposed to several aspects of public education.
DeSantis was unable to elucidate exactly what “woke math” is. He suggested it’s math with little regard for correct calculations.
“I’m just thinking to myself, like, 2 plus 2 equals 4. It’s not 2 plus 2 equals: Well how do you feel about that? Is that an injustice?” he “explained.”
“No. We gotta teach the kids to get the right answer.”
He boasted that Florida sent “woke math” textbooks back to publishers. They “took the woke out and sent us back normal math books,” DeSantis said.
That was a head-scratcher, even for DeSantis.
Earlier this year, Florida’s Department of Education shipped thousands of textbooks, most of them for students in kindergarten through fourth grade, back to publishers. But in the case of math textbooks, it wasn’t because lessons were taking a “whatever” approach to calculations, as DeSantis claimed.
The Education Department released images to the press in April showing just four pages of allegedly “woke math” in returned textbooks. One, for example, included a bar graph showing that people over 65 and political conservatives tend to express more racial prejudice.
The move was part of ongoing conservative efforts in Florida to restrict any teaching in schools about racism or LGBTQ issues, the latter via its new “Don’t Say Gay” law.
One of hundreds of Floridians reviewing school textbooks in the state earlier this year flatly noted to the Education Department that its restrictions were simply “irrelevant to a math textbook,” The Washington Post reported.
Twitter critics of DeSantis’ nonsensical “woke math” rant think somebody needs a better education.