Clayton Cramer blogs a particularly virulent form of multicuralism that, according to this article, has infected the math curriculum of Newton, Mass. (Hat Tip to reader Nels Nelson)
Between 1999 and 2001, the article reports, Superintendent Young and Assistant Superintendent Wyatt, “and an assortment of other well-paid school administrators,”
defined the new number-one priority for teaching mathematics, as documented in the curriculum benchmarks, “Respect for Human Differences – students will live out the system wide core of ‘Respect for Human Differences’ by demonstrating anti-racist/anti-bias behaviors.” It continues, “Students will: Consistently analyze their experiences and the curriculum for bias and discrimination; Take effective anti-bias action when bias or discrimination is identified; Work with people of different backgrounds and tell how the experience affected them; Demonstrate how their membership in different groups has advantages and disadvantages that affect how they see the world and the way they are perceived by others…” [Emphasis added]
Newton, a heavily white, upper middle class community, has seen the math scores of it students decline steadily over the past three years.
Perhaps this decline could be reversed if Newton re-introduced math into the math curriculum.
UPDATE
Re Massachusetts Math (my term), eminent edu-blogger Joanne Jacobs writes:
If I wanted to keep poor, minority kids at the bottom of the social and educational ladder, I could find no better way than to devote class time to teaching them to see prejudice everywhere, rather than teaching them to add, multiply and find the common denominator.
All those who see discrimination everywhere, and who see it as the explanation for everything (I’m thinking especially of a couple of regular commenters here — you know who you are), should ponder the profundity of Joanne’s remark.
‘Nowhere among the first priorities for the math curriculum guidelines is the actual teaching of math. That’s a distant second. ‘
Looks like they should have made it close second.
As long as the mind of the student is guided in the politically correct way, everything else will take care of itself. Schools are not for educating students. Students are educated enough by television, hiphop and metal music, and popular culture in general. No, schools will fulfill their purpose by merely aligning the child’s mind with the proper zeitgeist.
My daughter’s math books, from 7th through 11th grade, were chock-full of “fabulous firsts”. There were a few fabulous first white men, women, and minorities who were mathematicians and scientists. There were lots and lots of fabuous first women and minorities whose bios had nothing to do with math or science. I remember one about Wilma Mankiller, included because she was the first female head of the Cherokee nation. There was absolutely nothing in her bio that referred to math or science at all. No wonder the books are so big and heavy nowadays.
Recently one of our stellar school board members who can’t be bothered to inform himself of what’s happening in the schools* remarked that he wanted to add black history to the school curriculum because he thought that doing so would boost test scores. My daughter read that in the paper and gasped, “You mean there’s more?”
* another wants to return to neighborhood schools. We’ve had neighborhood schools for over a decade, since busing for desegregation was abandoned as a lost cause.
Test Scores and Regression Toward the Mean
Many people are eager to blame a fictional “anti-racist math” program for one school’s decling test scores. But they overlook a critical property of statistics…
Be sure to check out TangoMan’s detailed exploration of this issue at Gene Expression.
Newton Revisited
What ever happened to the Newton schools that were alledgedly taken over by an “anti-racist math” program? The sixth-graders are doing fine.
…
There are some reactionary distortions above maligning Newton Public Schools (NPS) and probably public schools in general. Since it is a public school system, NPS falls under the curriculum guidelines of the State of Massachusetts and follows those of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. It is a distortion to claim that the “number one priority” in the math curriculum is “respect for differences,” and so on. Instead, the latter is listed as the first “outcome”–all the other outcomes are math-related. Besides the overall “goal” of the math curriculum–“for all students to understand mathematical concepts and processes”–there are seven “objectives,” all math, plus “content strands,” all math.
Blogger Joanne Jacobs claims above that class time apparently is spent teaching students to “see prejudice everywhere”–another distortion. Because a desired “outcome” lists anti-discriminative behavior does not mean time in a math class, or any class, is spent “teaching” this value.
Incidentally, for the reactionaries among you, a study was completed in 2008, in California, that shows that young people actually do exhibit the values of anti-discrimination, etc. It probably is occurring among young people without any class time devoted to it, because it is a prevalent value now in society. NPS is simply acknowledging the desired social reality (not as a teaching objective) in its curriculum. It might be partly public relations toward the Newton community, but good for them that the curriculum guidelines say the right things for all to see.