Socially Just STEM – it’s a’comin’

George Rebane

While the Dems have the nation tied in Kavanaugh knots and Russia collusions, they are also making quiet progress on other fronts.  In their constant efforts to weaken and then destroy the United States as a sovereign nation-state, our progressives accelerated shift to socialism today adds a new program to stifle and dilute STEM education in the nation’s high schools.  This innovative federal pilot program is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, and “will promote Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) high school curriculums that are steeped in the context of social justice.” (more here)

NHS has granted $1,009,762 of taxpayer money to train the initial cohort of 24 teachers from Drexel University to mangle the math curriculum in the Philadelphia school system.  The stated goal for the new and improved STEM curricula is to “promote social justice teaching”.  Internationally, US students’ STEM performance already ranks in the dire straits region, but nowhere in this new initiative is the improvement in STEM performance included as a stated objective.

In the new socialist order, "the long-term and far-reaching benefits to society of this project are the potential to document and share sustainable approaches, steeped in the context of social-justice, for recruiting and preparing STEM majors to provide success in learning mathematics and science for all middle-grades students in a high-need school district."  So, our learned left-lurched educators at the federal level have concluded that the solution to our poor performance has been due to the lack of social justice emphasis in teaching STEM.  This will all be improved when “the (new) foundation of the math and science courses will be based on ‘understanding students' cultural communities as a foundation for classroom culture.’”  (H/T to reader for the heads up.)

Comments

[rl crabb]

At least Kavanaugh got a hearing. Merrick Garland didn't even make it that far. Such is the state of "got'cha" politics in our enlightened era.

[Russ]

RL, @12:58 And, this has what to do with STEM Education? What did I miss? An attempt to change the subject?

[scenes]

"And, this has what to do with STEM Education? "

lol. Absolutely nothing. READY! FIRE! AIM! No problem, it's a privilege of age.

re: Mathematics class...A short film from a while back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKcWu0tsiZM

[Gregory]

Yes, Garland didn't get a hearing and this delay is all about paying back for that. Hillary could have made her election campaign revolve around giving Garland the nomination after she won but no, she vowed to find an even more progressive nominee to fill Scalia's seat. Thanks be to Hillary C for not doing that, it might have thrown more in the middle towards her.

Back to science and math (the so called STEM backbone)... this is nothing new. Even at Drexel, which hosted The Math Forum for years until selling it off to the badly misnamed National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the mother ship for Common Core math. The NCTM kept it going for a year before killing it off.

"Success for all" requires getting rid of the bad old mathematics that only promised success for those who thought if they worked hard they'd get it. Mostly white guys and Asians of all genders.

[rl crabb]

I see the name "Kavanaugh" prominently displayed in the first sentence. Just a comment. Wasn't trying to change the subject. You guys are getting paranoid.

[Gregory]

It isn't paranoid to call Crabb on changing the subject.

[Russ]

If math is hard we should just ignore it, and it will go away!

Take two influential organizations, the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics (NCSM) and TODOS: Mathematics for ALL. They state that they “ratify social justice as a key priority in the access to, engagement with, and advancement in mathematics education for our country’s youth.”

They say, “a social justice stance interrogates and challenges the roles power, privilege, and oppression play in the current unjust system of mathematics education-and in society as a whole.”

Math itself must fade into the background to fit in all these rich educational concepts. But that’s fine. Because as math goes away, so will disparities in math education.

https://stream.org/sjws-coming-for-mathematics/

Hard to believe we are still in America!

[Bill Tozer]

Meanwhile, an idiot claiming he is the former Superintendent of Nevada County Schools penned an opinion in The Union that academic instruction of high school seniors beyond November is a waste of time. What a knucklehead, what a doofus.

https://thefederalist.com/2018/09/18/60-percent-college-students-need-remedial-classes-needs-change-now/

[George Rebane]

Aw shucks, I do wish Bob had opined just a smidgen on socially just mathematics. Oh well.

[Gregory]

Toes, McAteer also has endorsed LaMalfa's opponent, Ms. Denney, who has degrees not in Agriculture but in Agriculture Education, which is to Ag as Math Education is to mathematics. The #1 issue for Denney in AgEd is teaching sustainability.

It does appear that McAteer has gone progressive since he's retired from aspiring to an elected office. He hid it fairly well as schools chief here... he knew how to choose the words people wanted to hear.

[Don Bessee]

This looks like the product of social justice math -

So that’s industries worth a total in excess of £30 billion, neither of which would exist were it not for government regulation. There is no demand whatsoever for smart meters — the public is rightly suspicious of them and the take-up, despite copious government propaganda hailing their merits, has been risibly small. As for the renewable heat incentive — this was a madcap scheme, introduced by David Cameron’s feeble coalition government, where businesses were paid large sums of money to heat their boilers with wood instead of coal or gas. This money-for-old-rope scheme was widely abused, especially in Northern Ireland where it effectively bankrupted the government.

https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/09/19/uk-energy-regulator-caught-covering-up-green-scandals/

;-)