WELL, HE’S RIGHT YOU KNOW: Top Dem Economist Says Woke Math Is a National Security Threat: Larry Summers blames ‘social justice warriors’ for giving China a leg up.
The last few years have seen a proliferation of “open letters” by academics in politics and the humanities in favor of progressive causes. The hard sciences are different, and when mathematicians, physicists and engineers speak up to defend the integrity of their fields, Americans should pay attention.
The latest example is a new public statement from hundreds of the country’s top quantitative scientists warning about the assault on math in schools. “We write to express our alarm over recent trends in K-12 mathematics education in the United States,” the statement begins. The social-justice wave of 2020 accelerated efforts to eliminate standardized testing and lower standards in math to give the appearance that achievement gaps don’t exist.
The scientists delicately describe the politicized erosion of standards as “well-intentioned approaches to reform mathematics education.” They zero in on the California Department of Education’s proposed new math framework, which encourages math teachers to take a “justice-oriented perspective.” The signatories say the course roadmap will reduce the “availability of advanced mathematical courses to middle schoolers and beginning high schoolers” and discourage students from taking calculus.
This is supposed to advance “equity.” But in addition to damaging America’s global competitiveness, the letter says, the decline of rigorous math in public schools “may lead to a de facto privatization” of top-tier instruction and “harm students with fewer resources.”
Woke policies always hurt poor people and minorities. They’re practically designed to.