California is on the verge of adopting a new math framework rooted in critical race theory.
According to The San Francisco Standard, the new standards pull programs for gifted students, “de-emphasizes calculus, and applies social justice principles to math lessons.”
The curriculum was first implemented in San Francisco (big shock) and is expected to be adopted statewide.
“We were transforming math education, and change is hard and scary,” said Rebecca Pariso, a math teacher at Hueneme Elementary School District. “Especially if you don’t understand why that change needs to occur. But I didn’t expect it to go this far.”
According to the report, “The intent of the state mathematics framework […] is to maintain rigor while also helping remedy California’s achievement gaps for Black, Latino and low-income students, which remain some of the largest in the nation.”
According to the framework, “Cultural relevance is important for learning and also for expanding a collective sense of what mathematical communities look and sound like to reflect California’s diverse history. A focus on equity recognizes that mathematics, over the years, has developed in a way that has excluded many students. Because of these inequities, teachers need to work consciously to counter racialized or gendered ideas about mathematics achievement.”
Over a thousand STEM experts signed an open letter condemning the proposed framework, saying it politicizes math. “[California’s] proposed Mathematics Curriculum Framework is presented as a step toward social justice and racial equity, but its effect would be the opposite—to rob all Californians, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, who always suffer most when schools fail to teach their students.”
The experts say the proposed framework “de-mathematizes math,” and that “a real champion of equity and justice would want all California’s children to learn actual math—as in arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus—not an endless river of new pedagogical fads that effectively distort and displace actual math.”
The STEM experts pointed out that the framework explicitly rejects the idea that mathematics is a “neutral discipline” and promotes “fringe teaching methods such as ‘trauma-informed pedagogy.'” They also say the framework distracts from actual mathematics by having teachers infuse environmental and social justice into the curriculum and develop students’ “sociopolitical consciousness.” Teachers are also urged to assign students tasks that allegedly solve “problems that “result in social inequalities.”
Under this proposed framework, teachers are encouraged to focus on the contributions that “historically marginalized people have made to mathematics” instead of focusing on those contributions themselves without regard to who made them.
Math is a universal language that doesn’t discriminate, yet the social justice warriors in California see it is as yet another way to indoctrinate our kids with leftist ideology.
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