Pittsburgh Public Schools voted to hire a consulting group to educate teachers on how to replace “white supremacy culture practices” in math with lessons that focus on “wellness of students of color,” according to a report from Fox News.
Reportedly, on October 25, the school board approved a measure to give Quetzal Education consulting $5,000 to educate teachers how to "identify, disrupt and replace" “racist” math practices (via Fox News):
Ebony Pugh, the Director of Public Relations and Media Content for Pittsburgh Public Schools, confirmed to Fox News Digital that the Board of Directors of the School District of Pittsburgh authorized its offices to enter a contract with Quetzal.
The move will provide the school with "additional foundational knowledge of antiracist math pedagogy and tangible learning experiences that can be implemented with students."
Quetzal will provide support through introductory workshops for math teachers and a leadership series for administrators.
The school board's agenda for the meeting confirms the purpose of the introductory workshops, which will confront "oppressive practices in math instruction with practices that center the wellness of students of color and to provide opportunities for math departments and math teachers to grow their antiracist math praxis collaboratively in pedagogy and instruction."
It was also confirmed that participants in the leadership workshop series will "engage in an ongoing workshop series in the topic of antiracist math leadership."
Since 2021, several school districts have pushed for so-called “anti-racist” math curriculum. According to a report from The Daily Signal, this year, a Missouri school district planned to hire certified teachers as “math interventionists” to “fight racism and gender bias” in math classes.
“A persistent myth within math education is that since ‘numbers are universal,’ math classrooms are objective and free of bias,” the Webster Groves School District’s Math Program Evaluation reportedly said. “Research shows clearly that any space where learning occurs is neither free of bias nor resistant to oppressive systems such as racism, sexism, classism or xenophobia.”
In 2021, the state of Oregon reportedly defended its “Pathways to Equitable Math Instruction” teacher training program.
"The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false, and teaching it is even much less so," a document for the "Equitable Math" toolkit reads. "Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity as well as fear of open conflict."
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