The Boston Globe reported that advanced math students were primarily White and Asian, while lower-level courses mostly had Black and Hispanic students. Cambridge Public Schools noticed this trend before, but things only worsened due to the pandemic. This led to all four middle schools in the district axing Algebra I.
Instead of providing extra help to the minority children and their families so they can do the work, the WOKE schools decided to drag down all the children based on the color of their skin.
A district parent and a Harvard physicist, Jacob Barandes, told the Boston Globe, “The students who are able to jump into a higher level math class (in high school) are students from better-resourced backgrounds.” The scientist added, “They’re shortchanging a significant number of students, overwhelmingly students from less-resourced backgrounds, which is deeply inequitable.”
Another parent is probably going to enroll her child in a private school. Others talked of homeschooling.
Parents are worried that axing advanced classes will make it harder for their children to keep up with high school math.
Schools Superintendent Victoria Greer told the Globe, “We have a huge focus on addressing both the academic achievement gaps and the opportunity gaps in our community.” Greer continued, “One thing the district is not interested in doing is perpetuating those gaps.”
So give them extra help!! You don’t limit children with your own personal biases.
Manuel Fernandez, the former principal of Cambridge Street Upper School, told the outlet, “Students internalize it—they believe the smart kids are the white kids. Our staff said we cannot continue to divide our students this way.” Fernandez added, “Over time, you end up with lower-level math courses filled with black and Latino children and high-level math classes with white and Asian children.”
Yes, so what you do is get them help. You don’t give up on them and assume they can’t learn advanced math because of the color of their skin or the math is too white. That’s irrational.
This person was a principal? He thinks the thing to do is to turn everyone into dummies.
I have worked for years with minority children, and many had disadvantaged backgrounds, but they learn as well as anyone else. Give them the extra help they need.
It’s Insane
As some posters say, we need school choice!
So Cambridge Public Schools gets millions of dollars from the taxpayer. There are disparities between affluent children & low income children. So instead of teaching them up you…eliminate advanced math. This is a walking billboard for school choice. https://t.co/5dizK1xecm
— Darvio Morrow (@DTheKingpin) July 16, 2023
Since when is Algebra 1 advanced math?
My guess is they fired the only teachers qualified to teach it.
it’s simple. Some brave person must teach black children how to be white.
Better resourced backgrounds? WTH does that mean?
It is jargon. He doesn’t know what it means.
My guess is it means household income, but my (rhetorical) question is why are they using race as a proxy for everything? There’s a well-known saying in statistics that “correlation does not necessarily imply causation.” The observation that shows more black and latino students in lower math classes should be seen as an invitation to find the real causes.
My bet is that you’ll find a much stronger connection between single-parent homes and lower math classes, and also two-parent homes and advanced math class attendence, and that studying on that basis will furthermore explain many of the “outliers” of the analysis based only on race.
Maybe the teachers should put an emphasis on teaching children math instead of pushing race and recruiting for the trans community..
Just a thought….
Down with all public schools and the unions
Total idiots!!
Marxism has NEVER provided equity. That’s just the bait & switch pitch used to sell it. In reality, the ruling party has everything and the masses have nothing.
They are creating EVEN MORE disparity as parents of the smarter kids pull them out of the public schools. This will accelerate the fall of public schools.
They can do all they want to White and Asian students down and it won’t make any difference when it comes to Black student achievement. All they manage to do is hurt White and Asian education. Those are not the type of people you want in education administration.
Instead of “educating up,” Cambridge Public Schools chose to “educate down” because when everyone is at level zero, equity will have been achieved.
When I went to school back in the 60’s and early 70’s we had advanced math also, we had algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus, we also had business math. Students who were trig and calculus were electives and mostly take by kids who were extremely good at at while business math was taken mostly by the kids in shop or BOCES. They should do the same in those schools. Let the kids who want to take advance math take it and the rest take what they are comfortable with. Everyone needs the basics of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, stress those first before having kids taking algebra 2 and 3 in 6th or 7th grades. learn the basics first everything else will fall in line.
Your ideas make too much sense, so they will not be implemented.
The schools fail when not all students are prepared for and want to take Algebra 1 in a timely manner. This is the tyranny of low expectations in elementary and middle school.
The dumbing down continues…but Americans tolerate it.
If a student doesn’t take Algebra I in middle school then they won’t be ready to take Calculus before graduation so this means no engineering or physics related fields is even a possibility. Being next to MIT this is a great plan for your students, wouldn’t you say? Cut off careers before they can ever start, we can always hire foreign workers who did advance in math. We depend on foreign workers to land on the moon instead of missing it. How stupid we are.
Exactly! STEM need calculus.
according to: Joe Biden told a crowd…that “poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids,”
They’ve almost completed the job of dumbing down the minority kids so now they’re starting to dumb down the White and Asian kids.
We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that stupid people won’t be offended
I feel for the White victims but not for the asians victims. Asians vote overwhelmingly for those implementing racist policies against their children and they can reap it.
Interesting. My rates just went up. hehe
Can calculate angles on a miter saw… will travel.
Pure insanity.
Someday, the school nurse will be in charge of lobotomizing every student who is smarter than the average liberal.
i hope all the White and Asian kids find a new school
Some convince me that pubically6 run schools are useful and viable? Competition makes everything better. Give parents vouchers to send their children to technical, military, religious, crazy rev al schools. But don’t squeeze them into Albert Shanker re education camps.
Throughout history great powers have risen and fallen. Those that became great generally had strong, wise leaders and developed great military power. Often, they fell because the leaders no longer had wise help, and the leaders became too selfish and wealth lead to people who no longer had to work for a living. Many began using mercenaries in their armed forces and slaves to do ‘mundane’ tasks.
Since industrialization began, great natural resources became a necessity.
The way to defeat a superior power was to wait for or even facilitate a country’s suicide.
The USA became the greatest power on earth. Those that want to bring it down are trying to encourage it’s suicide. Let’s look at the plan for suicide:
The USA could build off great resources including cheap power. To bring it to suicide the country needs to drop the advantage. So, find reasons to not use coal, shut down recovering oil and natural gas resources, convince the nation that uranium generation of electricity is bad. Create expensive energy, dependent on resources from other countries.
Farm out the mundane to “slaves” (or people in other countries who are effectively slaves.)
The country became a place where great scientist and inventors could prosper. That had to be stopped.
So begin to punish creative clear thinkers (Think of medical people who warned against mRNA vaccines.)
The resource of people and their minds has to be stopped, by not training the best to be the best. Have the school no longer have training to help the best learn and grow.
The resource of hard-working people: reward people who do not work hard and punish through taxes those that do.
Etc. etc. …