(Washington Examiner) This month, California approved its new set of highly controversial math standards .
When it comes to instructional practice, Stanford mathematics professor Brian Conrad wrote a 25-page document detailing the ways in which the research cited in the framework either did not support or directly contradicted its claims. Former Brookings Institute fellow Tom Loveless documented more still, and argued that the framework would put California students years behind the developed world. But California is becoming a world leader in one department: using mathematics as a vehicle for Marxist ideology.
An Education Week reporter noted that the standards “have long faced political criticism—often from conservatives who oppose the idea that math class could be a venue to discuss social justice themes.” But conservatives do not dispute that math class could do this, but rather oppose the idea that it should. Because conservatives are concerned that “social justice” is a euphemism for Marxist ideology—a concern directly supported by the citations in the standards.
The framework declares that “teaching toward social justice can play an important role in shifting students’ perspectives.” To support that claim, it cites a 2019 book by Constantinos Xenofontos, titled Equity in Mathematics Education: Addressing a Changing World . In his introduction, Xenofontos notes that no one seems to explicitly “promote education for social injustice,” and that the term “social justice” is ideologically charged and “employed to disguise different agendas.”
That said, the author roots teaching for “social justice” in the work of Brazilian Marxist Paolo Freire, who “talks about how education needs to move towards decolonization, the breaking of relations between ‘oppressor’ and the ‘oppressed.’” Another academic named Marilyn Frankenstein opened the field of “critical mathematics education,” which was “an attempt to reconceive school mathematics as a site of political power, ethical contestation, and moral outrage.” Xenofontes goes on to note that “other scholars use the term mathematics education for social justice synonymously.” (Emphases in original.)
