I understand what you're saying and appreciate it. However, politics is attached to every single thing in life. That's just the way it is. I don't often say anything political, but I just did this time, for whatever reason struck me at the time.
While not entirely appropriate in this discussion, I did find it (and all the other comments about these problems being too hard) an interesting reflection on the sad current state of the US.
These people are entitled to their opinion. Pushing back is likely to make them stronger. Better to focus on the positives like finding the right answer brings a sense of accomplishment and showing one's work teaches the process of deduction. Those are some useful skills to learn with math while white supremacy culture can be learned about in other settings. We don't force people to do math in English class, it doesn't seem right to learn about white supremacy in math class.
So that sounded rather incredible, so I did some fact checking.
The Oregon Department of Education's February 2021 newsletter had a six sentence blurb about "A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction". You can read it for yourself here [1], but I think its disingenuous to describe that as having "encouraged teachers to register for training". Oregon state's involvement appears to end there.
You can look at the actual toolkit here: [2]. The connections it makes between white supremacy and math education strike me as strenuous, but the suggestions for removing the purported white supremacy strike me as generally good suggestions for improving math education. The quote about math not being purely objective struck a chord with me, but I wasn't able to find it in the course materials, only in the reporting about it. The complete quote about there not always being right and wrong answers is:
"Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity as well as fear of open conflict. Some math problems may have more than one right answer and some may not have a solution at all, depending on the content and the context. And when the focus is only on getting the right answer, the complexity of the
mathematical concepts and reasoning may be underdeveloped, missing opportunities for deep learning."
which seems much more sensible that the cherry-picked excerpt. Continuing on this point, it says:
"Of course, most math problems have correct answers, but sometimes there can be more than one way to interpret a problem, especially word problems, leading to more than one possible right answer.
"And teaching math isn't just about solving specific problems. It's about helping students understand the deeper mathematical concepts so that they can apply them throughout their lives. Students can arrive at the right answer without grasping the bigger concept; or they can have an “aha” moment when they see why they got an answer wrong. Sometimes a wrong answer sheds more light than a right answer."
"The move comes after hundreds of former and current professionals working in science, math, and engineering fields, as well as educators and venture capitalists, signed an open letter denouncing the plan as one that will "de-mathematize math" and instead insert "environmental and social justice" teachings into curriculum."
Now, the other side makes it seem "reasonable"; however, I have seen this tactic many, many times. There's a hidden agenda. For sure. Some may say that this is paranoid thinking, but again, I've seen it too many times in my life.
