[babaganoosh89]

While the premise of the article is sickening, I'd take opinion articles from WSJ with a big grain of salt. Their general reporting tends to be somewhat neutral, but their opinion articles tend to be invasively slanted and spun.

[lotsofpulp]

You can see the source material here:

https://equitablemath.org/

What is this nonsense?

> The Pathway offers guidance and resources for educators to use now as they plan their curriculum, while also offering opportunities for ongoing self-reflection as they seek to develop an anti-racist math practice. The toolkit “strides” serve as multiple on-ramps for educators as they navigate the individual and collective journey from equity to anti-racism.

[jgwil2]

From the first paragraph of the FAQ:

> For decades, America’s schools have tried and failed to close gaps on math test scores between White students and students of color. That’s not because math discriminates by race, and it’s not because some groups of students are inherently more suited to math. It’s because we give students of color and students from lower-income families the least access to critical resources, from the most qualified teachers to the best technology to the most advanced courses. And it’s because instructional materials and practices—even good ones—are influenced by culture and perspective.

Is it just me, or does that sound pretty reasonable?

[lotsofpulp]

Sure, but it has nothing to do with race.

Addressing challenges faced by children who grow up with poorer or less educated parents is fine. I do not see why race is brought into the discussion, other than to grab attention, at which I guess it was successful.

[thatswrong0]

A lot of the systemic issues that have caused people of certain races to be poorer and less educated have either a historical or direct basis in race. And then if you look then at the poverty rates by race, it's clear that certain policies (esp. with regards to educational funding) often have a far worse impact on members of a certain race than others.

It's not hard to make a connection between, say, an actually racist issue like redlining and how it affected the development of neighborhoods, and the subsequent lack of local funding for educational programs in the affected neighborhoods.

[zepto]

Sure - but none of this implies that changes are required to math education itself, or that there is anything racist about how math is taught. It just means missing resources should be provided.

[zepto]

It’s a reasonable problem to address. Agreeing with that has nothing to do with critiquing the absurdity of the ‘solution’.

[jgwil2]

I don't understand what is so absurd about the proposed solutions. Can you provide a citation, in context, of something particularly outrageous?

[zepto]

This doesn’t come off as an honest inquiry.

[jgwil2]

Well I didn't read the entire website, but from what I saw, the quote I cited above seemed representative of the general attitude, so I'm wondering where the outrage is coming from. As a matter of fact they seem to go to a lot of trouble to make it clear that they aren't attacking the field of math or math pedagogy, but merely are trying to add resources that could help the teaching of math. Of course it's possible I missed something, hence the inquiry. But thanks for your observation.

[jiojfdsal3]

Don't Asians have higher math scores than whites? Or do Asians not count as people of color anymore?

[TMWNN]

No. Thus the coining of "BIPOC".

[hirundo]

> journey from equity to anti-racism.

That seems to oppose equity with anti-racism. I thought that those were supposed to be the same destination.

[WalterBright]

What major newspaper doesn't engage in that in their opinion pieces?

In this case, the editorial provides numerous references. Read the references and form your own opinions.

[ThrowawayR2]

The parent poster does have a point; the Wikipedia entry for the author indicates that he identified politically as a Libertarian and later Republican: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williamson_Evers which is a likely bias.

We should be careful to draw conclusions only after reading the source material that the opinion piece is quoting from.

[zepto]

No, the parent is just making a standard ad-hominem which adds no value to discussion of the content.