I urge the beleaguered Florida educators I’ve taught to stay in their students’ corner | Opinion

When I moved to Miami last spring, I knew that my temperament would sometimes be tested by the political climate. I’m an assistant professor of educational leadership at Florida International University (FIU). I research student achievement and the supports that help children thrive. I also teach teachers. I used to do a lot more public-facing work before I got here, but have since told myself: “Stay out of it. It’s not worth it.”

But this week, one of my friends texted me, “Wait, so your kids can’t learn math in Florida?” Funny as that was, it got me fired up. I couldn’t stay out of it. Rejecting textbooks for potentially including Critical Race Theory or Socio Emotional Learning is nothing but a political charade, one that can hurt our students.

At FIU, I teach graduate students who are educators throughout the county. Because I have gotten to know them personally, I wrote them this email on Wednesday:

Hey Class,

I hope you’re as well as possible. I know final exams are around the corner, but I felt the need to rant about these ridiculous math textbook rejections in our great state of Florida. I figured who better to rant to than to my students? You are valiant and caring educators who fight on despite the fact that education has become a public spectacle here.

Before I moved to Florida last spring, I used to be more vocal about issues back within the safe bubble of New York City’s liberalism. My students at New York University were undergrads, bright-eyed and eager to go into teaching. They’d look to me for advice on dealing with tough situations and teaching with conviction.

Now I hope they’re still going into and staying in the profession, hard as it is right now and with everyone fleeing en masse. I know many of you also debate leaving. Teachers are done waiting for public officials to throw them life vests, choosing to wade into whatever waters there may be, instead of patching up holes in a sinking ship they did not create.

But the recent absurdity in Florida around math textbooks made me remember my voice and what I care about: education and nurturing children’s yearning to learn.

Imagine: Radical educators sneaking Critical Race Theory into how to calculate a circle’s circumference. Being a public university educator of educators and a scholar of achievement makes living in Florida feel like being in an episode of “Black Mirror,” sometimes.

Aside from addressing the educational-textbook industrial complex, I know many of you would agree that it is inane to reject books on the premise that they, God forbid, might include language around Socio-Emotional Learning or other prohibited topics. We’ve discussed how the debate around Critical Race Theory is an ideological scapegoat. Let’s be honest, CRT is not being taught in America’s public schools.

With the pittance teachers are paid, who believes they’d voluntarily slip a highly academic framework with origins in jurisprudence into their lesson plans?

Now that my title is professor of educational leadership, I’ve mentioned to you that I’m investigating what leadership actually means and looks like. So far, I’ve learned that part of leadership is standing against what you know to be unfair.

A governor hijacking public education for political gain and keeping children from the opportunity to learn and thrive, is an exemplar of unfairness. When Gov. Ron DeSantis initially decided last year that children in his public schools didn’t need $2 billion in federal funding, I realized how out of touch and out of empathy he was. Maybe he didn’t realize that $800 per kid was a lot for some families. He also threatened to take away millions from schools that wanted their own mask policies. But those times I sat on my hands. Today, we’re being told we can’t think about children’s social and emotional needs and learn math at the same time, and I’m speaking up.

I thank you, my educator students, for the work that you do. I realize that can sound empty when everyone is busy focusing on the wrong things. But as far as your students are concerned, sometimes you’re all they have in their corner.

In solidarity,

Anindya

Anindya Kundu, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of educational leadership at Florida International University in Miami. His TED Talks related to educational opportunity gaps have been viewed more than 5 million times. His book, “The Education Leaders’ Diary,” will be published in 2023.

This story was originally published April 20, 2022 at 1:23 PM.