The 74 features Just Equations’ report, Calculated Barriers: Examining the History Behind Math Inequities Facing Black Students, highlighting the academic and professional consequences of excluding Black students from high-quality math education for generations.
The report traces the roots of math inequities, from tracking Black students into lower-level math courses during desegregation to disproportionate assignment of Black students to college remedial courses after the Higher Education Act of 1965, and documents how educational policies and practices have constrained Black students' access to quality math education.
“From understanding election systems and social determinants of health to making sure you have the digital skills to be marketable in today’s workforce, quality math education prepares you to fully engage in society,” Just Equations National Policy Director Andrea McChristian told The 74.
The article also includes perspectives from the Algebra Project’s Benjamin Moynihan and the Charles A. Dana Center’s Lya Snell, who reviewed the report. “Calculated Barriers shows us that our current crisis in mathematics education has been a choice that the nation has made. We need to make new choices. Let us have a national discussion in which we collectively determine how to make the right decisions this time,” Moynihan told The 74.
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