{"id":2225,"date":"2021-11-24T12:32:35","date_gmt":"2021-11-24T17:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nnpa.org\/education\/?p=2225"},"modified":"2023-05-27T21:59:06","modified_gmt":"2023-05-28T01:59:06","slug":"equity-vs-being-woke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nnpa.org\/education\/2021\/11\/24\/equity-vs-being-woke\/","title":{"rendered":"Equity vs. being \u201cwoke\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

by CALMATTERS NEWWORK | The Sacramento Observer<\/span><\/p>\n

(CALMATTERS) \u2013 Goodbye, admissions tests to get into the University of California. Hello, social justice concepts in high school math classes.<\/p>\n

The leaders of the nation\u2019s premier public university system announced Thursday that UC\u00a0won\u2019t require any admissions tests<\/a>\u00a0for undergraduate applicants, a little more than a year after\u00a0it stopped requiring SAT and ACT scores<\/a>. UC nixed those exams amid criticism that they discriminated against low-income students of color and people with disabilities, and although the system considered requiring alternative tests, \u201cthere isn\u2019t right now a test or an assessment that we feel comfortable using in our admissions process,\u201d said Cecilia Estolano, chair of the UC Board of Regents.<\/p>\n

The move \u2014 which will likely have national ripple effects \u2014 presents both opportunities and challenges for the UC. After eliminating the SAT\/ACT requirement, UC this fall welcomed its most diverse class in history. But the loosened testing requirements also resulted in a massive influx of applications. A recent\u00a0report to the UC Regents<\/a>\u00a0suggested the system could use artificial intelligence to help with the increased workload \u2014 but warned that could result in its own \u201cadverse outcomes or unintended consequences,\u201d\u00a0CalMatters\u2019 Mikhail Zinshteyn reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, California\u2019s K-12 public education system is considering its own steps to achieve more equitable outcomes. In July, the state Board of Education is set to vote on a controversial proposal to\u00a0overhaul California\u2019s math framework<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 one that would push Algebra 1 back to ninth grade, de-emphasize calculus, apply social justice principles to math lessons, and replace the notion that some students are \u201cnaturally talented\u201d with the \u201crecognition that every student is on a growth pathway.\u201d Some critics have denounced this as \u201cwoke math.\u201d<\/p>\n

As CalMatters\u2019 Joe Hong reports<\/a>, the framework is just a set of suggestions \u2014 school districts can follow as much or as little of it as they choose. Yet it\u2019s set off a firestorm among teachers, parents and advocates as they wrangle over how to improve education in a state that ranks in the nation\u2019s bottom quartile for eighth-grade math scores.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way you get social justice in mathematics is to teach the kids math. It\u2019s not by dressing up mathematics in social justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tom Loveless, a retired Brookings Institution math education expert<\/a><\/strong><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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