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In a surprise to nearly no one, children’s reading and math scores have plummeted. National Assessment of Educational Progress, nicknamed “the nation’s report card,” results show the first-ever drop in math and the largest drop in reading in more than 30 years. Black children had an even bigger collapse in scores. Decades of educational progress undone. Poof. Horrific. Stupid. Unnecessary. We know the school closures did this. It wasn’t the COVID virus. It was the hyper-political reaction, from the left, on reopening schools during the pandemic. The orders came from the top. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued...

Nine-year-old students' reading and math scores have dropped dramatically over the last two years, according to a new report from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the Department of Education. In 2022 the average reading score for nine-year-old students declined 5 points from 2020, the largest drop since 1990. Average math scores for 2022 fell for the first time in the program's history, dropping 7 points from 2020. The NCES's nationally representative report specifically examined student achievement during COVID-19 lockdowns. The center is expected to release a broader report later this year as part of the...

The Kyoto Prefecture Research Center for Archaeological Properties has announced the discovery of a strip of wood from the eighth century with 35 individual multiplications written on it.The wood strip, unearthed at the Tsuruo archeological site in the city of Kyotango, Kyoto Prefecture, western Japan, is 219 millimeters long, 49 millimeters wide and 6 millimeters thick.As the site had a public office at the time, the research center believes that civil servants who worked there used the strip of wood to speed up tax collection work.The front of the strip shows the eight and nine times tables written in ink,...

Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) is planning to spend over $2 million on a new math curriculum that emphasizes “ethnic, racial, and cultural diversity.” First reported by the Washington Free Beacon, a Minneapolis school board meeting in mid-June included a presentation on the new K-5 math curriculum for the upcoming 2022-23 school year. According to two contracts with the Math Learning Center, Minneapolis Public Schools will spend up to $1.15 million on the “diverse” math curriculum for kindergartners through second-graders, and another $1.03 million on the curriculum for third through fifth-graders, totaling $2.18 million. The presentation stated that a “steering committee”...

A leftist organization called “The Queer Mathematics Teacher” is seeking to embed gender theory in K-12 math classes.Brandie Waid, the director of The Queer Mathematics Teacher, laid out a plan for incorporating gender theory into math classes in a blog post on the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) website. CASEL is sponsored by the Allstate Foundation.The Queer Mathematics Teacher is an educational consulting firm that seeks to promote “queer mathematics” in American K-12 classrooms. The firm sells a book titled “Talking about LGBTQ+ Identity,” which includes chapters titled “The Gender Unicorn,” “How Do I Talk About LGBTQ+...

The Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras, who lived 2,500 years ago, applied his genius to music as well throughout his brilliant career, creating the Pythagorean comma as part of music theory, and his brilliance is still recognized to this day. The Pythagorean Theorem remains one of the fundamental concepts in the realm of mathematics and is still taught in schools across the world. The influence of the Ancient Greek thinker, who was born on the island of Samos in the year 570 BC, remains strong today in many realms—but, unfortunately, so do the mysteries surrounding the great Greek philosopher. Pythagoras’...

If you know any students taking state exams this month, this blog, which is maintained by a NYC math teacher with two decades of experience, contains many, many previous exam questions, answers, and explanations of how to find these answers. It's mostly New York Algebra, Geometry, and Algebra 2/Trigonometry, but there are some Texas exams on the site.

In all of physical law, there’s arguably no principle more sacrosanct than the second law of thermodynamics — the notion that entropy, a measure of disorder, will always stay the same or increase. “If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations,” wrote the British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington in his 1928 book The Nature of the Physical World. “If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found...

A Chinese genius flexed his mathematical prowess by solving a problem that flummoxed a team of mathematicians with Ph.D.s for four months in a single night. Wei Dongyi, a 30-year-old assistant mathematics professor at Peking University in Beijing, came to the rescue after six mathematicians called him for help as they tried building a complex mathematics model. After using the equations he provided to alter their experiment, the team’s model obtained a passing rate of over 96%. The mathematicians wanted to pay the professor to show their gratitude, but he declined. "It’s unnecessary to pay me for such an easy...

The Florida Department of Education rejected 54 math textbooks from its curriculum on Friday, saying the books were an attempt to 'indoctrinate' students - with more than half of them banned for referencing Critical Race Theory (CRT). The agency tossed out 41 percent of the 132 math textbooks submitted for next year's curriculum because they were not 'aligned with Florida standards or included prohibited topics and unsolicited strategies,' the DOE said in a statement on Friday. 'Reasons for rejecting textbooks included references to Critical Race Theory (CRT), inclusions of Common Core, and the unsolicited addition of Social Emotional Learning (SEL)...

We previously discussed the view of University of Rhode Island and Director of Graduate Studies of History Erik Loomis that “Science, statistics, and technology are all inherently racist.” Others have agreed with that view, including denouncing math as racist or a “tool of whiteness.” Now, as part of its “decolonization” efforts, Durham University is calling on professors in the math department to ask themselves if they’re citing work from “mostly white or male” mathematicians. According to the Telegraph and The College Fix a guide instructs faculty that “decolonising the mathematical curriculum means considering the cultural origins of the mathematical concepts,...

After careful consideration, we have decided to reinstate our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles. Our research shows standardized tests help us better assess the academic preparedness of all applicants.

According to Howard, he was studying chemical engineering at New York's Pratt Institute when he had a disagreement with a professor over a complex mathematical problem: 1 x 1. We are not joking. Howard strongly believes that one times one equals two, and the media is lying to you about it equaling one. As he put it on a Rolling Stone profile on him: "How can it equal one?" he said. "If one times one equals one that means that two is of no value because one times itself has no effect. One times one equals two because the square...

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a troubling impact on the reading skills of school kids in the youngest grades. A series of new studies indicate that roughly one-third of the youngest school kids are behind on reading benchmarks, appreciably higher than before the pandemic. For kindergarten students nationwide, the percentage of students at highest risk for not learning to read rose 8 percent during the pandemic, from 29 percent in the middle of the 2019-20 school year to 37 percent in the middle of the 2021-22 school year, according to a study conducted by Amplify, a curriculum and assessment company....

"Kids reportedly have no difficulty with the train problem, but adults aren't faring so well. The puzzle was designed for the fresh eyes of 6 and 7 year olds, so maybe all of us grownups are just overcomplicating things! "Check out the problem below, and let us know if you were able to solve it!" There were some people on a train. 19 people get off the train at the first stop. 17 people get on the train. Now there are 63 people on the train. How many people were on the train to begin with?

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has deemed math proficiency tests for teachers “unconstitutional” due to “racial disparities.” The court ruled that because non-white teachers are less likely to pass the math test, it should no longer be required. As one social media commentator aptly pointed out, Ontario teachers no longer need to pass basic math in order to teach basic math. As bad as your first-impression take on this might be, it's actually even worse. Read closely: this math proficiency test isn't for the students, it's for THE TEACHERS. Your Ontario teacher no longer needs to pass basic math...

USA Today changed the headline after well-deserved mockery. USA Today published a convoluted, garbled mish-mash of “antiracist” Critical Race Training crazy disguised as a serious piece of “journalism” . . . . or maybe it’s an op-ed? Who can tell in these final days of leftwing propaganda disguised as “news”? NOTE: USA Today changed the headline after endless and well-deserved mockery to “Is Math Education Racist?”As is so often the case when leftist propagandists engage in what could be meaningful discourse, the team of four writers on this piece (FOUR!) start out asking the wrong question and, in the process,...

Hundreds of prominent professors — including top names from CUNY, NYU, and Columbia — have signed a letter blasting the erosion of math rigor in grades K to 12. Arguing that curtailing advanced math programs puts American kids at a global disadvantage, the coalition called the movement “the height of irresponsibility.” A total of 746 math teachers and professors across the country signed the new missive, warning that enfeebled math curriculums would have dire consequences down the line. The teachers — including two CUNY professors, nine from Columbia University, and 13 from NYU — argued that kids need exposure to...

As many students of color struggle with the subject, schools are altering instruction - sometimes amid intense debate.Students practice equations through singing, dancing and drawing. Activities are sculpted around their hobbies and interests: anime, gaming, Minecraft. Problem-solving is a team sport, rather than an individual sprint to the right answer.Ebri, a math teacher and tech specialist for Duval County Schools in Florida, is using new techniques designed to promote equity. If kids of color, girls and low-income students engage, they'll be more likely to pursue high-level math classes, the argument goes. That can open doors to competitive colleges and lucrative...

An open letter from more than 1,200 California academics and teachers is protesting the state’s proposed K-12 math curriculum, which the signatories state amounts to “an endless river of new pedagogical fads that effectively distort and displace actual math.”Signatories of Independent Institute’s “Open Letter to Replace the Proposed New California Math Curriculum Framework” include 900 academics, at 67 California colleges and in universities, who assert the state is “on the verge of politicizing K-12 math in a potentially disastrous way.” The letter sends a similar warning as another from hundreds of the nation’s top scientists and mathematicians that expresses “alarm”...