New Math? Thursday, August 19, 2021
From CalMatters and UCOP Daily News Clips: California’s proposed new math curriculum defies logic By Svetlana Jitomirskaya, 8-19-21 https://calmatters.org/commentary/2021/08/californias-proposed-new-math-curriculumdefies-logic/ Svetlana Jitomirskaya is a distinguished professor of mathematics at the University of California, Irvine While many people complain about the ideological biases in the California Department of Education’s proposal to revolutionize the state mathematics curriculum, that’s not the main problem. This plan has fundamental issues of concern and will do no child any good. It is irresponsible to make the entire state a laboratory for very controversial educational theories, and to do this without any review by the mathematics community. Public education should equip all students with logic and abstract-thinking skills. Even if you don’t remember the quadratic formula, the process of learning it made you a clearer thinker. That’s how the entire world teaches math. Most countries, from Singapore to Zimbabwe, require three or more years of algebrabased classes, five for students seeking careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Yet the proposed California Math Framework deprives students of opportunities to take deep algebra-based classes, and worse, is based on teaching materials that can only confuse a child’s emerging skills in logic and abstract thinking. Proponents claim California schools’ persistent achievement gap — the demographic discrepancies in educational achievement — requires a revolution in math teaching. The proposal, which could be adopted next year for use in California public schools serving 6 million students, emphasizes exploration at the expense of skills development. This ignores a mountain of evidence that similar ideas have consistently failed when 184
UCLA Faculty Association Blog: 3rd Quarter 2021
