According to the movement's web site, "Radical Math Teachers was launched in April 2006 by Jonathan Osler who teaches Math and Community Organizing at El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice (www.elpuente.us), a public high school in Brooklyn, NY.
"Radical Math Teachers are educators who work to integrate issues of political, economic, and social justice into our math classes, and we seek to inspire and support other educators to do the same."
Fox News reported:
DAVID MILLER, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: ...Sample lessons posted on a Radical Math Website for teachers suggests the following assignments: Calculating the average number of casualties in Iraq, computing baseball stats to determine if all star voting is tainted by racism, and exploring how much tax money is spent on government agencies, including 30 percent for the military. Seattle high school teacher Larry Steele says "Radical Math" is an effective way to teach kids not only arithmetic but also how to make important decisions in their lives.
LARRY STEELE, HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER: We look at both sides. I mean, how do you feel about wearing shoes that were probably made by a person who makes a dollar a day? Do you feel OK about that?
MILLER: Critics of "Radical math" say the program unfairly imposes left-wing values on students.
SOL STERN, MANHATTAN INSTITUTE: A social justice agenda, meaning a conclusion that America is a racist country, America is an exploitative country, America is an imperialist country, and that our capitalist system is per se unjust.
I don't imagine you'd complain about Radical Math much if you were already sending your child to an Academy of Peace and Justice and enrolling her in Community Organizing classes. You probably think that mathematics is nothing more than a social construct meant to perpetuate the economic and social differences in our society.
But for the rest of us, if a group of Radical Math Teachers attempts to bring this far-left brand of integrated math to your school district, be prepared to loudly resist any attempts to steer math education any farther away from math than it already is. As the Radical Math Teachers already know, the way math is taught — or not taught — today will change the future of our country for years to come.
