Hundreds of mathematicians warn against social justice-based math standards The “ Open Letter on K-12 Mathematics ” is significant pushback against efforts to reform math education due to achievement gaps that often fall upon racial lines. Liberal activists and educators say the reforms are necessary to achieve racial equity due to those racially disparate achievement levels. To date, the letter has been signed by 597 math professionals from all over the country, including numerous college professors, high school teachers, and researchers, ranging from engineers to physics and computer science professors. The letter says “well-intentioned” efforts to reform math education, including a much-maligned effort in California dubbed the California Mathematics Framework, may superficially achieve goals of reducing student achievement gaps but are ultimately just “kicking the can to college," which they say would lead to lower math achievement in schools, thus hurting the ability of students to enter STEM fields. “Such frameworks aim to reduce achievement gaps by limiting the availability of advanced mathematical courses to middle schoolers and beginning high schoolers,” the letter says. “Such a reform would disadvantage K-12 public school students in the United States compared with their international and private-school peers. It may lead to a de facto privatization of advanced mathematics K-12 education and disproportionately harm students with fewer resources.” The California Mathematics Framework , which the letter specifically cites as concerning, says teachers should “take a justice-oriented perspective” to teaching math and that “a social justice approach to mathematics enables the humanizing of mathematics.” ------------------------------ The achievement gap is widest in states like California that have a large Asian population.
I see that California has an upcoming school choice/voucher type referendum next November. MOST EXCELLENT. Critics will argue that it will not pass in California and that may be. But that is not necessarily how change happens. The referendum and the issue will get lots of publicity and other states will give it more thought, and then it passes in one of the less loony states. And then go from there.
This follows a pattern of dumbing down testing and achievement when the results don't match up with cultural Marxist dogma.
Paper swaps out ‘racist math’ headline after backlash USA Today was forced to swap out a headline asking if math was “racist” after reader outcry. The replacement – “Is math education racist?” – wasn’t much better, and teachers are up in arms over their discipline’s demonization. Tuesday’s original headline literally asked “Is math racist?” before qualifying it by noting “schools are altering instruction – sometimes amid intense debate” while “many students of color struggle with the subject.” After the headline drew outrage from teachers and parents alike, USA Today tweaked the title. By the following day, the headline asked, “Is math education racist?” and suggested “debate rages” over changes to how the subject was being taught. Not mentioned was the debate raging over how the subject was being written about. The article was also by then behind a paywall, but, as the internet never forgets, commenters continued to react with disgust. In addition to the readers offended by the original title, legions of commenters perturbed by USA Today’s efforts to cover up its own “racism” made a point of weighing in on the issue. “Math is not racist,” Washington Times columnist Tim Young noted, but “‘educators’ who think it needs to be changed and made easier because some black kids struggle with it…ARE.”