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Between fights over mask mandates and new legislation dictating how history should be taught, schools have become a battleground for America's culture wars. Recently, the Florida Department of Education announced that it was rejecting dozens of math textbooks because they incorporated "prohibited topics" or "unsolicited strategies," such as critical race theory.

New York Times national correspondent Dana Goldstein says Florida officials have given little evidence to back up these claims. Goldstein and her colleague Stephanie Saul reviewed 21 of the rejected math textbooks and found very little mention of race. Instead, Goldstein theorizes the objections related to the inclusion of topics concerning social-emotional learning.

Goldstein says the rejected textbooks addressed social-emotional learning in a variety of ways. "Some of them were quite awkward," she says. "There was one fifth grade math textbook from McGraw-Hill that had sort of a simple fractions question, and then right underneath it said, 'How do you understand your feelings?'"