Rethinking Mathematics: Teaching Social Justice by the Numbers is an anathema, not only to traditional education, it is blatantly brainwashing minds with politically correct calculations. From coast to coast, classrooms are prepping children for community activism.

From the Northwest Teachers for Social Justice http://nwtsj.org/ to New York City’s El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice http://insideschools.org/high/browse/school/657, a mission in formulating a unique standard in teaching mathematics is rapidly being reinforced in our schools. ‘Social justice’ epithets are pervasive in education reform, resonating a compassion for the under privileged and seeking to change the inequities in communities. Radical educators are not satisfied however with using the Social Sciences to waken minds to the injustices of the world. The new equation is adding critical theory to mathematics instruction. One only needs to read the table of contents of the above to foresee the bar graph of oppressed minority children rise, due to lack of an academic education; Driving While Black or Brown, Sweatshop Accounting, Justice for Janitors, Chicanos Have Math in Their Blood, steer a course in “teaching mathematics for Racial Justice.

Ethnocmathematics combines math with anthropology, and proponents seek to even relegate it to a relativistic philosophy for the future. Since Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy for the Oppressed was published in 1970, a Critical Pedagogy developed for exploration in linking the classroom to sociopolitical issues. For the present, we need look no deeper than the various web vendors selling peace, and prosperity. Teachingforchange.org markets ‘Putting the Movement Back in Civil Rights Teaching’ a resource digressing to the sixties. It is listed in Rethinking Mathematics and is underscored by a raving review given by Linda Darling-Hammond, a member of the Validation Team for the Common Core.

Lessons on learning statistics and probability as early as the 2nd grade is a prerequisite for gathering and interpreting data and creating graphs for a comparison of a host of local and global problems. Advocates for teaching math for social justice (SJM) take advantage of the American Statics Association’s work on the skills related to this branch of mathematics. Contributors creating the “Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education” (GAISE) have issued a report on recommendations for statistics education for grades K-12. GAISE examples cited for data gathering are non-sociopolitical. Ethnomathematics, however, would propose controversial topics inclusive of racial profiling, environmental racism, pollution, poverty, conflict and economic disparities. Lessons in this resource perfectly fit with the social, economic and environmental strands in the ‘sustainable standards’ posted at the US Partnership. http://s3.amazonaws.com/usp_site_uploads/resources/123/USP_EFS_standards_V3_10_09.pdf

Corporations and ‘social justice’ advocates make strange bedfellows, but that is the mix for communitarianism. The ‘City Journal’ reported on a three day conference held in New York City, “Creating Balance in an Unjust World: Math Education and Social Justice”. Jonathan Osler, a math teacher at EL Puente Academy won a grant from the Zone Teacher Inquiry Grants Program funded by the NYC’s Department of Education to host the event. An article, in the City Journal, added the Mayor’s tolerance of ‘leftist politics in the classroom’, which contrast with his support of corporate led changes in restructuring schools. “El Puente was founded with funding from uber-capitalist Bill Gate’s education foundation”. http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-03-19ss.html There’s the social injustice, the elite helping the underclass underachieve.

James Milgram, the only mathematics academic on the Common Core Validation Team, chose not to endorse the standards. “We’ve added data analysis, statistics, and aspects of the “new math” including problem solving, Euclidian transformations and simple combinatorics since I was young. And our outcomes keep getting worse”. Milgram warns Americans that technical jobs in the future require a thorough ground in mathematics from an early age. His articles are most revealing on knowing the difference between teaching numbers on the value they represent, rather than an exercise in vocabulary. http://math.stanford.edu/milgram/education-index.html

Ethnomathematics, aka critical mathematics, is a pointless effort without critical thinking skills. Critical pedagogy is dialogical and dialectical materialism is the science of Marxism, seeking social justice through the collective. Ethnomathematics targets ethnic groups and justifies a victim mentality in children. It segregates ethnic minorities from traditional sequential mathematic instruction needed in post-secondary opportunities. SJM is a radical, racially biased method of unlearning pure academics. Teaching math for social justice is not a ‘fuzzy math’ trend. It’s not going to be erased easily.