Pushback against Woke Math

For some strange reason, the headline to the story concerns Lawrence Summers. Former Obama administration official, current Harvard professor Summers, along with hundreds of other professionals, signed a letter opposing the current trend in woke mathematics. 

That is, they oppose the effort to dumb down math education in high school. They are striking back against wokeness and declaring that we should not be punishing children who do better because some children do worse. For those who do not follow what is going on in today’s American schools, it means that the children who excel are invariably Asian. The children who lag are invariably of color.

One understands that the ongoing revolt of suburban mothers against local school boards has less to do with what is being taught-- critical race theory-- and more to do with what is not being taught-- advanced math and science. Children’s minds are being damaged by indoctrination, but they are even more damaged by not learning the math that they need to succeed in most STEM subjects.

The movement to dumb down math instruction, especially to cancel advanced math education, is, according to Summers, a national security crisis. Right he is. We applaud his integrity, as we have had occasion to do before. Clearly, the war against wokeness is not going to be won by conservatives alone. They will need allies from the more liberal academic left.

The Washington Free Beacon reports:

Summers called rigorous math instruction "an economic and a national security imperative," noting that "in China, math standards are not subject to continued erosion by social justice warriors who can't themselves define exponential growth or solve quadratic equations."

And, of course, children in China do not have to suffer the oppressive weight of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s efforts, in Oregon, to fund the degradation of math education.

As for the open letter itself, here are some excerpts, beginning with the fact that advanced math education is vitally important for nearly all of the jobs in tech fields:

We write to express our alarm over recent trends in K-12 mathematics education in the United States. All of us have first-hand experience of the role that clear mathematical thinking has played in advancing information technology and American economic competitiveness. 

Then the authors take out after the California effort to render schoolchildren stupid, but especially to punish the children who are gifted in math.

However, we are deeply concerned about the unintended consequences of recent well-intentioned approaches to reform mathematics education, particularly the California Mathematics Framework (CMF). Such frameworks aim to reduce achievement gaps by limiting the availability of advanced mathematical courses to middle schoolers and beginning high schoolers. While such reforms superficially seem “successful” at reducing disparities at the high school level, they are merely “kicking the can” to college. 

But, can the children who miss out on advanced math in high school still make it up in college? The signatories say that they can, but surely that depends on how far behind the children are. Even if they can, still they will need to work harder and will need to sacrifice in order to make up their deficit:

While it is possible to succeed in STEM at college without taking advanced courses in high school, it is more challenging. College students who need to spend their early years taking introductory math courses may require more time to graduate. They may need to give up other opportunities and are more likely to struggle academically. 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.

And they are alarmed by the trend away from teaching algebra and calculus, in favor of the squishy data science. Evidently, this new discovery dumbs down the curriculum to make the dumb children feel better. And yet, it deprives the smarter children of the chance to excel:

Another deeply worrisome trend is devaluing essential mathematical tools such as calculus and algebra in favor of seemingly more modern “data science.” As STEM professionals and educators we should be sympathetic to this approach, and yet, we reject it wholeheartedly. The ability to gather and analyze massive amounts of data is indeed transforming our society. But “data science” - computer science, statistics, and artificial intelligence- is built on the foundations of algebra, calculus, and logical thinking. While these mathematical fields are centuries old and sometimes more, they are arguably even more critical for today’s grand challenges than in the Sputnik era.

Yes, indeed. American educators are hard at work dumbing down America’s children. And they have probably been doing so for years now. It is not an accident that most of the employees of Silicon Valley firms grew up in Asia.

Finally, K-12 math curriculum development cannot be disconnected from one of its most important end goals: Preparing students for success in college-level STEM education and a STEM career. As educators in public and private institutions, and working professionals in the technology industry, we have a first-hand understanding of the skills needed for this goal. While the US K-12 system has much to improve, the current trends will instead take us further back. Reducing access to advanced mathematics and elevating trendy but shallow courses over foundational skills would cause lasting damage to STEM education in the country and exacerbate inequality by diminishing access to the skills needed for social mobility.

There you have it. Voices crying out in the wilderness. They are sounding an alarm about the educators who have chosen to sabotage the country’s future in order to promote their own ideological agenda. Hopefully, they are not too late.