Popular Information - UPDATES: Koch exits, DeSantis responds
This is a special Friday edition of Popular Information. I wanted to provide you with two important updates to stories we covered in recent newsletters. — Judd For the last five weeks, Popular Information has reported extensively on Koch Industries, the corporation owned by right-wing billionaire Charles Koch, and its decision to continue business in Russia. Koch Industries was one of the few American companies to maintain full operations after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A brief overview:
On Thursday, Popular Information obtained an internal memo from Koch Industries that announced the company was exiting Russia—a dramatic reversal of its previous position. Robertson said it was "untenable" for Koch Industries to "continue operations in Russia." Koch Industries is a multi-billion dollar corporation controlled by Charles Koch, one of the most powerful figures in U.S. politics. Popular Information is a three-person newsletter. But, through in-depth research and reporting, we can hold powerful entities to account. You can support this work — and expand our capacity to do more of it — by becoming a paid subscriber. If you are already a paid subscriber, thank you. If you aren't yet, and can afford the subscription price of $6/month or $50/year, please consider becoming a paid subscriber today. To maintain our independence, Popular Information does not accept advertisements. But we also don't have a paywall. This work exists because of the voluntary support of readers like you. Florida responds to report on rejected math textbooksLast week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) and the state Department of Education announced that they had rejected 26 math textbooks for including "prohibited content." According to Florida officials, these books sought to "indoctrinate" students with "dangerous and divisive" ideas, including "Critical Race Theory" and "race essentialism." Notably, these officials did not present examples of this kind of content. When Popular Information requested examples, we received no response. DeSantis said that producing examples was impossible because the textbooks were proprietary. Popular Information obtained eight rejected math textbooks and reported what we found on Thursday. We found no examples of Critical Race Theory, "race essentialism," or the other claims made by DeSantis and his allies. Rather, we found some passages encouraging kids to be nice to each other, a few passing mentions of famous African-American mathematicians, and a handful of math problems that referenced racial disparities or prejudice as part of a fact pattern. This report quickly went viral on Twitter. 1. @GovRonDeSantis claims math textbooks "indoctrinate" students with "dangerous and divisive" ideologies like "Critical Race Theory"
But he REFUSED TO PROVIDE ANY EXAMPLES from the rejected books
So we tracked down 8 of them
Here is what we found
A few hours later, Popular Information was contacted by the Florida Department of Education with four "examples of problematic elements" from the rejected textbooks. You can view them here. Notably, the Florida Department of Education did not identify which textbooks contained these examples. Nor did it provide any explanation as to why these examples justified the rejections. It also did not address why it was possible to release these examples when DeSantis and others previously claimed it was impossible. But there is nothing in the four examples from Florida's Department of Education that is fundamentally different from the examples in Popular Information's report. Two examples touch on basic concepts of Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), encouraging students, for example, to be empathetic toward their classmates. The two other examples include references to racial prejudice as part of a fact pattern for a math problem. None of the examples substantiate the claims of DeSantis and other Florida officials. |
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Inside the "dangerous" math textbooks DeSantis claims would "indoctrinate students"
Thursday, April 21, 2022
On April 15, the Florida Department of Education issued a dramatic press release: "Florida Rejects Publishers' Attempts to Indoctrinate Students." In the release, Florida Commissioner of
Passing the mic [CORRECTED]
Wednesday, April 20, 2022
Apologies for the multiple emails this morning. Due to a technical error, the previous version did not have a link to the discussion thread. — J…
Passing the mic
Wednesday, April 20, 2022
So far this month, Popular Information exposed the inner workings of Charles Koch's non-profit network (prompting an avalanche of attacks from Koch-funded entities), revealed that the consulting
Inflation profiteering
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There is no single cause for inflation, which reached an annual rate of 8.5% in March. That's the fastest increase in prices since 1981. There are continuing problems with supply chains, rising
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Monday, April 18, 2022
A foreign policy analyst with extensive ties to the non-profit network operated by Charles Koch publicly cast doubt about whether Russian forces are attacking civilians in Ukraine. The analyst,
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