In 2015, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal invited me to discuss education reform and my book, This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education. I was still a classroom teacher then, imbued in the idea that teachers, particularly those doing STEM-related topics, should continuously seek professional development and stay curious about the math they didn’t know. Of course, I hadn’t taken into account that people would call into the show because a gentleman called in to proclaim the virtues of rudimentary math. In critiquing the Common Core State Standards, he said, “Can’t we just get back to basics?”

In my mind, I said “Hell no!” What I ended up saying was perhaps more eloquent.

Fast forward to now and it seems as if a coalition of back-to-basics folks and anti-intellectuals backed by billions of conservative monies have captured the narrative about how students should learn. For example, while I believe some advocates have great intentions in their advocacy for the science of reading, I also think the Venn diagram of people who support back-to-basics, want to ban TikTok, and vote for policies that exacerbate inequity make a sizeable intersection. While students, educators, and community members in our most under-resourced schools have advocated for strong emotional and academic supports, this coalition marches on, badgering public schools for suggesting we deserve a better society.

That’s part of my rationale for my work on understanding math and society.

Part of why I’ve taken on the assignment of writing this book (yes, while writing a dissertation and all my other hats) is because there’s a real need for this uncomfortable conversation. For decades, a set of advocates – of which I am one – have sought to secure the right to mathematics education, particularly for those whose education was a precarious endeavor. It bears repeating that, a little more than a century ago, policies didn’t mandate mathematics education in K-12 in the way we know now. People who’ve recently derided “woke math” seek to erode the urgency of progress so many communities seek.

Some people see math as a luxury, while others see it as a tool toward opportunity. Restricting access to any knowledge is a societal failure in that light.

Some might argue that the urgency to teach higher-order maths in K-12 has led to the general disillusionment with math as a topic for far too many. They have a point. Some of the push to overtest children and hold schools accountable came from this urgency as well. Where people came to agreement in many respects was that our society was failing students. Education reformers took that to mean that we should hold schools and teachers responsible for students’ test scores with ever-escalating sanctions and rewards, particularly with students deemed “the lowest third.”

To the credit of those who developed the Common Core State Standards, they saw how our curricula and standards weren’t meeting the moment. The impetus seemed to point out what other, higher-performing countries had done: have fewer, tightly-knit standards that constitute math knowledge with advisement from multiple education community members. Of course, some advocates used words like “state overreach” and other nonsense, but to this day, many of the renamed standards still look CCSS-lite.

But, regardless of where you sat on the CCSS discussion, it was no match for a coalition that rejects even the whiff of equality, much less equity. So, even after CCSS has failed in some policymakers’ eyes, the questions that CCSS tried to answer still linger.

Luckily for us, people kept doing the work. I’ve not only taught, but had the opportunity to visit multiple math classrooms. The idea of education as a civil right still holds true for a plethora of educators. It’s almost miraculous how, despite and because of the odds, math educators breathe life into their classrooms with students and communities in mind. Students with all their languages and manners of speech still get to tinker, struggle, and win beyond the problems handed to them, too. They’re still pulling in those wild math memes and shoving it in front of their teachers in hopes for the answer, while the teacher says, “I don’t know, what do you think?” The teachers carve out spaces within spaces that weren’t made for them and still share resources, laughs, and dreams about a world where math gets to all the children and children get all the math.

In the name of authentic citizenship. But, as many have said, that would take a whole restructuring of society and its disparate values. We’re not asking for us to abandon rudimentary schools. We’re saying schools can do bigger, more, better when costs and policies don’t limit our academic imagination.

The teachers whom our society has mandated to get licensures, degrees, and continual professional development have surpassed the occasion as a way of professional life. In so many instances, the only reason why we’re not seeing more of this energy as a society is the concept of “professionalism” itself i.e. the limitations we place on our collective expectations. Sadly, districts don’t pay nearly enough for their worth, nor should they be sacrificial lambs in the political bedlam, and they’re still doing their part. Our students can carry those lessons out the door and bring some back, too, often delimited to walls and bells.

Yes, 2+2 = 4, but any teacher who’s about this life will teach you so much more.

Jose, who misses blogging consistently, but promises this dissertation will be done …